How Ideas Become Movements (or 1 Minute to the Tipping Point)

When passion, an idea, and the right context combine, the results can be astounding. Take a look at this video clip--start your viewing at 50 seconds and watch for the following minute--and you will see how one impassioned crazy can inspire many, many more. Isn't this emotionally contagious and collective response the goal of today's viral marketers? My compliments to Seth Godin and Alice Lankester.

START THE VIDEO AT 50 SECONDS, 

THEN WATCH FOR ONE MINUTE MORE.

So What is Product Marketing?

Most people seem to know what Marketing and Product Management do. And everyone knows what Sales does. So why is there so much confusion around the role of Product Marketing within technology companies? The main reason for this confusion is that Product Marketing (and Solution/Vertical Marketing) plays largely enabling roles to support other functions within organizations. Enabling roles are less apparent from the outside looking in.

Think of Product Marketing within technology companies in terms of providing an automobile to the market. The parts and vendors chosen, the manufacturing, the assembly, and the delivery and distribution of cars all happen with little or no input from Product Marketing. Everything else, including definition of the target market and features required, market position, category, and differentiation, pricing and options, feature descriptions, proof points, and characteristics in support of the company brand are primary functions of Product Marketing. Functionally speaking, technology Product Marketing provides:

• Product Management with a market strategy for delivering a product rather than a set of features, 
• Marketing with product positioning, relevant market themes and business value, and use cases and other content that make the company and product relevant to the market and fuels launches, programs, and to a lesser extent demand generation too, and
• Sales with product differentiation and unique selling propositions, claims, proof points, competitive analysis and "silver bullets," and sales tools that keep the customer engaged and moving through the sales funnel.

Below is a graphic that I put together to visually illustrate Product Marketing's role. I call this graphic a "big animal picture." If a big animal picture is successful, it should seem almost obvious at first glance. So if this seems very simple or even trite to some of you pros, please bear with me.

Products and Point Solutions. Product Marketing should price and package products to be readily consumed. Product marketing should also bundle products and components together into a broader offering to make that product more valuable so that (1) it not need to compete on features or price alone and so that (2) it does not need to prove itself each time a new competitor is introduced.

Pricing and Packaging. Product Marketing should add pricing and packaging in similar ways as product management adds features. They are two attributes that help define the product’s overall value. Product marketing should also use pricing and packaging to shape or create emerging market categories as well. Consider how pricing and packaging have differentiated enterprise software from enterprise SaaS—even if they offer the same ultimate value.

Market Position and Category. For me, creating position and category are the most strategic and aspects of Product Marketing. This is where Product Marketing maps the company’s product lines, capabilities, and market reach vis-a-vis the competition and market and technological trends and chooses the company’s market space and makes the company’s leadership claims, and provides the high level proof points for the company’s leadership position.

Brand Identity. Product Marketing provides the underlying validation for a company’s brand identity. Product Marketing must support the brand by validating that the product can deliver against the values implied by the brand (e.g., quality, enterprise grade, simple, or comprehensive).

Breakthrough Technology Markets are Made Not Found

Fresh out of business school and in my new job running and selling customer satisfaction, technology market research projects, I paid a sales call to Oracle. I visited a Sr. VP and was appalled at his arrogance. He had the gall to say that customer opinions did not matter--what mattered were the strength of the ideas and concepts behind the products and services. I was certain that the exec was daft and that Oracle would soon "hit the wall".

Having worked on the technology vendor side for many years now, I have largely changed my perspective to mirror that Oracle exec's viewpoint. Sure there are technology markets that are "found" by focusing on known targets and then by excavating those niches. But I can't come up with one, very big, world changing technology idea that was generated because Marketing people did research, identified a need, and then went forth to create a product or service. Nope, big markets are made NOT found. IBM's early computer, Netscape's browser, Yahoo's search business, and Apple's iPhone are examples of innovations that stood as much chance to fail as they did to become game-changing initiatives. More to the point, no amount of upfront market research could have predicted the product requirements and the outlines of the market opportunity. These innovations were driven by imaginative visionaries driven by inspiration rather than analysis.

Generally, great innovations are so unique that they cannot be "tested" against market expectations. The market must first be introduced to the product and educated about it before prospects can make intelligent comments on the attractiveness of the technology. Hence, market research and analysis play little or no role in the making of the biggest technology hits.

So, if markets are made, then what role does Marketing play with regard to innovation? That answer may be different depending on whether an innovation is meant for consumer or business audiences. And I'll plan to explore this topic in a future blog post.

Oh, and I have finally stopped holding my breath while waiting for Oracle to implode....