Ghosts of marketing past

When you build a great application, people expect more from the next. When you market an unfinished product or launch a tasteless marketing campaign, people remember you for it. When you tout features/ benefits that are not what the customer needs, they switch off to your product.

When you find yourself struggling to out-do yourself, change brand perception or change the way people think of your product… You’re struggling with the ghosts of marketing past.

Jason, at HP, talks about this in his blog post on HP’s ghosts from 8 years ago, in the blade industry (Server systems).

In 2001, HP created a very deep impression that “blades=space savings”. That impression stucked.

Jason also talks about how they’ve learned to focus on the customer not the product.

“Our mistake in 2001 was focusing on the product, not on the customer.  We wanted so badly to show what an engineering marvel it was that we didn’t spend enough time to understand how it could really help the customer.  (I like to think we are learning.)”

His advice from the experience:

1. Don’t launch half-baked.  If you think you will have a killer product in 6 months, wait 6 months.
2. Talk to as many customers as possible.  Do this well before you launch.
3. Test the message.  Then test it again.  (and I don’t mean with paid analysts, but with real people in the real world)

And I’ll add a fourth:

4. Make sure you engage the customer: Touting product benefits to the customer is good, asking the customer what they need most from your solution is better.