The core elements of marketing have never really changed.

By Mark Helfen

If you want a product to succeed in the market, you need to focus rigorously on segmentation, create a value proposition, and communicate with your market. Which means that you need to understand your customers.

Or so says Guy Smith, Principal at Silicon Strategies Marketing, a consultancy that helps companies that “reduce the risk of failure and maximize market penetration.” His focus is on “everything to the left of go-to-market,” and keeping his clients from making “classic, colossal mistakes” – not understanding the value of their product to potential customers.

Smith will be speaking at the November 12 SVForum Marketing SIG with a talk titled Start-up CEO’s Marketing Myopia – How to lead marketing without being a guru.

He is the author of the Start-up CEO's Marketing Manual, and will have a few copies with him that he will give away for the best questions asked.

A lot of product developers believe in the “better mousetrap theory,” the idea that a cool piece of technology will sell itself and be used by “everybody.” Smith doesn’t buy into this, and instead preaches the “rigors of segmentation" – clearly identifying your customers, understanding their needs and interests, and how your product will make their life better. To do this, you need to talk to customers and go outside your perceptions.

(As an aside to this, your blogger recently heard a presentation from Daniel Russell who is the “Uber Tech Lead” for Google search. He explained that it’s impossible to find the kind of average or typical user that Google needs as test subjects for their newest developments here in the valley – they need to go to such exotic locales as Stockton or Modesto to find more “normal” people. )

“Most founders don’t understand most of the value of their product,” said Smith.

He has sat on both sides of VC pitch panels, and claims that many entrepreneurs are missing fully half of everything they need to start and have a chance of succeeding.

There are three key items to give your startup a chance – money, a realistic plan to reach your market, and time to execute your plan.

The plan starts with a value proposition – back to the marketing basics – and the evening will give some guidance into creating one. You don’t need to be a “marketing guru,” you need to understand what you know and don’t know about marketing discipline.

So given the current thinking how does social media help in this? It can certainly help with communications, but “there’s no magic,” nothing happens by itself.

So come by on November 12. You might win a book. And some guidance in how to start a process of market segmentation and developing a value proposition.

The core elements of marketing have never really changed.







Please sign up at our meetup site to help us get an accurate count for the eventing - thanks.

 

=============

Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen
=============



.

How to get your product elected…

By Mark Helfen


If you can fog a mirror, you can’t miss the election going on. Ads, news reports, speeches, and all the other campaign stuff form a deluge – much more so in so called “swing” states than here in California.

So what does that have to do with marketing and selling technology products?  Maybe quite a bit, according to the speaker at this month’s (October 8) SVForum MarketingSIG, Giovanni Rodriguez. His presentation is titled Social Technology and the Presidential Election: An Insider's Perspective.

Rodriguez is co-founder and CEO of SocialXDesign, a consultancy focused on “social business” and consumer engagement. Social business isn’t social media – meaning tools like Facebook or Twitter, but rather connection and engagement with customers, users, and citizens.

His background includes time as Chief Marketing Officer at Broadvision, a stint with Deloitte consulting, and founding his current company. SocialXDesign works with technology businesses, retail, and also government, including the current White House, where he works with the “Office of Public Engagement,” in getting Hispanic and Asian to be more closely engaged with the administration. Thus his well-informed position in seeing the similarities and connections between how political campaigns and marketing campaigns are alike.

Rodriguez said he will describe the strategies of both the Obama and Romney campaigns, and use them to explain what works well and what doesn’t work. The lessons that are learned can be applied to technology and other product marketing.

Both politics and marketing are most successful when you connect with people, usually in person. Finding people who will speak on your behalf – surrogates in his parlance – can multiply your marketing efforts. This is not fundamentally technological, though tools like Facebook can help the effort, and keep your network communicating. In his work with the White House, he formed groups that met in person, as a core of broader engagement.

Social media by itself “is not the stuff that wins.” An effective marketing program needs to invest in actual humans – in meeting potential customers, and in training employees on how to market your products.

“You need to invest in your people to carry your message.”

The fundamentals of marketing still matter, and the two presidential campaigns can serve as object lessons. Because of the high stakes, the large amount of money spent, and the pressure of limited time they can serve as crucibles, quickly and intensively testing different marketing ideas over a limited time to see what works.

So come by, and see how you can get your products elected.



=============


Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

=============