Here's two questions I always ask myself about marketing
documents:
- How much technical information must be included?
- How much hype is appropriate?
So how much technical information gets included in the
marketing brochures?
- too much and the buyers won't read the brochures
- too little and the buyers won't know how to get their
own engineers to confirm your claims (e.g. "oh, yeah,
that's fast")
You might be OK with accompanying but separate tech specs
sheets, and most of the measurements left off the marketing
document. But your mileage may vary. I always hate to use
that old cliche, "know your audience," but some knowledge of
where marketing literature is going would really help you
here.
And how much hype do you include?
- enough to conjure an image in buyers' eyes (and pictures
of boxes or computer screens have a limiting effect)
- not enough to evoke challenges from competitors (and
that's what "white papers" are for)
- not enough to allow your competitors to figure out
exactly how your product/system/service works and
duplicate it
Make sure to base the hype you use on recognized industry
jargon and desired characteristics. This requires you
(once again) to know your audience, and its qualifications:
how much jargon are they expected to know to read your
brochures?
Your customers will be asking themselves (and maybe you)
these questions:
- What are you selling? Remember that
vague language doesn't help you here. For instance,
- "technology" -- is this add-on software or what?
- "hardware" -- for which platform?
- "software" -- for which operating system?
- "consulting" -- to help customers do what?
- "performance" -- measured how?
- What are the numbers? Watch out for
use of the words "up to" here. A savvy customer will
realize that their application will probably never get
near that "up to" number.
- What will this do for me? A savvy
customer may be sitting amid cartons of old software
and equipment that didn't solve the problem. You have
to differentiate yourself from the people who supplied
all that stuff somehow.
- How much does it cost? Again, a savvy
customer will want to know the entire cost, including
per-month charges for "support" and fees for "upgrades"
or "contract adjustments."
Recognize that the speed with which computer-related
products and services change requires you either to
use some intentionally vague language to describe it,
or to re-write your marketing literature with every
upgrade. As in everything else, you have to find the
balance.
You may find your sales force actually hoping,
and possibly even expecting your use
of intentionally vague language in marketing literature
to lead customers to ask desirable questions. You may
be surprised to learn that technical customers can be
affected by hype ("Superior!" "World Class!" etc.) just
as the average buyer of consumer products. (This isn't
always true, and may not be true most of the time. But
sometimes it will be.) Hyperbole is kept in check in
the trade magazines, because of the humilation you'd
have to endure if your hyped product is found to have
problems.
Sales is also an interactive process, with the sales
force responsible for driving the message home. They
might just say "whatever works."
When products come in series, each series having more than
one model, it may be useful to write specs based on the
series rather than the model. Less paper. Likewise, when
a product line contains more than one series, the marketing
brochure may concentrate on the product line instead of the
series -- particularly if all series in the line share most
features in common. Let the specs help readers tell 'em
apart.
What You Can Do
- Talk to the sales force.
Find out from them what the customers like to
hear. That varies from market to market. The
sales force stands between you and the need to
make your own cold calls to get that information.
- Follow what your competitors are doing,
not just technically but with marketing strategy.
Use the trade magazines and the competition Web
sites for assistance.
- Recognize that you have a valuable contribution to
make in identifying new or expanding
markets. The engineers are, after all,
expected to know the products best, if not the
customers.
|