Now, Market It - what does this mean? As a high tech marketing person, I am always interested in how high tech companies utilize marketing. Though much has been written about marketing in high tech companies, I have found the spectrum of views on high tech marketing remarkably vast. In some companies marketing is core to its strategy - and in others it is the organization that manages the website and trade shows.
In high tech industries there is so much focus on the technology that I don't think marketing is always an integral part of the strategic planning process. Often marketing is thought about when it is time to bring a solution to market. The technology has been transformed into a product or service - "Now, Market It".
As with so many things in high tech businesses, marketing has unique challenges. Marketing is both a science and an art - it requires an understanding of the analytical and the creative. It is complicated by the fact that different marketing strategies are required based on a variety of factors including where the technology is in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle. Marketing is dynamic and multi-dimensional. It requires continual adaptation and an understanding that markets are both global and local.
Marketing is appropriately a key component to strategic planning and for supporting innovation in any high tech company.
Convergence technology has developed into a very dynamic industry that covers a wide variety of applications being pursued by both established players and start-ups. I am interested in generating an ongoing discussion about how marketing is practiced and how it differs from marketing theory.
How is marketing viewed at your company?
It has been my experience that marketing in a high tech arena is very different from that of marketing in a consumer products arena. The difference is often one of strategy vs. 'messaging.'
I have always said that engineers should come with subtitles. Technology often drives the product roadmap and the strategy that goes along with it. Marketing wants to have a strategy that pulls all the 5 Ps together. Marketing wants to translate the product's technical features into benefits and a value proposition that is delivered in common language that the layman would understand. Conversely, consumer products marketing includes everything from strategy to end of life! Marketers own the entire process.