We’ve been fixing
After a nasty bit of hacking — plus over 5000 spam comments that made it past Akismet — I think we’re back in business. PLEASE tell me if you detect any further problems with this blog. There’s an email address at the Contact link; also, I’m CurtMonash on Twitter and Facebook alike.
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The core of strategy
This blog is based on two precepts that also guide my consulting:
- In enterprise software and similar businesses, messaging is the core of strategy.
- Messages must be robust enough to withstand deliberate competitive attack.
Let’s spell that out.
Messaging is the core of strategy
The enterprise software business, in simplest terms, is about the building, marketing and selling of software. Messaging is central to all of those activities! In particular:
- Selling boils down to two main processes, one of which is delivering sales messages. (The other, of course, is managing prospect relationships.)
- Marketing is mainly about developing and delivering messages. (Most of the rest is lead generation.)
- Development’s job is to make great sales and marketing messages be true.
If we add another level of complexity, the story changes only a little. Read more
| Categories: About this blog, Marketing communications, Marketing theory, Technology marketing | 4 Comments |
Enterprise IT marketing — a layered messaging model
Two things matter about marketing messages:
- Do people believe you?
- Do they care?
It’s easy to meet one or the other of those criteria. What’s tricky is satisfying both at once.
Many marketing consultants, me included, would phrase the core messaging challenge in terms such as:
What’s the most compelling claim you can make that people will actually find credible?
| Categories: About this blog, Analyst relations, Barack Obama, Layered messaging models, Marketing theory, Technology marketing | 13 Comments |
What all this political blogging has to do with the enterprise software industry
It may seem odd that I’m posting so much about politics rather than technology. Rest assured, however, that it makes sense to me. The connection between the two subjects is that enterprise technology marketing and political campaigning are a LOT alike. I have many reasons for feeling that way, but most of them boil down to this: In both enterprise technology and in politics, you can directly influence how your competitors are perceived.
Read more
| Categories: About this blog, Political marketing, Technology marketing | 3 Comments |
The look and feel of this blog will change rapidly
We’re having a major blog redesign soon, which will be reflected in this new one as well the others. In the mean time, we may use this one to experiment a bit.
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What I hope to do in this blog
I make my living in a number of ways, all related to technology or to the technology business. I write. I give speeches. And I consult, to technology vendors, users, and investors alike. What this all boils down to is two areas of expertise:
- I know a lot about technology, especially software used by large enterprises.
- I have a lot of insight about business strategy, especially the marketing and positioning of complex products.
I already write several blogs about technology, such as DBMS 2 (database and analytic technology, mainly), Text Technologies (text mining, search, and some general internet stuff), and the Monash Report (everything else). This, however, is going to be the primary blog in which I write about strategic marketing.
I will start by focusing on two specific subjects for marketing — software products and political candidates. That may seem like an odd juxtaposition, but they actually have a great deal in common. Never mind the new cliches about marketing being a “conversation” — in politics and enterprise technology alike, marketing is a debate. Read more
| Categories: About this blog | 2 Comments |