Archive for Uncategorized
How to freak out your PR team
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It's really not that hard to freak out your PR team. Just tell them you want to issue a series of press releases as a SEO tactic. If they are old-school PR folks relying on the 'tried and true' techniques from the agency they worked for 10 years ago they may bristle and proceed to lecture you on the 'proper' usage of a press release.
There are rules. You must have two customer quotes and an analyst quote. AND it absolutely, positively must be newsworthy. Afterall there are journalists sitting down right now staring at their fax machines waiting for newsworthy releases and if we send them junk, well we embarrass ourselves for generations to come. We can't have any of that. No sir.
Using press releases as an SEO tactic has been quite effective for a number of years because it works. We present this technique in our Effective Product Marketing seminar and occasionally there is a PR person in the class that comes close to having an aneurism. "I beg your pardon?" "You can't tell people in my company that!" Well we do because if we didn't we would look foolish.
If you are a PR professional and you aren't aware of the technique of using press releases as an SEO tactic you have been living in a bubble. I suggest you venture out and see how very different the world of PR is from ten years ago. It's an exciting new place.
Your most important promotional vehicle
Posted by: | CommentsFor B2B marketers your web site is your most important promotional vehicle. I know I'm overstating the obvious but I continue to be amazed at how little emphasis is placed on the one marketing asset than can drive the most qualified opportunities into the pipeline.
If we all know that our web sites are the most important promotional vehicle then why do so many web sites continue to suck so badly?
Avoids the buyer's problems
Does your web site drone on and on about the wonders of your product? Or do you genuinely attempt to connect your buyer's problems with how you solve them? One of my favorite examples is at 37 Signals. It's simple, crisp and clear. In a sea of CRM or CRM-lite products, 37 Signals have done a great job of simplifying their message.
Irrational organizational barriers
Does corporate marketing (or some other group) 'own' your web site and have they placed a process in place so onerous that you've given up? You don't print 10,000 copies of your web site every time you make a change. Corporate marketing shouldn't be a barrier, they should be cheerleaders. Content is king on the web and if there is any group that is preventing content from being added or updated, you should question their value.
Denial
Are there people in your company that still believe – in this day and age – they have buyers that don't use the web to seek out answers to their problems? This is utter nonsense. Most buyers want to learn about ways to solve their problems without having to talk with a salesperson first. Companies who believe otherwise are arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Dave gets a Mac
Posted by: | CommentsI’m playing right into Apple’s strategy of world domination and quite honestly I’m enjoying the journey. This past weekend I bought a Mac Mini for the family and I am impressed with its elegance and simplicity. For me it’s about not being the Nick Burns the Computer Guy of the Daniels family. I’m officially out of the tech support business.
I got there one slippery step at a time. First we got an iPod for my son. The next step was an iPod Touch. Next an iPhone for my wife which started with “why do I need one of these” to “did you know there was an app for that?”. Next an iPhone for me. Then an iPhone for my son. We have an Apple store where I live and we’ve only been there once for help. Once, and it was for a minor issue which was resolved in minutes.
Our kitchen PC was getting on in years and it was time to replace it. So I went to Best Buy and while looking at desktop replacements a sales associate suggested I take a look at a Mac Mini. It was an easy decision and I walked out with a Mac Mini, a Magic Mouse and the super cool Bluetooth wireless keyboard. Setup was a breeze and everything works.
ReadWriteWeb: Google Voice now available to military personnel
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ReadWriteWeb reports that
Google Voice is now available to military personnel and they will activate .mil email addresses in 24 hours.
As a former Army brat I can tell you this is awesome news for the families of the men and women overseas.
When my dad was gone for a year at a time the most efficient form of communication we had was writing letters and mailing recordings of our voices on audio tape.
ProductCamp Austin Summer 2009: Register today!
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I’m attending my first ProductCamp Austin on Saturday, August 15, 2009. I’m really looking forward to hanging around a lot of smart product managers and product marketing managers, taking in the sessions and contributing anyway I can.
You have a lot to offer so consider leading a roundtable or suggesting a presentation topic you can deliver. Look for me and introduce yourself. Tell me about your launch challenges.
From the ProductCamp Austin site…
Put simply: ProductCamp is a bunch of smart, passionate people coming together to discuss, debate, and collaborate on the issues they face every day. Everyone is welcome: in the first two ProductCamps, we had product managers, product marketers, marketing managers, developers, project managers, operations leads, lawyers, HR reps, directors and VP’s of marketing and product management, and consultants. Everyone brings different experiences and leveraging that collective knowledge is what makes ProductCamp special – and something you can’t get anywhere else.
Highlights
As of this post there are 300 registered!
| When | Saturday, August 15, 2009 @ 9:00am – 3:30pm |
| Where | University Teaching Center (UTC) @ The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business Paid parking is available at the Brazos Garage:  |
| Sessions | Click here to view the proposed sessions |
| Cost | FREE! |
| Register | Click here to register |
| Hotel | A negotiated rate of $99/night is available at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center which is a short walk to the UTC. Mention the ProductCamp rate to get the discount. The hotel has a free shuttle that operates within a 2 mile radius of the hotel. |
I’ve submitted a topic titled “10 Ways to Identify an Impending Product Launch Disaster”. Look for it on the session board when you arrive and give it one of your stickers (self serving plug). I’d also like to lead a roundtable discussion. What would you like to discuss?
3 tips for product launch marketing success (Part 1)
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A big product launch is coming soon. You’re the one tasked with developing the promotional marketing plan. You’re agonizing over an array of marketing tactics. Some you’ve come up with and some others in the company are recommending. Imagine a scenario where every time you approached the creation of a marketing plan for a launch, you had the confidence to know which tactics were most likely to attract the right kind of buyers. Attendees of the product launch class I teach often ask my opinion about marketing tactic ‘A’ or tactic ‘B’. While I don’t specifically address marketing tactics in the class, in this three-part series I’ll share with you 3 success tips that will help you choose the most effective product launch marketing tactics. Marketing programs fail when they don’t connect with the buyers they’re intended to influence. The reason they don’t connect is because not enough is known about the buyers in the first place. Without a solid understanding of your buyers, you will be guessing and in the process wasting valuable time and money. Engineering teams use a tool called a user persona to help guide them in the creation of a useful product. A user persona is a typical example of a user. For more complex products there may be multiple user personas to represent different kinds of users. User personas remove individual bias about who a user is and create a common vision of the user, resulting in better products. This model can be extended to buyers that are referred to as buyer personas. Just like user personas, buyer personas are archetypes – representative examples – of the people who would buy or influence the purchase of your product. Buyer personas represent typical buyers, not edge-cases or one-offs. They are the people you want your product launch marketing programs to connect with. Start by brainstorming with your colleagues to develop a list of potential buyer personas. Then shorten the list until it represents the typical set of buyers who would be involved in a buying decision. Remember we’re building a tool to help with product launch marketing, not an exhaustive list of every permutation of buyer that could be encountered. For each buyer persona create a profile that contains details about them – the companies they work in, the titles they might have, who they report to, what they do, the problems they encounter, where they go for information, etc. Start with what you know and identify what you don’t know. Over time make it a point to evolve each buyer persona as more is learned about them. Through the process of building buyer personas you will develop a deeper understanding of your buyers and what motivates them. As each buyer persona becomes more rich and complex, your ability to find them and connect with them will become more intuitive. The next article in the series expands on the practice of using buyer personas as a tool for marketing by aligning buyer personas with the steps in the buying process. By doing so you create a better understanding of howmarketing programs can influence buyers through their buying process. Are you using buyer personas now? How are they helping your marketing efforts? Read Part 2Why do product launch marketing programs fail?
Know your buyers
Build buyer personas
Next Step: Know how buyers buy
Happy square root day!
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For those of you who don’t know today is the square root of ‘09. 03/03/09
Yeah, I know it’s kind of bizarre but that’s the way I roll.
Launch – the beginning of selling
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I recently did a presentation at AIPMM’s PMEC West conference in San Diego and had the opportunity to speak with a lot of smart, energetic product managers and product marketing managers about product launch. It struck me that there’s a conventional wisdom that needs to be changed. Radically changed. It has to do with where product launch fits into the grand scheme of things.
It has to do with something I discovered a while back. Product launch IS NOT the end of the development process. It is the BEGINNING of the sales process. Noodle on that a little and then re-read what I just stated.
You probably have been in the situation where you scramble at the last minute to get ready to “launch”. To make matters worse you probably encountered a delay of some sort. It doesn’t really matter what it was. What’s important is that you discover late in the game there are material changes to the product that radically change the original assumptions you had about your product launch plan.
Now you have a serious delay. Marketing materials have to be revamped. In some cases a whole new approach is required. The sales team is up in arms because – yet again – the organization isn’t ready and they’ve already been given their quota. Of course it’s the marketing team’s fault again.
This is “end of the development process” thinking. Now change it to a “beginning of the sales process” thinking. Your goal in a product launch is generate momentum. What would you do differently?
The Dave and Mike show on the road at PMEC West
Posted by: | CommentsGood news to share. Both Dave and Mike will be speakers at the Product Management Educational Conference (PMEC) in San Diego. The event is April 1-3 and you can find more about the event here. The Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM) boasts the world’s largest largest membership and I expect the event will be crawling with super smart people from a wide range of industries willing to share their experience and ideas. If you have the opportunity you should attend.
For those who can’t attend, I’ll bring the camera and have our blog shined up and ready to go. We might even sneak in a few Tweets (@launchclinic).
