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.
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.
Next time... what is your message? is what you saying what you 'should' say?
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.
Next time... what is your message? is what you saying what you 'should' say?
No comments:
Post a Comment