Vice President Marketing and Product Management

RESUME: Vice President Marketing & Products

2010-07-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

I'm currently building a new marketing and product management team and launching several new software-as-a-service offerings. We are working an open government, cloud platform that delivers streaming video and social media tools for enterprise government agencies so they can engage citizens in new ways.

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Vice President of Marketing & Products

Wasting Time on Scroll Bars

2010-03-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

I just remembered a early moment in my career that, in retrospect, seems like such a ridiculous waste of time. It reminds me how things have evolved over time, things you take for granted today. It was in the 90's and we were converting some DOS software to Windows. We were obviously excited about the new visual features of the latest Windows release (remember those days), but many of today's standard controls were still in their infancy. I remember working with our lead programmer, Bruce Morgan (now works for Microsoft, responsible for the tabbed interface of Internet Explorer). I wanted to ensure that as you work with the scroll bar to scroll up and down (page up / page down) that the items in the scroll box on the left should always be perfectly aligned vertically. I actually remember being pretty adamant that the code should ensure the text of the items was always readable (i.e. you could never get the text in the box into a state where it was cut off). I think I used terms like "never chopped in half" or "eliminate the possibility for there to be only a few dots of the top of each word, looking like a trail of ants." Anyway, it took awhile and Bruce was obviously not very happy, but in the end, I actually think we got the code working. But, obviously, an innovation that seems utterly unimportant today. Man, I wish I had those hours back. We probably put out the only code ever for "perfect scrolling". Anyway, as a career Product Manager in technology, I look back at a lot of great decisions, and many I'd like another crack at, but this one just seemed funny.

Product Management Defined

2009-08-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

Market Research
Market Sizing & Growth Trends
Percentage Market Share Owned

Product Strategy
Trends & Envisioning the Future
Evolving the Value Proposition
Strategic Planning
Partner Ecosystems

Competitive Analysis
Qualitative Analysis & Quantitative Analysis
Strengths, Weaknesses & Opportunities

Customer Research
Focus Groups
Beta Programs
Customer Surveys

Design Specifications
User-Interface Designs
Design & Technical Specifications

Feature Requests
Collecting Product Requests
Customer Personas
Feature Request Use Cases

Product Roadmap
Collecting Product Ideas
Prioritizing Feature Lists
Communicating Product Plans

Product Development
Project Planning & Leadership
Project Management & Organization
Test Plans & Quality Control
Content Development

Product Marketing Defined

2009-08-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

Product Marketing
Unified Product Messaging
Unique Selling Propositions (USP)
Brand Personality & Tag Line
Audience Segmentation & 1-to-1 Messaging
Online/Offline Advertising Campaigns
Leadership, Evangelism & Communication
Marketing Event Calendar

Web Marketing
Website & Landing Pages
SEO / SEM & Link-Building
E-Mail Campaigns
Affiliate Programs
Product Videos

Web Marketing 2.0
Viral Campaigns & Blogs
Community & Social Networking

Sales Support
Pricing & Licensing Models
Sales Deck, Brochure, White Papers & Datasheets
Sales Trainings & CRM Support
Demand Generation (LeadGen)
Lead Tracking & Measurement
Reseller, Verticals & Channel Support
Product Demos

Public Relations
PR, Releases & Tours
Analyst Briefings
Reviews & Awards
Thought Leadership

Customer Success Program
Case Studies, Testimonials & Referrals
Customer Loyalty Programs

Cracking the Code to SEO: A Marketing Managers Guide to Successful Organic Search

2009-03-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

Getting your web site to show up on the first page of a Google, MSN, and Yahoo! search for the right keywords in your industry is critical in today’s search driven world. If you are currently showing up past page three or four, you’re pretty much invisible to the 200+ million people and businesses searching online.

So, if you somehow found your way here, you’ve may have already visited hundreds of websites, read dozens of articles, downloaded every SEO white paper you can find, and may have even used a few 30-day trials of SEO tools – all of which had claimed to get you top billing, but never delivered any measureable results.

Just to put things into perspective, it is very difficult to find good advice on SEO online. Bear in mind that searching the search engines for advice on how to improve your search strategy can be a ridiculous exercise. Usually, the top listings result in advertisements for professional SEO experts and service providers in the business who are happy to give you just enough information to draw you into whatever product or service (or secret SEO trick) they would like to sell you, but never provide anything substantial, making it nearly impossible to get the information you need to succeed on your own.

Well, after grinding it out for months and running some successful tests on a few sites, I put together a short-list of core SEO principles, techniques, and helpful links that an SEO Marketing Manager probably needs to achieve successful organic search. I hope I’ve helped make your job a little easier and I hope others can find their way to this article (so feel free to link to this article). I think will save a few marketing professionals several months of time and research.

The first thing to understand about SEO is that earning and maintaining top search engine placement is an iterative process. Generally, you’ll identify the ideal keywords for your product or service, integrate them into your site, measure the results, and then start all over again as you gradually move up the rankings. To make things easier, I’ve separated this article into three separate sections which include identifying your keywords, developing your website, and measuring your results.

Part I: Identify Your SEO Keywords

Keyword Forensics
Before you do anything else, you’ll need to identify the keywords and phrases that will attract your target audience. Start by evaluating the sites of your competitors’ sites and use Google Adwords keyword tools (see Adwords). Your goal is to find the top 5-10 keywords in your space. These are the typical words your customers thinks of when trying to locate a product or service that solves the particular problem they have – so think generally.

NOTE: If you are in a crowded category and you are a smaller player (“Dentist”), seek keywords that are popular, but less obvious, of choose keywords that more specific (“Miami Dentist” or “Teeth Whitening Specialist”).

Keyword Density
Your competitor’s websites are a great place to study keyword density, which is the balance of keywords to non-keywords in your body copy. Review to top ten sites in the search results for your primary targeted keywords. Be prepared to do ongoing testing to find the best balance and arrangement of keywords to keyword-enriched text and determine the appropriate ratio of keywords to non-keywords. You’ll also want to choose keywords that are attainable with a reasonable search frequency.

Word Forms & Synonyms
Use the longer form and the plural form of a keyword whenever possible.The words surrounding any clickable link carry value so be sure both the clickable words and words in front and after the link are relevant. If you are looking for synonyms to your keywords, try typing a search into Google with a tilde “~” in front of your keyword (i.e. ~Dentist) and review the words in BOLD on the search results pages. This is a great way to find similar keywords.

Part II: Develop Your SEO Website

Keyword Placement
Once you’ve identified you top 5-10 keywords, you’ll need to develop content-rich pages that ensure your keywords will appear in all these key pages of the site. Additionally, the following pages are all opportunities to build keywords: About Us, Company, FAQ Section, Mission Statement, White Papers, Press Releases.

Domain Name & URL
For top results, pick a domain name that includes your top keywords “www.JohnsonDentist.com”. If you are an existing business, consider purchasing new domains for sub-sites or sub-brands you are looking to target for search. Name your folders and files with keywords and industry phrases rather than generic category names and code.

Title Tags
A title tag of 70-charaters or 6 to 8 words works best. Never repeat a keyword in your titles. Keep it short and relevant, make sure it starts with your most searched keyword “Dentist Miami Dr. Johnson”. Write a separate title for each page on the site.

META Description
For best results, use around 170 characters in your Description Tag. Keep it short and simple. Also,each page should have its own unique meta description. Target your best keywords close to the beginning and never repeat a keyword more than three times.

NOTE: Apparently the Keyword META Tag is rarely used by Google anymore.

Header Tags & Text
When using Header Tags, you need to designate your tags using H1, H2, or H3 and make sure these appear on several spots on the page. H1 tag should contain your primary keywords. Alternatively, you can use the /TITLE tag. Your Header tags also breaks up the content on the page and makes it easier for both readers and search engine to read (it provides clues about page structure & content). An ideal Body Text count is between 300 to 800 words – although other sources claim between 483 and 677 words, so this is probably a good variable to consistently test for optimal results.

Body Text
Avoid too many or irrelevant keywords and never repeat, or “stuff” your keywords. Add your main keyword to the first and last 25 words on your page.

Links
The Link Text, Link Title and Hyperlink URL all contribute to search engine rankings. The more closely related all of the links you place on your site are to your business, the better.

ALT Tags and Comment Tags
Alt+Image Links and Comment Tags are a great way to include keywords that are closely related to your product or service.

Page Structure
When designing your site, make sure you maximize the content to code ratio. Use CSS to create a tableless design. Less code on the page creates a higher content to code ratio, so minimizing the code on the page is preferred. Externalize any scripts and arrange any remaining code on the higher portion of the page.

NOTE: Write W3C Compliant Code and use the tools located at http://validator.w3.org/ and other tools listed at the site to check for errors.

Minimize Splitting Traffic
For better results use Permanent 301 Redirect and rarely (if ever) use 302 Temp redirects. Using a 301 redirect avoids splitting site traffic. Even on http://www.domain.com and http://domain.com should use 301 redirects to avoid splitting site traffic and never use more than one URL for the home page. Avoid splitting traffic, such as www.domain.com and www.domain.com/index.htm.

Intra-Site Cross-Linking
Build upon your keywords by cross-linking them through your site. A good way to accomplish this is with a product tour where each page portrays a section of the product or service which is related to the keywords you are targeting.

Link Building
Links to your site are the #1 way search engines consider the popularity of your site, which will results in higher search rankings. So, deploy your PR department, bloggers, editors, reviewers, and seek out awards. These are all critical to SEO and will result in higher search results. Ask only highly relevant sites to link to your site, such as an industry trade publication or .channel partner. Make it easy for users to add your site to Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, Reddit.com, Deli.ci.ous.com and similar sites. Check out http://www.socialposter.com/ which can more easily connect you to the top 40 sites.

External Links and Link Farms
Add links on your site which link to articles and reviews at other sites (especially popular sites) which contain relevant material. Use your target keyword phrases as your link. This enhances your credibility with the search engines. Avoid link-farms such as guest books and other disreputable sites which have too many links as these sites may actually reduce your search results.

Site Navigation & Site Map
Use a site navigation map and a modified site map on the home page which provides a clear path through site (again, maximizing keywords). An XML sitemap should list all the known URL’s in a domain that are searchable. Add a Robots.txt file to the site and include this exact call to the sitemap in a file: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml. For better results, try niche vertical market sites and publish articles such as ezine articles and blogs (especially blogger.com).

Part III: Measure Your SEO Results

Measuring Link Density & Relevancy
Be sure to measure both the number of inbound links from other sites as well as the number of internal links on your site. There are a variety of tools available on the market to help you achieve better results. Avoid in-bound links from irrelevant sites at these may hurt your search efforts.

Search Engines and Spiders
Definitely submit your site directly to Google using Google’s WebMaster Tools. You’ll also want to submit your XML directly and monitor the spidering status of your site. Be sure you allow search engines to spider your entire site and capture all your pages and avoid hiding your content behind contact gathering or other user input forms. Learn and see first-hand how spiders and live editors crawl your site (there are several tools that can assist here.)

Review Your Site
Use Google WebMaster Tools – Diagnostics - Web Crawl to find and fix errors on the site. Use http://website.grader.com/ to evaluate your results and

a. Other tools include http://www.1-hit.com/all-in-one/tool.loading-time-checker.htm
b. And 25 general tools: http://www.virtualhosting.com/blog/2008/test-me-25-freebie-website-accessibility-checkers/

A/B Testing
Top-rated SEO rarely occurs by accident and it’s a continual process of testing your site, evaluating what key terms are being searched, monitoring your competition and fine-tuning your results.

Submit to Directories
Submitting to directories is a necessary component of successful SEO. You can start with Yahoo! ($299 per year), the Open Directory Project DMOZ.org, About.com, essential Google, 4-5 months and smaller, niche sites.

Additional Notes
a. Create a community of sites that link to each other
b. Request Reviews at Website from Customers (add to your site)
c. Amazon.com (include direct link to your products at Amazon)

My Value to an Organization

2009-02-25T23:48:00.001-08:00

I've put together a deck that outlines my experience and the value I bring to an organization. This Google Docs slide presentation may take a minute or so to load, so please be patient (new technology).

List of Top 10 Community Platform Solution Providers: Build Your Own Community!

2009-01-25T11:28:00.000-08:00

As with most of my fellow Web 2.0 marketing colleagues, I’ve been tracking the latest trends on how to interact with our customers through non-traditional channels such as communities and social networking.

As part of a consulting project for a leading technology company in the Bay Area, I have started a deep, detailed evaluation of the top ten service providers of community sites, both commercial and open-source solutions, in order to identify the best choice based on price, features, and time to deploy.

At the core, communities promise a new level of interactivity and collaboration and open the door to new ways to connect with your most passionate customers and enthusiasts. And, a community provides them with a new way to share their opinions and ideas as well as receive needed support. The excitement of communities probably comes from the promise to build brand loyalty, generate new demand, and drive customer-focused innovation faster:

Increase Brand Awareness: identify brand champions and share in viral efforts.
Build Brand Loyalty: increase loyalty through a more authentic connection with your customer.
Drive Innovation: hear the voice of your customers and enable voting on innovation.
Improve Customer Support: lower your support costs by getting the community involved.
Generate New Leads: build demand for your product and drive lead generation.
Promote New Products: upsell additional services or cross-sell additional, related products.
Increase Web Traffic: drive regular traffic through with an engaging online experience.

List of Top 10 Online Community-Building Platform Solutions:

Satmetrix Community
Enterprise-class SAAS solution designed for flexibility, scalability, and ease of use.

Ramius Community Zero
Enterprise-class social networking made simple.

Jive Software
Enterprise-class community software built to be extremely flexible, highly scalable, and easy to use.

HiveLive
LiveConnect Community Platform brings Web 2.0 tools into the next generation.

Communispace
Builds and facilitates private, highly engaged online customer communities.

Leverage Software
People-centric social networking and community solution for businesses.

YourMembership
Global provider of online member communities and web-based membership solutions.

Vovici
Online community software to build and manage online communities.

Boonex Dolphin
A universal, free, open-source software. Build any kind of online community.

Drupal
An open-source content management platform. Some assembly required.

As a final note, using your customers to crowd-source new ideas and group intelligence is an incredibly powerful and fast new way to drive innovation and make critical decisions about the direction of your product or service. But, be aware that this very same information (transparent) is fully available publicly for your competitors to view and learn from equally as fast as you. It's true you might also learn a little bit about your competition in a community, but almost certainly, your competition will learn more about you and this comes with some risk. And, let me know if you need any help.

Community Platform Solution Review: Leverage Software

2009-01-24T00:40:00.000-08:00

Leverage Software (San Francisco, CA) – With their Online Community Platform, Leverage Software claims to private-label their solution and more than 250 companies in the technology, media, consumer and services industries.

It’s a 100% on-demand solution so no infrastructure and development, but there’s obviously less control. But, they do offer open and extensible APIs so you can customize the community as well as integrate it into your existing site and there are RSS feeds and even a pretty cool widget toolkit which handles blogs and discussion groups.

By far, the coolest feature of Leverage Software’s solution is the PeopleMap – sort of like a community groups vs. google map mash-up. There’s a easy, visual way to show on a pie scatter gram and locate who’s “closest” to you based on interests, area of experience, and profile attributes you can define. I see tremendous application for this feature in the communities I've designed. There’s also a QuickConnect Card which helps build the community by embedding links into the users' emails.

In terms of pricing, you’re probably looking at a $10k setup fee and anywhere from $15k (1,000) to $150k (100,000) per year based on the number of active community members. It’s worth noting that Leverage offers CommunityConnect for Force.com AppExchange so you can build a community from your existing SalesForce customer database!

Marketing Interview Questions for Product Managers

2009-01-21T22:34:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I've interviewed dozens of product managers and marketing directors and I've fine-tuned the following list of interview questions to help me identify top talent. My goal has always been to conduct an interview that gives an opportunity for the best candidates to stand-out from the crowd. So, if you are a VP/Director Product and you are looking to build a team of great product managers, here is the list of interview questions you'll want to ask. And, if you're a Product Manager coming to one of my interviews, you can't say you didn't have an opportunity to be prepared.

NOTE: I removed the general questions I would normally ask a candidate to guage their knowledge of our products, company, and industry or assess their fit with our culture and determine salary requirements. There are plenty of resources available online for those questions? These interview questions are specific to marketing and product management roles:

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

How many years of direct product management experience do you possess?
Talk me through how you’ve successfully managed an entire product life-cycle from start to finish?
Give me a specific example of how you've innovated with a product or service that you've managed? What was the business result? How could you have improved results?
What is your single, greatest achievement? What significant, long-term impact was achieved? How could you have done better?
If you could manage any product, from any industry, from any time, which would you choose and why? What would you change?

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Give me an example of how you’ve defined and managed a development project to a successful conclusion?
Have you ever had a project go over schedule or budget? Describe an occasion where you didn't anticipate an obstacle you faced?
What is primary difference between Waterfall and Agile development philosophies?
In your opinion, which leads to a more successful project: creating an MRD/PRD or producing customer case studies and user-persona's?
Tell me about a time you've had to manage several important, often conflicting, priorities to achieve a goal. How did you stay organized?

BUSINESS STRATEGY

Tell me about a time when you’ve identified an opportunity or recommended tactical strategy to management?
What systems, tools, and procedures do you use to support your product management efforts?
Have you ever had to make a critical decision on the spot? What was the decision and result? How did you go about making the decision?
Describe your analytical approach in to solving a problem or answering a complex question?

PRODUCT MARKETING

Tell me about three products or brands you admire most, and why? What do you think is the key to their success?
Describe for me your favorite product’s key brand message, value proposition, target audience, and positioning statement?
What thought-process do you go through or strategies do you employ to set pricing? Have you ever set the wrong price?
Describe your background and experience in performing competitive analyses, customer surveys, and market research?
What tools have you used to educate sales, public relations, customer service, and technical support about your product's key features and benefits?

LEADERSHIP & TEAMWORK

What personal qualities do you possess that enable you to lead others? What personal characteristics have you found hurt your ability to lead?
Give me an example of a situation or decision you've had to make where you took an unpopular stand? What was the end-result?
Describe a significant problem you've encountered recently and how you dealt with it?
What is the most effective way you’ve found to gain the support of your co-workers, peers, and project team members?
Describe a conflict in workplace where your diplomacy skills were tested? How did you handle the situation?

An ISV’s Guide to Converting Software into an On-Demand Solution (SaaS) - Part I: Should You Re-invent Your Business Model?

2009-01-20T15:22:00.001-08:00

So, you're a traditional software company (ISV). You’ve spent the last five to ten years, year after year, version after version, building up your software as a desktop consumer or networked-business application. You just released version 15.3 which was newly designed for Vista, you’ve resolved the latest major field issues, and you finally have a stable product again. You’ve known for some time that your business is moving online as you witness first-hand, year-over-year declines in your sales, revenues, and profits as more and more competing web-based solutions become available. You’ve finally come to the foregone conclusion that any future long-term growth will need to come from offering a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution. So, here’s what you need to get started.

Throwing Rocks at Goliath? How to Beat a Bigger Brand!

2009-01-19T00:27:00.000-08:00

Recently, following a new release of one of our award-winning solutions, which has a solid reputation in the market, but would be accurately labeled as the “next leading brand”, our President & CEO asked me and my product marketing team how we can finally erode the market share of this 800-pound gorilla brand in our space and establish our solution as the number one leading brand – a common and reasonable request! We were up for the challenge!

We know, as veteran marketers, there's rarely ever any magic or luck in getting to the top (ok, maybe a little luck). So, we started working the science of marketing – and we worked hard. We re-evaluated all of our positions and opportunities, using a back-to-basics, proven marketing approach, the essential ingredients of success for every other leading brand. We evaluated our markets and competion, discussed strategy, and developed an action plan. We grinded out what would amount to a winning solution.

To get started, we created a framework which we used to guide our efforts toward successful results. I've listed a few key areas below which you can put to use to support your efforts the next time your feeling like the underdog up against a bigger competitor and you still want to win:

1) Innovate with Your Product: Nothing is more critical to success in toppling a leading brand than “customer-focused” product innovation. Using new technology to invent new ways of solving a problem that significantly helps your customers accomplish their task faster, makes their lives easier, or solves their problems more efficiently creates opportunity. And, if you can find a way to deliver your offering at a more affordable price, you'll accelerate your results. Fortunately, for us, our Agile development team, given the proper case studies, user personas, and a prioritized enhancement list, delivered on that effort! We felt we had the product and feature set we needed to beat the competition.

2) Segment Your Market: Segmentation is a critical component of any marketing effort. With regard to beating a bigger brand, we researched our markets to determine if there was a market segment we could attract a new message that we could use to tap to target a subset of the market. We sought a subset of the target audience that still represented a larger (>60%) portion of the market with a message that had not been emphasized by our competition and a message that mapped to a large portion of the target audience who would be "most likely" willing to purchase a solution in the space. We tried segmenting our market based on our customer needs and desires, by demographics, and other factors to help us identify a winning positioning statement that would give us with a better 1-to-1 marketing message, drive incremental sales, and win the market.

3) Position against the Competition: Positioning against the leading brand is tricky. An overly, negative approach against the market leader will backfire and just come across as a smear campaign. However, you do need to clearly define your position in the marketplace, identify your strengths, and point out your competitor’s short-comings. Obviously, if you have a single, key innovation and new value proposition, your job is easier. But, if your innovation involves a series of new features and functionality, then a information-based competitive chart that is balanced and unbiased, grounded in facts, and does not come across as pure “marketing spin”, can be a successful strategy.

4) Identify Your Brand: Can you really afford a brand? Building brand is extremely expensive. Most technology companies can’t afford to develop a brand, especially in this economic climate. And, for clarity, I mean real “branding”, a brand personality, an image or character that exists in the mind of the consumer which helps them visualize the unique and compelling benefit of a particular product or service. Yes, that’s different from a positioning statement, which is however, a good start to a great brand. It is possible, although more difficult, to beat a leading brand without building a brand of your own! In either case, you definitely want evaluate your existing brand, positioning statement, and personality to make any enhancements and solidify your messaging before going to market, in the event your brand does take off.

5) Tap Hot Market Trends: Tapping a hot market trend is an excellent strategy for gaining a significant amount market share in a relatively short period of time and may even be enough to help you overtake a particular market. The hotter the trend and the more closely you can align your value proposition, the better your results will be. We found early success with this approach with every major trend in the past ten years: linking our desktop software to leading websites at the advent of the Internet, building software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications early, integrating our products with handheld mobile devices, connecting with music and iPods, and more recently with a “going green” campaign.

6) Establish Key Partnerships: Establishing key alliances with related companies in your space is an invaluable way to expand your product offering and reach a broader audience. When seeking partnerships that will improve your position in the market against a leading brand, ensure the partner you select is also a leader of their respective area and the value proposition of their product/service closely aligns with your solution. A partnership that moves your messaging too far from the your original message is risky and may actually hurt your efforts, confuse your messaging, and deliver functionality your customers do not need (and thus, will not buy).

7) Set Aggressive Pricing: Here is the real challenge you face and probably the most critical decision you’ll make with regard to beating a bigger brand. If your objective is to beat the leading brand by offering a lower price in hopes of generating a higher level of overall sales by attracting more users to your solution, then you’ll want to set your pricing lower than the leading brand. However, if you want to be perceived as the market leader in terms of your innovation, product features, and overall market perception, then you’ll need to set your price higher than your competition. Of course, that carries the enormous risk of being killed in the marketplace, "dead on arrival" if you can’t deliver on your value promise and make the sale at a higher price, so you’ll need to choose pricing very carefully.

8) Grow Your Sales Channel: Often, you can win victories against the leading brand by establishing closer relationship with your resellers and distribution partners. Many leading brands come across as arrogant, treat their resellers poorly, and provide minimal marketing support. With the right incentives and promotions as part of a coordinated launch, you can often gain a short-term advantage. And, with broader distribution, if your solution can be found more often by your customers than your competition, your sales will inevitably be higher. Also, there may be new markets for your products through affiliate programs, value-added resellers, channel partners, and distributors who, with the proper motivation, can increase your visibility and broaden your market beyond your traditional markets – channels your competition has not yet exploited.

9) Build a Community: If you have an opportunity and can commit the ongoing resources, one of the fastest ways to increase brand awareness against a leading competitor is by introducing a community around your solution. A well-run community provides a place for your customers to share thoughts and ideas, interact with your company, create valuable relationship with other members, and gives you a great opportunity to build brand. However, unmanaged communities quickly take on a life of their own and there is risk. In some extreme cases, I’ve seen communities turn into a wasteland of unanswered technical support issues and flame message from customers looking to vent their frustrations following inadequate service.

10) Harness Marketing 2.0: When you are “launching” a new product or service, the old rules of a traditional product launch no longer apply. Rather than try to apply traditional outbound, controlled PR messages and assailing your customers with an advertising campaign they’ll likely ignore, you can gain a significant competitive edge against a market leader simply by developing and sharing great content. If you create an amazing piece of content – a podcast, a video, a blog, an email – and make it either extremely funny or especially informative, you’ll benefit from viral marketing and your ideas will spread across the Internet on their own. It is unlikely that the leading brand can either be that creative or move that quickly.

In summary, when going up against a bigger brand, you'll need to be more competitive with your product innovation, your positioning and branding, and even your business processes. It takes an understanding of modern, best-practices in marketing, the right skills, and the commitment to the process to be successful. And, most importantly, you'll need to launch your solution effectively the first time, as you may never get a second chance.

How to Write an Effective Slogan or Tag Line

2008-07-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

Here's the short list on how to measure the effectiveness of any marketing slogan or tag line:

1. Implies the main benefit of the product, solution, or brand for the potential user or buyer.
2. Implies a distinction between it and other products (legally).
3. Is short, traditionally, 5-7 words, although more recently 3-5.
4. Makes a simple, direct, concise, crisp, and apt statement.
5. Is often witty and adopts a distinct "personality" of its own.
6. Gives a credible impression (visual) of a branding message which is supported by the product.
7. Makes the consumer feel "good" as well as feel a desire or need.
8. Sounds good and is not easy to forget – sticks in mind.

Some of my recent favorites include:

Monster.com - Your Calling is Calling
HadtoSay.com - Because Biting Your Tongue Hurts
X-Files – The Truth is Out There

Finally, for a trip down memory lane, here's a list of classic tag lines I found at TagLineGuru.

Career Development Industry Expert Podcast

2008-06-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

Frequently, I'm asked to speak as an industry expert for the career development industry. Here's a radio interview I came across that was turned into an online podcast.

NOTE: This interview was from way back in 2002 and I really wish I had come across bit more exciting and engaging, especially given that I've dedicated the last 15 years of my life helping job seekers get ahead in their career.

Let's Talk Computers® is the longest running radio computer talk shows, distributing computer information since 1989. Produced in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, it is broadcast via radio throughout the midwest and around the world via the Internet.

Listen with Windows Media Player
Listen with Real Audio

Questions You Can Ask to Solicit Meaningful Testimonials and Case Studies

2008-06-01T15:34:00.000-07:00

One of the most important elements in your marketing efforts which will lead to higher customer conversion rates and increased sales (next to your branding, positioning statement, and unique selling messages) are customer testimonials. But how can you solicit customer testimonials and case studies that are meaningful?

First of all, for any reader to find a testimonial or case study meaningful, he or she must relate to a specific pain or problem the endorser had and understand how that problem was resolved using the solution you provide. Also, your testimonial must be attributed to the owner since blind testimonials are seldom effective, and may in fact work against you. Finally, the larger or more well-known the endorsement, a market-leader or well-known figure, the more effective your efforts will be.

Here are some questions I’ve recently used for our on-demand, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions which have led to very positive and meaningful testimonials and case studies from our customers:

What was life like before you implemented the solution? How were you accomplishing your objectives?
What were your goals for our solution? What problems were you trying to solve?
How is the solution being used today?
Tell me about the process you went through to select this solution for your organization?
How many people were involved? How important was price in your consideration?
What criteria did you follow in selecting a solution? Easy to use, range of features, reporting features, administrative controls or settings, integration with other programs.
What other products or services did you consider?
What was the primary reason you selected our solution over any others?
Has the solution measured up to your expectations?
Based on your own use, what is the most positive and valuable aspect of our solution?
What areas of our solution would you say can be most improved?
What have you heard from your customers or other users?
Are there any specific features or enhancements you wish the solution would have in a future version?
Are there any other challenges, problems, or issues you wish you could solve in this area?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you'll want to solicit a broad spectrum of reasons to buy your solution. If your testimonials all communicate the same exact message, you aren't reaching the widest range of customers with your unique selling messages.

So, as you move through your customer calls, you may need to “steer” each message in a different direction. If you start hearing the same message over and over, just get more creative with your questions. You may even need to ask a more leading question that focuses on some other benefit to your product or even area of your business which can also help you gain a competitive advantage (support, customer service, licensing model, partnerships, etc.).

Matt Hendrickson Biography

2008-05-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

Matt offers 18 years of marketing, technology, and product leadership experience to the software industry. As the Director of Product Marketing for Rearden Commerce, he led all product marketing, product, and web initiatives for ExpenseWire, the company's most strategic initiative. Prior to joining Rearden Commerce, Matt served as the VP Marketing & Product Management at Individual Software, where he built a marketing and product management group from the ground up. It was under his leadership, the company established leading brands, attained market leadership, and delivered on-demand solutions for business, government, and education markets. Matt's efforts produced hits like AnyTime Organizer and ResumeMaker Workforce Solutions and accounted for more than 40 percent of revenue. Matt holds a BS in Business Economics from University of California, Santa Barbara.

About Product Strategery

2008-05-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

Product Strategery is a blog about the best-practices, research, and latest marketing trends in technology marketing and product management. I created Product Strategery to share my passion, knowledge, and experience with my own team of product managers and marketing directors as well as with other marketing professionals in our industry and global community.

About the Author

2008-05-01T20:22:00.000-07:00

I just finished my 17th year as a marketing and product management professional in the technology industry. I spent the first twelve years of my career building award-winning desktop software for consumers and small businesses and the last eight years converting them into leading web portals and on-demand, SaaS platform solutions for business, government, and education markets.

At Rearden Commerce I lead all product marketing and web initiatives related to ExpenseWire (http://www.expensewire.com/), the most critical component of Rearden Commerce's platform vision to become the leading on-demand solution provider of business services to corporations, and work closely with both our product development and sales teams to maximize our go-to-market strategy.
I started in the software business at Individual Software as the company's first product manager and I built the marketing and product management group from the ground up. As the company's Vice-President Marketing & Product Management, I led a team of six including product managers, a marketing director, and a creative director.

I've innovated with products and solutions version-after-version and year-after-year. I'm a disruptive innovator who consistently indentifies new ways to broaden our value proposition, expand our markets, and take over leadership positions. I've had the opportunity to evangelize our products on numerous radio and television appearances, at conferences, and with major industry publications. I’ve directly managed over 50 development projects of all shapes and sizes, including traditional waterfall projects and more recently, user-focused, rapid agile development projects.

I earned a Business Economics degree from UC Santa Barbara and followed up with some business marketing courses at UC Berkeley toward an MBA. While the technology industry was still in an early stage, I co-founded the bay area product management association (BAPMA), which included some top PM talent from silicon valley companies such as Intuit, Broderbund, MySoftware, and Microsoft. Our group met once a quarter to share advice and collaborate on best PM practices which helped shape much of how product management is defined today.

When I'm not in the office, you’ll find me playing golf, volleyball, or training for Wildflower (the one triathlon I do each year). And, whenever I can carve out a few days away from work and home, I'll try to plan a snowboarding trip in the mountains or a surf trip somewhere nice and warm.

Darth Vader Turns Over a New Leaf

2008-04-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine, Adam Burg, recently joined Stage Two Consulting http://www.stagetwoconsulting.com/ which is where I came across this performance art by Daniel Bozhkov. Obvioiusly, I felt it hilarious enough to add to my blog.

Gustavo Dudamel

2008-04-08T22:55:00.001-07:00

Hats off to Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Saw him profiled on 60 Minutes a couple week's ago - guy's amazing - truly one of the hottest conductors around - so full of energy, excitement, and passion for music. He's taken music to a new level in Venezuela with his Youth Orchestra - his combination of humility, enthusiasm, and expression is electric. I'm looking forward to his taking over the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009. I will be one of the first to fly down there and see him in action live. See for yourself:

Gustavo Dudamel and The Simon Bolívar Youth Orchestra

Video Interview with Gustavo Dudamel

Also, noted a few similarities between conducting an orchestra and leading people at a company or on a project. Most of Dudamel's characteristics below, which come so naturally to him, make up the essence of what I feel is required of today/tomorrow's leaders.

1. Humility & Sensibility

2. Endless Positivity

3. Engaging Charisma

4. Knowledge of Subject Matter

5. Ability to Connect People

6. Knowing How to Lead Leaders

7. Passion & Creativity

Life Questionnaire

2008-04-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

While looking up conductor Gustavo Dudamel today [more coming on him], I came across a few questions to ponder, first popularized by Marcel Proust and more recently Bernard Pivot. I've consolidated most of the questions, slightly modified, into one list and published my thoughts below:

Most important character attributes I possess
Passion // Drive // Perseverance

Most important character attribute I'm working on
Consistency // Reliability

The quality that I like to see in a man
Honesty // Direct Communication

The most important quality in a woman
Understanding // Love // Sensitivity

Your friends' most important qualities
Loyalty // Trust

My greatest strength
Dedication // Leadership

My greatest weakness
Self // Ego

My favorite pastime
Sports // Activities with Friends & Family

My dream of happiness
A balanced life of career, family & adventure

What would be the biggest tragedy for me
Not having lived life to the fullest extent

What its your favorite occupation
Trying new things

The country where I would like to live
Already live there

Favorite author
Miguel de Cervantes

Favorite poet
Rudyard Kipling

Favorite literary hero
Howard Roark

Favorite literary heroin
Amélie (literary-ish)

Favorite composer
Beethoven // Scott Joplin // Franz Liszt // Depeche Mode

Favorite painter
Keith Haring // Gary Larson (painter-ish)

My heroes in real life
John Wayne // Ronald Regan // Joe Montana // Tiger Woods

Favorite name
Taylor // Ashley

What I hate the most
Dishonesty

Historical personalities I despise most
Adolf Hitler // Josef Stalin // Sadaam Hussein

Military deed that I admire most
Spartacus' gladiator rebellion

The reform that I admire most
Democracy

Natural talent that I would like to have
Natural ability to see only the best in others

How I would like to die
Fulfilled

Current spiritual orientation
Respectful of most religious beliefs

That smell that brings you back to childhood
Chocolate chip cookies

Your preferred aroma
Mountains // Forests // Campfires

My motto
People that take responsibility for their own happiness are usually happier people.

What inspires you creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
Success // Results of Efforts

What turns you off?
Closed-mindedness

What sound or noise do you love?
Ocean

What sound or noise do you hate?
Alarms of all kinds

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Athlete // Doctor // Politician

What profession you would not like to do?
Anything mundane or repetitive

If God exists, what would you like to hear him say to you after your death?
“Whatever you may have lacked in faith, you more than made up for with goodness, virtue, and kindness.”

Presidio 10k Wake-Up Training Call

2008-04-07T15:55:00.001-07:00

Ran the Presidio 10k last Sunday (April 6, 2008) - supports the Guardsmen and Ashlyn Dyer Foundation. Finished 176 out of 716 - sadly way over 50 minutes / way over 8 minute miles - yikes, a wake-up call I desperately need. The race was fun. The weather was actually perfect for running, not to hot, but not freezing either. We started at Crissy Field outside of Sports Basement, ran over the Golden Gate Bridge and then back. Some highlights, other than a beautiful run over the bridge, was bumping into a few people I hadn't seen in years, the amazing bloody marys after the race (where else can you get that), and breakfast burritos from Asquew Grill. Definately want to make this an annual event.

E-Mail Subject Line Words to Avoid to Improve Delivery Results

2008-03-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of words/concepts that has improved our results in e-mail campaigns. Even our deliverable rates with customers that had opted-in to receive our e-mails (white-listed us) have improved.

E-Mail Subject Line Words to Avoid

My Value to an Organization

2008-02-18T15:43:00.000-08:00