OS/2 Shareware BBS: 8 Other/08-Other.zip/week_1.zip/Intro.txt

Text File | 1996-01-01 | 8KB | 179 lines

#: 69315 S20/Marketing OS/2 Apps
    24-Dec-95  20:06:21
Sb: #Intro: CrossingTheChasm
Fm: Esther Schindler [EXEC] 72241,1417
To: All

In order to get started, let's take a look at the tenets of Crossing the
Chasm. "The chasm represents the gulf between two distinct marketplaces for
technology products -- the first, an early market dominated by early adopters
and insiders who are quick to appreciate the nature and benefits of the new
development, and the second a mainstream marketing representing 'the rest of
us,' people who want the benefits of new technology but who do not want to
'experience' it in all its gory details. The transition between these two
markets is anything but smooth."

So, Assignment One: I'd like you all to post a reply here explaining the
current status of your product and its marketing. Who's buying your product,
or at least responding to the marketing? Have you been directing it primarily
at early adopters? What thought have you given to addressing the mainstream
market, even if you're too new to market to them?

Please DO do this assignment; we can use it later as the "before" in a "before
and after" comparison of attitudes.

        "Fundamentally, marketing must refocus away from *selling product* and
toward

*creating relationship.* ... We must direct our attention toward creating and
maintaining an ongoing customer relationship so that as things change and stir
in our immediate field of activity, we can look up over the smoke and dust and
see an abiding partner, willing to cooperate and adjust with us as we take on
our day-to-day challenges. Marketing's first deliverable is that partnership."

Has this been true for you?

Assignment Two: How have you designed and implemented your marketing to create
relationships? What have you done right? What could you do better? (Examples,
please.)

--Esther

There is 1 Reply.


#: 69349 S20/Marketing OS/2 Apps
    25-Dec-95  14:41:30
Sb: #69315-Intro: CrossingTheChasm
Fm: GREGORY BOURASSA 76150,1166
To: Esther Schindler [EXEC] 72241,1417 (X)

Esther:

>>the current status of your product and its marketing. Who's buying your
product, or at least responding to the marketing? Have you been directing it
primarily at early adopters? <<

PMPro Prolog has been advertised such that it is easy to infer that the
company is small. (My name is in the address, and I am the primary contact for
now).  In this sense, it may be attracting early adopters, because they do not
need the vendor to be IBM or CA or Microsoft or Novell in order to feel
comfortable.  Many seem to be persons or organizations _interested_ in
exploiting both OS/2 and Prolog, but not fully up to speed on the Prolog part.


Question:  If our early adopters want to _learn_ more, should we put more
development effort into tutorial materials and examples than new features? Our
resources are finite and we cannot do _lots_ of both.

>>What thought have you given to addressing the mainstream market, even if
you're too new to market to them?<<

Problem:  What _is_ the mainstream market for this product?  How can we
convert non-programmers to the notion that there is a way of programming that
is intuitive, pleasant and productive enough to be useful and not dominate
their business life?  (Have any of you ever been sidetracked from a task by
your attempt to build a "little tiny database utility" to accelerate the
task?)

If the mainstream is not business non-programmers, then how do we make busy
programmers take out enough time to realize that this product will save them
more time and effort downstream than they invested to try it?

One thing this product is _not_, is a replacement for a big-gun Prolog
programmer's favourite compiled Prolog.  It is and will likely remain an
interpreter.  It is meant to give easy and powerful logic-based access to
OS/2.  It is somewhat like REXX in this respect.

What it does much better than REXX is provide the underpinnings for language
processing.  So my computer recognizes words, now! Big deal!  It still only
recognizes them as if they were mouse clicks.  How do I make it seem _smart_?
This is where you could try PMPro.

Maybe we need to migrate some of our language processing examples right into
product functionality that is easier to use.  I.e., the Prolog engine becomes
just the underpinning for the _real_ marketplace winner.

>>...Marketing's first deliverable is that partnership."  Has this been true
for you?<<

Yes, so far.  However, this is probably more due to the accident of a very
small enterprise and having to handle things personally.  In our consulting
group, this is the first product, and I am in charge of it.


>>Assignment Two: << >>How have you designed and implemented your marketing to
create relationships? What have you done right? What could you do better?
(Examples, please.)<<

Not on purpose, but it has turned out that way so far.  Right?  I think
putting a name (mine) on the contact person works well -- at least for early
adopters.  I think not being coy about being a small enterprise earns respect
too -- although it must scare off some potential customers too.

Do better?  I fear the targeted niche is too small.  We have to expand the
niche somehow -- perhaps by encouraging more attention from persons who "don't
know from Prolog"; perhaps by building a superstructure on the product so that
non-Prologers could use it for something right away, and learn the Prolog bit
by bit as the spirit moves them (or not, but still get value from the product
package).

Regards,

Greg Bourassa


#: 69848 S20/Marketing OS/2 Apps
    01-Jan-96  05:12:51
Sb: #69315-Intro: CrossingTheChasm
Fm: Les Bell 71210,104
To: Esther Schindler [EXEC] 72241,1417 (X)

Current Status:

My product is training, specifically courses on a range of OS/2-related
topics. Demand is mostly derived: that is, I don't do much marketing myself,
mainly for manpower/resources reasons. Instead, I teach IBM's courses for IBM,
and the courses I've written myself through other training companies or in a
few cases, to my own direct clients. Plus, it depends on people adopting OS/2.
Marketing is _not_ specifically targetted at early adopters, though.

Who's buying?

Corporate customers. The biggest single industry category is finance,
specifically banking and insurance, then come government departments,
telecommunications and the rest can't be segmented with any degree of
statistical significance - it's a very fragmented market.

Target market? Early adopters?

The typical price of training is $A400 per day, so I don't see many
individuals on these courses, with the exception of the occasional developer
or consultant.

Segmenting the market on the basis of adopter categories in this case is not
going to be terribly helpful - we already know most of the companies in the
market, and their staff get sent on courses because somebody else made a
decision to use OS/2

Assignment Two:

One thing I _did_ do was to create a little newsletter to be mailed to
clients, with some OS/2 hints, opinion and news. The point about customer
relationships is _so_ true; if your first sale to a customer costs you x
dollars, then second and subsequent sales cost only x/10. Brand loyalty is a
wonderful thing, and worth big bucks to established brands.

Don't forget that on the first sale to a customer, they might just be
evaluating a product or service. If they come back for more, you're really in
business. I put a lot of effort into customising a course for a client last
year; it was a pain at the time, but a few weeks ago they came back with a
confirmed order for over $50,000 worth of business during February and March.

However, I simply haven't had time to produce any more of those newsletters
(which I guess is sort of good - if I really needed to produce more, I'd have
the time<g>).

-- Les