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?
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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.