Microsoft Frontpage - decision, confusion or clarity?

After the last article on Adobe's Dreamweaver's page, I decided to look at similar pages. In the software world there are many similar products and product that are sold to similar market base. The one advantage software marketing has is the ease of gathering competitive and useful information. The obvious page authoring and design competitors are: Microsoft Frontpage, Nvu (open source), Netscape Composer. From there the list goes down to really small programs. But in this line up, there is an interesting twist. Microsoft FrontPage is not really a contender. First of all, the program is being discontinued. But not really, it is actually being "split" into two programs: Share Point Designer and Expression Web. But here lies the twist, the main FrontPage page has this "decide what you need" graphics. This is something rarely seen on the web. Although it does explain that this product is actually becoming two. For the professional web designer not using Share Point, this is probably a confusing explanation.

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Microsoft FrontPage splitting into two
So let's get back to our original point. Clarity, Focus and Relevance is a little fuzzy at this point. Clarity I tried to define as message divided into smaller sections, using standard terms, relevant to each other, focus on a single idea, amplify in later sections. But here, there is a full article, in small sections on how the FrontPage product is divided. Overall, this is an OK way to show what happened to a tool that 'migrates'. But you have to think and explore. Theoretically, the message is clear. But it could have been more clear if there were more explanations on each product, or differentiation between the two. For an old page designer, it seemed to me that "Expression" was the "orphaned" product. Sometimes things seem a little like they really are. For some reason, just like what happened with Photoshop about 10 years ago, Adobe has focused very strongly on the professional designer. I think here they won over Microsoft. If you want to know why, take a look at the description of each product. If you need more info, both products are downloadable for a trial period. Maybe here we can also do a comparison. But for me, the message from Adobe is a little more convincing.

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There is another point here that needs expanding. For fairness sake, the Microsoft FrontPage page is a little dated. It has been there probably since mid 2006. This was a little early for AJAX with the tabs, collapsible 'accordion' ads and sections and other nice GUI tricks. (These make a page look like a PC program, and this is the message behind the new updates to these new tools). But clarity is not a matter of layout or graphics. In the FrontPage article there is a "Find more information on the new Microsoft Web authoring tools" section with links to the new products, that should have been at the top somewhere. Maybe even accessible from the graphics. The section on "Which tool is for you?" should have more on features. It looks to me like the Share Point Designer, or actually the Share Point product manager won out over the Expression product manager. Or more likely, neither one thought enough about the implication of a little more information for each product.
--- Well, it's time to move on. Live, observe and learn. I would like to look at the other pages, Nvu and Netscape Composer. These are simpler 'free' tools, but still draw a crowd and useful in designing pages which are more hand coded than WYSIWYG designed. Looking at them has another purpose: what do you do with something free that does not have a marketing budget? Do you just put it "out there" - 'if we build it they will come' style? That has been the "open source" marketing argument for a long time. Let's see if it works? Where is it done well? What can be learned? and finally, how we do it when we need it (don't laugh, even companies with cash in the bank don't run to advertise too quickly.)

Clarity, Focus and Relevance for Product Manager (and Marketers)

When we develop a message, trying to make sure clarity, focus and relevance are there is not hard. Usually I start out by prioritizing the message components. Let's take the Adobe Dreamweaver's example, first we separate the whole message into 'chunks' or 'elements'.

Dreamweaver's page has sections for:

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• What's new: Develop Websites and applications; Reasons to Upgrade


• Product Overview: Whats Dreamweaver CS3?; Get the details


• Feature Tour: Spry framework for AJAX & details; Photoshop CS3 integration; Compatibility Check; CSS Advisor; CSS layouts; Manage CSS; Device Central CS3; Bridge CS3


• Product Selector: Design; Web; Photography; Video


• News: What's new in Dreamweaver CS3; What's new in Device Central CS3; Best Practices of CSS; Dreamweaver Developer Toolbox

Notice that the category (tab) divisions are fairly standard software terms. These are useful in the message of each tab's content. Using well understood and accepted terms is one trick of clarity in a message. 'What's New?' is a clear term and will not confuse most readers. Using tab sections also helps in focusing the message. When a writer wants to divide a message into sections, standard divisions, similarity in context and relevance help in making the message clear. Readers don't need to figure anything out, they know and understand the divisions, all they need to see in the content in each division.

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Once a reader is inside each 'tab' section, there are further sub-sections. This techniques of hierarchical division of text is standard in web content. In the "What's New?" section, we see: "Develop Websites and Applications" and "Reasons to Upgrade". Again these headings are simple and can also be considered industry standard. They are standard terms for software application communication, but not all users are completely familiar with them. But their simplicity helps in making the terms clear. The first section has one short paragraph explaining: '...components for building dynamic user interfaces, and intelligent integration...' with the terms of each feature clearly deliniated. In the next section we simply see a list of features. These are less clear without a full sentence, but are still clear because they highlight a few things. Notice also that each topic is by itself. This helps in not packing too many idead into one sentence, bullet or paragraph. When writing content for the web, people expect ideas in small increments of text. Since there is so much information, we don't want to have it slow... - this is clearly different than writing for a book or a printed brochure.

OK, let's recap a few points for clarity of a message:

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• Divide the message into sections.


• Use standard terms and concepts.


• Make the sections relevant to each other.


• Focus on one or two messages in each section.


• Give more information if needed further on, don't overstuff the sections.


• Use simple sturctures, paragraphs, lists, diagrams, images to quickly say something.

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Well, that's all for the Adobe Dreamweaver page for now. A good exercise will be to do the same analysis with other similar product. Dreamweaver is a product targeted at professional designers and web authors. Microsoft, Oracle, Intuit, Symantec, Borland and other companies have products which sell into this or similar space. It would be interesting to compare how each company gets their product message across. This could be in the case of an upgrade version (like this example) or in other situations.

Defining Calrity, Focus, Context, Relevance...

Last post I looked at Adobe's Dreamweaver page. I look at pages all the time, basically it's like a lab, tutor and critic all at once. The one nice thing about the web, information is always there, we just need to look and think. It also helps to learn from people who observe the we on a regular basis and maybe even these that actually make it a profession. Jakob Nielsen at wwww.useit.com has been an observer of web sites for a long time. He has focused on 'usability' which for most part turns out to be more concerned with style, architecture (navigation) and overall structure. The usability issue was a big problem when the web started. The new media format needed people to define how we use information in a new channel.
I found out over the last three years that for most people content is just as big of a problem. Message, focus, context, relevance, balance... the things we learn in college English classes. What makes a good novel, play or article in a newspaper is just as relevant to web authoring as it is on print. Actually, we all know that content which doesn't flow, keep our interest, informs, helps... does not make it to the eyes of anyone. The web has so much information, that poorly written and organize information, no matter how relevant, does not make it at all.
In writing about Adobe's Dreamweaver, I was wondering on how to review and 'rate' the content of sites. Actually, not only the content, but the 'feel', 'fit', 'flow' and the 'usability' but in terms of real useful and actionable information. So I set out to find a check list, guidelines or even a tutorial. I am still in the midst of gathering the information. But like learning to write English in college, I think that the whole idea of a simple check list is not a real solution. If writing a good article or a short story was so easy, life would be very easy for us marketers and product managers. We would sit down, write an entry every day and in two to three weeks have a small site to describe a product. Than we would spend a couple of weeks in marketing the information we developed and soon people would come, read and buy our products. As a good Hollywood western, and we would ride happily into the sunset.

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Bechtel Corporate Page: Simple message in a complex business
I think that each and every product manager and marketer need to figure out what she/he needs and go ahead and develop a plan and the content. Some of use do not write well, but we all need to plan, define and organize our ideas and goals toward the clarity and relevance of the message. But all this work is not very useful if you need an army of writers, editors and Nielsen caliber experts helping you design and deploy a site. Most of the writing and editing is done by small groups (up to 20) who need to get their products explained and used by a small number of users (hundreds). So anything like the US Health and Human Services: Researched-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines (292 pages in PDF) or Nielsen's Designing Web Usability and Homepage Usability: 50 Websites deconstructed plus a few other ones. Anyway, with all this talk, let's get to the core of the issue. How do we simply and quickly give "non-writers" / "non-editors" help in designing and implementing a clear message? I think the answers lies in the article about 'what is new media?' -- Like teaching every student to write English in college, so is the path to designing and writing a message that is clear and conveys what a product should do for a customer. A little different, but very much related in terms of process and results.

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Well, something to think about, if you are interested in this process or any of the ideas here, send a message. Hopefully I will have time to get started with guidelines, check lists and reference material for content clarity, focus, context and relevance. After all, what good is a nice site with all the latest technology, content management and graphics if the message does not make it to the reader? This is truly a question that has been asked before...
REQUEST: if anyone has a writing manual in PDF please let me know.
The Bechtel Corporate page is an nice introduction to a very large message. Notice that this $25B corporation can define and explain its core message on one page. It comes down to what you want to say.

What is your message?

Last post I wrote about 'clarity' of your message. Essentially, if your message is not clear to the 'audience' - the message is lost. To start in getting a clear message, it is crucial to decide what you want to say. Some companies want to emphasize a certain point. This is usually with companies with many products and solutions for different users. Even if you have one software product or service, usually it makes sense to highlight a few features or uses. Lets look at some software companies and their product. Adobe develops a few applications for content creation and management. One of their main web development product is Dreamweaver. The product does many things and can be used in many ways. Essentially its a toolbox for 'wysiwyg' designers (who do site design without content management). After you move down from the banner and a promotion for the new version, there are a few tabs: "what's new", "product overview", "feature tour", "product selector" and "news". It is obvious that this page screams "new version". Now, I don't think that Adobe marketing or the Dreamweaver product manager would turn down new-unfamiliar users. But they chose to go after people who essentially "know" the product. Not just people who know "about" the product. The message is that "we have CSS, XSLT and XHTML now!"

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Dreamweaver - October 2007
~ If a user is unfamiliar with web standards, this could be interpreted as a turn-off. But I don't think Adobe is worried about this problem. The few totally new potential customers for Dreamweaver would have to put up with a little discomfort. The new users are probably going to be confused about lots of things, so that would not be a problem.
Also notice that Adobe has kept the page simple and fairly clean. I am sure that there are opinions in the Adobe camp that would choose other messages. If there are changes in message from time to time, the page can change. For now it says, new product version, come get it.
If you have ideas on clarity of the message. If you want to tell the audience about product marketing in the software area, send me a message and I will post or write an article.

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Actually, the concept of making the main message simple and clear is something that can help marketing. The Internet has made us all "impatient readers". We tend to look at the screen and quickly search for the few words that will tell us "what is going on here?" This way, we know if to keep on reading, go further down, settle down for a 'slow read' ... lots of things can be done at this point. This gives marketers the opportunity to send a message in small capsules. It also gives the audience the chance to process one idea at a time. Sometimes you can put two messages in one place, but not much more. The good news is that the web allows us to change the priority of the messages very quickly. When Adobe Dreamweaver gets a little 'older' and this version is not such hot news. They can move to another 'message' and actually keep the ideas to the audience fresh. This is something that is hard to do with printed brochures and video DVDs. It is even hard with CD presentations that you used to hand out in trade shows a few years ago. Anyway, I will review a few more 'messages' from software products in the next few entries. I think this answers last entry's issue of "why doesn't marketing tell the customer what the product does?" (so the salesman will not have to travel twice to make the sale?) But than again, doing it on the web is a little easier and more elegant than a two page brochure (I think)

Clarity (message, intention, strategy, operation...)

The last article mentioned the difficulty of marketing a software product. This is a good example of one of the most important and useful marketing task. The task of clearly delivering a message. One of the tasks of marketing is formulating and delivering the "message". Sometimes this is not such an easy task. As Charles Zedlewski mentioned, he sees marketing as a wasted effort when a salesman has to travel twice to a customer, "simply tell him what the product does". He thinks that every message a customer sees should be clear and to the point. I guess, that means that the "first" message should tell the customer what the "product does". The formulation and prioritization of a message to a customer is certainly an important marketing role, but more important is the clarity of the message. Maybe in the case Zedlewski mentioned the strategy was to tell the customer that the product is "great". By that I mean, impress a customer on features, performance, technology, etc... In this case, marketing did not fail but maybe did not hone the message clearly enough. The fact that Zedlewski did not receive the message of "greatness" may mean that the message have to be clarified. That could mean simplification, strengthening, amplification or even redirection / change to the message. In any case, the first task of correcting a message "issue" is clarification. If the message is not clear, it almost does not make any difference "what" the message is.

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Clarification of a message is not a hard task. First of all, are you sure of your message? Sometimes a company or even a marketing department are not completely in agreement on what can be said. Second, make sure the message is simple and has one point. Too many times we try to give a message of too many things. My software is... "fast and cheap and good and slick and easy and..." Pretty soon you have to give people air to breath just to finish reading. If the lowest person in the customer chain can not understand clearly what you want to say, it will not be used effectively (it may not be used at all). I will go into message writing and simplification in later entries. To make sure there is clarity in the message, test it with internal people and trusted customers. If the marketing material is for sales people, ask them what they understand and can clearly explain the content. Try to test the material with less trusted customers. Sometimes a good sales person can be used in the field to carry the material to a few customers. Try not to filter "the good" customers "the bad" ones. Every point of view will give you feedback which may be useful. Be ready to change things, internally generated materials the first time out usually do not hit the right spot. Veteran marketers with experience will tell you stories about misunderstood messages. This goes for copy and images. It also goes for general strategy and overall aim. While we are in our own "internal world" - the rest of the world is somewhere else. Not necessarily in an opposite place, just different enough not to "get" what you want them to "get". In most cases, misunderstanding is just wasteful, you had a chance to say something, it was not delivered correctly. In other cases a badly delivered ad can actually hurt sales. One thing that I remember from old times is the famous McGraw-Hill advertisement of the "man in the chair". It actually does not say that "you didn't advertise at all" as much as "you didn't advertised correctly - with us". Which is the whole idea behind the business-to-business press.

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Next time... what is your message? is what you saying what you 'should' say?

Basics: if there is "new media" / wikis / blogs...

than, what can we learn from "old media"? Printed brochures, advertising, trade shows, collateral for sales support, the work of many, still going on in most places. What about the other fields of marketing, market research, branding, positioning...? Should we emulate or improve on formats, lingo, style, approach, 'content', core & periphery subjects? Or should we go into this with a new approach? Well, this question is a lead-in for how to start transitioning traditional marketing to the "new media". There is a trend in new technology to develop new techniques and organization, and ignore the past. But there are still the core ideas, knowledge and uses that are simply fundamental communication of ideas. These are relevant to the 'new media' of the web.
I started looking at what there is of "old School" marketing and see what can be done, what makes sense to do, and finally, what people are already doing in terms of examples, success and just simple attempts (who seem to fall short). If you have any ideas or examples, please send them to me and I will incorporate them into the writing.

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In an article about product marketing in the Yet Another Software Blog Blog, Charles Zedlewski writes on enterprise software product marketing. He writes on the lack of organization, or better put "agreement" of what product marketers need to do for sales. This is not a new concern. The line between sales and marketing is continuously tested and moved. The roles are changing, you can see the changes by titles, some organizations have 'sales and marketing' departments and VPS. Some have only 'marketing', some only 'sales' and some both. Well, this does not help us, but it shows that there is confusion.
The issues that Zedlewski brings up are not at all new or unique. Deciding what marketing and sales will do is only the first step. Then an organization as a whole or in part (i.e. marketing) have to decide on the message and how to deliver it. That includes at least branding, positioning and training / delivery. In a whole, technical organizations seem to have an additional problem. For the most part, they do not hire professional or trained marketing staff. Because of the nature of the products, the marketing is usually done by technical people who have chosen to move from engineering disciplines into the business side. This makes the marketing weaker in terms of the fundamentals. Also, the management is usually very technologically or product driven, which means that the marketing side suffers. Well, enough with the gripes, lets look at each of these issues in turn and see if we can find examples of good results and attempts.

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To hunt, analyze and review marketing work from the software is not an easy task. I will start with setting a set of criteria based on what information is available. Then I will look at a few vendors and see what we have in terms of material. Then we will start the analysis. Until next time... /AmiV