By Francis Moran
The chief technology officer of a company for which I occasionally do some work dug into his archives this past week and came up with a customer survey that was administered when this company was developing its first major product about 20 years ago. I regularly express concern that this company does an inadequate job of properly figuring out what its market really needs. As a result, it frequently falls into the trap of listening to a single prospect’s requirements and building products that ultimately prove to have a market of just one. So the CTO was pretty chuffed with his survey and was keen to show it to me and gain my affirmation that they had done the right thing.
Unfortunately, I had to burst his bubble.
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This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from February 2011. We welcome your feedback.
By Francis Moran
One day last week, I tweeted the message you see to the lower right because I was tickled by the email that came in. In my haste, however, I added a snappy hashtag and thereby made the same common mistake I often accuse marketers — even branding experts — of making.
The prospect who sent me that email remembered how I look. I will be the first to admit that a red — okay, rapidly greying — pony tail, full-but-tidy beard and what used to be a curly moustache do tend to set me apart from the average corporate consultant, even in the less-buttoned-down realm of marketing. Based on how I look, he was able to easily remember who I am.
He wasn’t, however, looking for a pony-tailed, bearded guy; he was, in fact, looking for a PR firm. And, because of whatever impression about my abilities as a PR guy that I had left with him during a past engagement, he immediately thought of me.
In that nutshell, then, you have the difference between branding and visual identity, something that, as I said at the opening, many marketers and not a few so-called branding experts often confuse.
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By Leo Valiquette
I recently worked on a client’s blog post that discussed how an IT project can easily stray far from its original problem statement as it moves through an RFP process and the creation of a statement of work to the point where it finally reaches the implementation stage. What seemed obvious at the outset sometimes gets lost in process and procedure and in the desire of any external vendor to protect its own interests.
Does this sound familiar?
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By Debra Kaye
Smartphones aren’t simply convenient communication devices – they have become an integral part of our lives and our culture. Putting this into context, a mobile phone today is in the possession of the average user for 5,840 hours per year. That compares to the 2,920 hours the same user sits in front of a PC and the 1,865 hours she spends watching television. That means news, current product information, sales, and specials have to become part of the digital news flow experience of the portable device. With that in mind, here are my four top reasons why your website should be mobile:
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By Hailley Griffis
Every Friday, we round up some of the best articles we’ve come across in the past week and share them with our readers. Front and centre this time around are Gigaom, Memeburn, Search Engine Journal and Spin Sucks.
4 tips for developing applications that end users will actually end up using
Jordan Novet dives into the world of applications and notes that although companies are realizing that complicated enterprise applications don’t cut it anymore, a lot of applications still end up getting deleted. He looks at how to give employees applications that hold real value.
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The Future of A&R – Walabe : [...] http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/top-10-questions-every-strategic-communicator-should-ask... [...]
Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]