By Guy Smith |
The touchy-feely side of logic So, we have different genotypes (buyers within an organization), and each had different expected outcomes for a product. Pretty complicated, eh? Well Bucky, it gets worse. Each genotype has a brain composed of two halves. The left half of their brain looks at your products and services in a linear fashion – what does it do, how does it do it, what is the cost? The right half of their brain deals with abstract and emotional issues – who am I, why am I important, is red the best color for my new Ferrari? The problem herein is that you must appeal to both halves of the brain inside of each customer skull. If you fail to do so, so cannot inspire a customer to action. It is like dating a beautiful woman or hansom man who cannot keep up their end of the conversation – you may like them, but mentally you have already crossed them off your list of marriage candidates. |
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Guy, this is getting complicated! Confused? Good. If this seems complicated and unwieldy then I have painted an accurate picture of the problems of market message development. For clarity sake, let’s recap these issues.
The bad news is that you have to work in order to classify and create messages for each genotype. The process can be challenging and requires the participation of a good team to distill everything you know or can learn about your market and the genotypes therein. The good news is that through this process you will also discover similar threads. Some of the motivators will be the same across market segments and genotypes. These common threads become the core of your primary market message, elevator pitch and tag line. There is madness to my messaging Some of you are likely shaking your heads, groaning with dismay about how complicated message development can be (and having conducted numerous group processes to facilitate core market message creation, I can attest that it is like leading a herd of cats through a maze of mice). But keep the benefits in mind because they are significant. When you sculpt your core market messages and educate your entire company on these messages, you achieve many wonderful things including:
Guy Smith heads Silicon Strategies Marketing, a marketing consultancy devoted to helping high-technology vendors dominate their markets. He has consulted with technology firms in such diverse fields as high-availability software, interactive television, wireless messaging middleware, pure e-commerce plays, and Collaborative Software Development suites. Smith focuses on guiding his clients through the rigors of developing precise market strategies and educating his clients on both the theory and tactical necessities of their strategic implementations. His marketing expertise is matched by more that 20 years as a technologist specializing in high-availability IT processing. |