Positioning and Segmentation: What Product Marketers Have Forgotten

I am spending a lot of time right now talking to high tech marketing and business executives. Everyone, justifiably, is focused on their sales numbers, even to the extent of relegating product marketing toward a field marketing role. There's no doubt that any activity in this economy that more closely aligns marketing and sales is a good thing, and the more competitive, product and business information that the sales team has, the better.

However, some very valuable product marketing fundamentals are being lost in the process, the sophisticated use of positioning and segmentation. When product marketing is focused on field marketing, positioning becomes messaging and value proposition. That's great for an individual deal or even types of prospects, but it's not sufficient to move markets and increase market share.

Small is Beautiful and the Scalable Brand

Sitting on my bookshelf is an old paperback copy of Small is Beautiful, by E.F. Schumacher, a vestige of a long ago economics class that certainly entertained many points of view (wasn't that why we were there?). The political economics of it aside, it left an impression on me as a budding marketer - that the additive effects of small, purposeful things done really well, and in an integrated and focused way, could in effect move a market. Isn't that what social media is all about when done well, and Twitter specifically?

Turbulence Ahead? It's Really an Opportunity

There's always been a misconception that in bad times marketing just doesn't add to the topline. It was always counterintuitive to me because when you look at the investment world, there's always someone making money in any market. You just need to be strategic, understand the opportunities and apply sound principles.  The same goes for marketing.

Long-time Kellogg marketing guru, Phillip Kotler, shares this philosophy in his new book, Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in the Age of Turbulence. I haven't read the book yet, but Kotler shares his view in a recent BusinessWeek interview. Skip down to Kotler's three maxims - 1) out marketing innovate your competitors, e.g. don't just do social media, tie the content to a "must have" business value proposition that has customers, and their product use, being the proof points in that dialogue; 2) build an extensible brand promise, i.e. throughout an entire industry not just a target market (note: I love how our director of enterprise sales at Bullhorn says that everyone knows who we are); 3) innovate continuously in your produts, services and supply chain, i.e. marketing without innovative products, services, channels etc...is nothing more than marketing communications.

The last point brings me around to my original analogy about the investment world. No investor makes big money by being defensive and tactical. The real money is made by identifying and executing on strategic opportunities that other investors don't see. It's the same deal when applying marketing strategically. There are always customers in a market who need your product if you understand how to unlock the business value for them, reach them in innovative ways and coalesce an entire industry around your momentum, which you, the marketer creates.

Turbulence ahead? Embrace it!