Browsing Tag

creativity

Marketing IS in the Middle: David Daniels

Before I met the next person in the series, I was facing some of the most challenging product management opportunities in my career – a new product, a legacy market and a bunch of customers who needed a little love and David put it into perspective quickly – “Jon sounds like you’re a project manager and not a product manager.”  David Daniels was right, I took his advice and put it to work in a practical way, like many organizations product management needed to be redefined under the management at the time.

David now works at Pragmatic Marketing, where I took my first course on how to improve the definition of a product manager with Steve Johnson.  I appreciate David taking his time out of his travels to participate in the Marketing IS in the Middle initiative here.

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?

  • Product Manager (enterprise software)
  • Product Marketing Manager (enterprise software)
  • VP Product Marketing (enterprise software)
  • VP Marketing (enterprise software)

When you look at your career in marketing, what discipline/component have you found most interesting/challenging?

Product marketing was one of the most interesting and challenging roles in my career.  It was the first time I was really forced to think about markets of buyers rather than users.  Prior to that my focus was on users of products for which I was a product manager.  In the role of product marketing manager my thinking shift from using criteria to buying criteria, and that shift was a significant one.

What do you feel the most important component of a successful marketing gig?  (Product, Brand, Positioning)

Hands down the most important component of a successful marketing gig is to be the experts on your buyers: who they are, the different types, their buying criteria and the buying process.  Everything else you do in marketing becomes a whole lot easier.

Since you selected something I wouldn’t have listed, how has this contributed to revenue?

Becoming the expert on buyers ties directly to revenue outcomes that are more easily discussed with Sales and the management team.  Talking to customers (those that have already bought) rarely give you insight into how to sell more stuff.

What experiences brought you to this conclusion?

People start out being buyers and become customers after they buy.  By focusing on who buys and why they buy it becomes much easier (sometimes trivial) to develop a position and message that resonates with the people who have budget to spend.  Focusing on features drags you down into the weeds and encourages discussion that is more appropriate after the purchase.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

A couple of things come to mind.  First, the head of Marketing should a peer of the head of Sales.  To make that work, the head of Marketing needs to be focused on markets of buyers and stop talking about promotional activities.  Second, the effectiveness of Marketing should never be measured on the number of leads generated.  It’s a useless and stupid measurement that doesn’t align with the real goal – revenue.  Third, Sales is not Marketing’s customer.  The sales team is an audience that Marketing needs to influence in order to achieve a revenue outcome.  Finally, put a firewall between Sales and Marketing.  Too many Sales organizations use Marketing in a sales support role, resulting in Marketing resources being spent in Sales not on important Marketing initiatives. I define “sales support” as helping one sales guy one deal.  If management understood the real cost of Sales resources they would be stunned. The old saying “everyone’s in Sales” is a load of crap.

How far is this from reality?

Light years.

Marketing IS in the Middle: Mukund Mohan

With a technologist, operations expert, a development leader and an MBA out of the way in the series, the next participant is Mukund Mohan.  Mukund is the CEO of BuzzGain proves and continues to look for the next big thing as an entrepreneur.  Many thanks to him for participating and providing his take on why marketing is in the middle.

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?

A bunch – Product Management, Product Marketing, VP Marketing and CMO.  Mostly in software (high technology) and now I’m working on my own thing, which is marketing+other stuff+fun+a bunch of work.

When you look at your career in marketing, what discipline/component have you found most interesting/challenging?

Actually interesting and challenging both require an answer: Most interesting: Market research and competitive analysis Most challenging: Lead generation and sales enablement for a large sales force

What do you feel the most important component of a successful marketing gig?  (Product, Brand, Positioning)

Great products make marketing easier than trying to market a so-so product.  Good products create loyal users and positive word of move.  If you have great positioning then a great product irresistible.

Since you selected Product, how have you see that contributed to revenue?

Great products appeal to the customer in a uniquely satisfying way, making marketing’s job to only create awareness.  Satisfied customer’s allow for faster product adoption and provides quicker time to revenue.

What experiences brought you to this conclusion?

At Mercury (HP) we had a product called Application Discovery and Mapping, which solved a very unique problem in automatically discovering components of your IT infrastructure in a quick, simple way, eliminating tedious manual processes.  Typically this was the writing and drawing maps of your infrastructure over and over again – not fun.

This was a breakthrough product in several ways – it appealed to the IT infrastructure owner because it worked, was quick and also solved a big pain point.  Marketing it was simply a matter of identifying the key infrastructure head and showing them a demo.  Real problems and real products mean easy marketing.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?
The right organization.  An engineering team that’s willing and happy to listen to customers and make rapid changes to product to facilitate adoption.  Sales team that’s providing custom pitches to prospects instead of cookie cutter product demonstrations. Marketing teams that are more agile and nimble to adopt new means of lead generation.

How far is this from reality?

Not very far for certain types of teams, but for the traditional corporations, this is more of a dream than a reality.

Marketing IS in the Middle: Chris Brogan

Marketers are EVERYWHERE and not all are formally trained, I for one am an accidental marketer so I thought it was important to reach out to other folks who aren’t formally trained.  So as I continue to look at marketing and my network, I thought it was important to engage not just traditional markets, but also folks that help drive the overall ecosystem.  Chris Brogan is just one of those folks.  I actually didn’t follow Chris at all until he responded to a corporate blog I participate on and piqued my interest.   I’ve had the opportunity to meet, read and appreciate Chris’ take on social media and the larger marketing opportunity with social media.    Make no bones about it – Chris is a marketer and his new venture as president of New Marketing Labs is proof.  Chris was cool enough to participation in the marketing is in the middle conversation and below is his view:

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?

None. I was a technologist for the last 18 years, but got into marketing by way of joining an events marketing company (Pulvermedia), and just haven’t left the circus since. Over the last 10 years, I’ve been blogging and using social media for improved business communications. Turns out that *became* marketing when I wasn’t looking.

When you look at your career in marketing, what discipline/component have you found most interesting/challenging?

Interesting: listening. I think that listening and customer service are the new marketing. Screw your stupid tag lines and contests. If I listen to prospective customers’ needs, and I can improve the way a customer works with my company, then I’m doing what marketing really wants to do: acquire new customers and keep the existing ones happy. Have fun with your contests.

What do you feel the most important component of a successful marketing gig?  (Product, Brand, Positioning)

Moving a behavioral needle. Did I get something to change and stay changed from when I started until when I left.

Since you selected something I NEVER would have thought of how has that contributed to revenue?

Building loyal passionate communities is a great way to contribute to revenue. It’s lovely to ask people who are passionate about how you make them feel for money. They like giving. Revenue is a return on influence.

What experiences brought you to this conclusion?

I’ve run some very successful conferences, and I’ve also run some online marketing experiences for people. In both cases, my best proof is revenue. I hate the ROI question, because there’s no easy calculator that shows you what I’m going to deliver. So instead, I show revenue bumps as fast as I can. Seems like a fair trade.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

Small, nimble, and focused on action, not beauty.

How far is this from reality?

Not far in my world. I’m working with some great companies, big ones, who love the idea that it’s as simple as listening, building relationships, and serving those relationships. I love developing quality content marketing for them, like group blogs or email marketing that delivers, instead of the same tired old marketing messages. I’m loving my ride, and looking forward to what comes next!

Common Thought, a brilliant day and giving back!

I clearly meant to write this earlier, but been busy trying to figure out what the status of the day is with Heuer. I still kinda don’t know what’s up, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t honor the good work Creative Commons is doing. So while it is Blog Action Day and the kick off of the fund raising campaign for CC, I’m going to focus Fabiana Zonca’s photo below which I found via a “Thought” tag on Flickr.

Thinking of you by Fabiana Zonca.

Thinking of you

Also you can create a video on WHY it is important/you like it, you could also put up a widget up like I have or just donate via the widget on the right to Creative Commons.