The Marketing Ziggurat
Post on 13-May-2015
844 Views
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
Transcript
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 2
IntroductionThis talk is about a marketing communication metaphor,
the Percolating Ziggurat, its relationship with Crossing the Chasm models, and how it relates to the evolving
story of the marketing of a software product.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 3
Why new models
In recent years, there has been an evolution of both the market and the offering, that has deep impacts on software marketing.
Also the ideas concerning how to market have evolved, in parallel with marketing changing from a one-way to a two-way communication.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 4
Context
This model is meant for software product creators that are doing something that needs global reach.
Some of what I say does not hold for very small niches.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 6
Context
Basic problem of startups: time scarcity, limited resources.
You all know that you should fail fast.
Model can help define what to do, when.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 7
Context
What and when things should be done when creating product should be dictated by
a schedule based on acquiring different kinds of attention at different times.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 10
The model
People at a step are a set of potential customers who have a common set of needs or wants or potential to have new similar needs that reference each other when making a try / buy decision.
(Adapted from CtC).
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 12
Percolation
The force of indexing and social propagation. Today there is “gravity”, a intrinsic force of the Internet.
Social and SEO gravity induces percolation. Percolation is slow, and drop by drop.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 13
Communication changes
What and how you should communicate changes in function of the Ziggurat step at which you are.
Creating relationship with users is pursued with different means in function of which kinds of users you are talking with.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 14
Crossing the Chasm
Comparing CtC model with today’s situation can help understanding
the Percolating Ziggurat idea.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 17
Crossing the chasm – very short version
Innovators pursue new technology products aggressively.
Early adopters are not technologists but buy products very early in the product lifecycle.
Early majority relate to technology but need practical hooks.
Late majority need to see other using it.
Laggards are hopeless
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 18
From Gaussian to Ziggurat
The ziggurat is the Gaussian of CtC turned by 90° and using different techniques (also no techniques) for easing percolation.
Crossing the Chasm is not a discrete process, because of the evolution of communication.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 19
Step 0: having something to show
Enough models: lets get into details and see more examples
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 20
Before approaching the first step people
Before trying to get the attention of the people of the first step, you must have something that may get attention.
What can get attention is not necessarily a finished, perfectly working, fully tested product. A home made video of a mockup in some cases may be enough.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 21
Before getting to the first step people
Most product ideas never pass step 0: they never get anything that can be presented.
Or better: that gets presented.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 22
Step 1: attempting to enter the ziggurat
Now we try to let the world know about our product / prototype.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 23
Entering the ziggurat
What is the top of the ziggurat composed of?
How do you enter the top of the ziggurat?
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 24
Entering the ziggurat
• Start a blog• A tweet channel• A page on Facebook• Tell your friends• Talk about it at a local event like this
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 25
Entering the ziggurat
DOES NOT WORK** Unless a miracle...
What you need is…
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 26
Entering the ziggurat
“That's the press, baby, the press. And there is nothing you can do about it.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgdE-qPv6kw
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 27
Entering the ziggurat
Seems obvious – for many its not so.
The press- its scary.
Win the fear and write.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 28
Entering the ziggurat
Fearful because it is (a second) reality check.Examples from my experience:Bugsvoice – Fail
Patapage -> Fail
Licorize -> Passed
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 29
And what IS the press?
A blog with 5000 loyal followers in a field connected to what you dealing with can be more effective than a little blurb on Wired.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 30
Build a marketing story for the press
Writing to the press is OK, but write about what?
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 31
Marketing stories
“Potential customers cannot buy what they cannot name”
Journalists cannot write about something that has no novelty: you’ve got to serve them the concepts, the story, the novelty. A new feature is not a novelty.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 32
Marketing stories
“Most people resist selling but enjoy buying”.
If you manage to define the buy situation, victory is in your hands.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 33
Create the story
You have to define an original context, inhabited not by your product, but by users. Once you created this story, here comes your product that saves all.
You can also put in the story an evil, cunning wolf – the competitor – that does not fit well in the story, in today’s (fictional) happy life of the users. Your product, instead, fits perfectly.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 34
Marketing stories
Example: With Licorize, we started telling the users (the press) again and again that their bookmarks are precious, that they have ideas that they should not lose.
There is Delicious, of course, but the context is lost, the app is old, it integrates nothing, needs have evolved…
And Licorize, in this story context, is your help, your savior.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 35
Marketing stories
Teamwork “Alternative to Microsoft Project” – we tell a completely different story about managing work.
Licorize “Beyond Delicious”
This somehow puts you on the same status level of the competitor you are referring to. Referring to a well-known competitor, which in your story looks old and grumpy validates you, which is what lower level users need.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 37
Didn’t work: Patapage
We were in love with the idea and the technology – but we had a wrong picture of the market i.e. of user needs. The idea was cool. Nobody needed it.We were so happy to introduce discontinuous innovation that we didn’t really ask whether anybody would be interested in it.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 38
Didn’t work: Bugsvoice
We were in love with the idea and the technology – but we had a wrong picture of the market i.e. of user needs. The idea was cool. Nobody needed it.
We were so happy to introduce discontinuous innovation that we didn’t really ask whether anybody would be interested in it.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 39
Did work: Licorize
First time that we started from imagining a need. Not a need of developers like us. Needs of web marketers bookmarking. Way, way simpler needs w.r.t. the convoluted product ideas we had before.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 40
Did work: Licorize
Result: 50 positive reviews (by meaningful sites) in 90 days, thousands of tweets. And they both keep coming.
Reviewers fell in love with the story – which we had written for them.Also a bit of luck helped – Delicious crisis.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 41
Second step: getting to early adopters
Having got some water at the first step, you have just started, not finished.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 42
False impression
After the first step, this is something I told at an internal meeting:
“One may get the false impression that we are done with Licorize. Technically, we probably almost are. But communication wise, we surely are not.”
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 43
Stuck at the first step
Being stuck at the first step is not great: lots of promises and few results.
“fame and famine”
How to figure your way into mainstream?
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 44
Stuck at the first step
My point is to focus on changing communication, not on sales.
Achieving a few forced sales to visionaries does not alter the basic problem of Crossing the Chasm percolating to the second step.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 46
Story for the second step
“Resistance from inertia can come from commitment to status quo, fear of risk, lack of a compelling reason to buy.”
Again the story idea can help you out of this. Maybe a new story.
With a story you can also define the contest of your competition. By telling a good story, its you establishing the context.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 47
Story for the second step
You have to distinguish:
• actions that increase (or create) conversion
• actions that keep you visible - though the two things are not completely separate
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 48
Down the ziggurat
How to appeal to non-technologists?
The story, amplified and enriched by the press, will help a lot, because a wide spectrum of people can understand it. A feature based approach here will not help, instead, and this is likely one of the causes of failure to cross.
The power of “word of mouth” has been greatly extended by “word of Twitter”.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 49
Down the ziggurat
Important way to get down and wider in the ziggurat is to make others integrate you.
Evernote, Balsamiq Mockups (actually he started by using only this “piggyback” technique), and in these days Instapaper, which already got mainstream by using this technique.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 50
Another line of change in time: user’s application’ life
Here too we must provide different kinds of interaction and support to our customers.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 51
Down the zigguratOnline services percolate very slowly. Amy Hoy
with http://letsfreckle.com/ Took two years to get 10.000 $ month. Given
that it is developed by 2, its ok.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 53
Use creativity to replace budgets
To maintain the percolation and diffusion is a continuous battle. That is why being a startup as a side project does not work.
You need full time dedication: new ideas, experiment and flexibility are the only thing that can beat budgets.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 54
Help gravity
First step:
- Create a press kit page on your site
- Give away licenses / Premium access (gave 1600 for Licorize)
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 55
Help gravity
• access to press can open other small doors, like having a product page on Wikipedia
• Show somehow that you are a market leader, or are becoming one:
“pragmatists care about the company they are buying from”
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 56
Help gravity
- Create documentation / videos / tutorials
- Supply several mapping models
- Provide localizations
- Run on “other” devices, browsers, machines.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 57
Help gravity
• “Used by Oracle” becomes more important (for some) than reviewed by Lifehacker.
• Going down the ziggurat, you need to give more certainties. That is why you should move from FAQ to user guide, from a flashy video giving the idea to one that shows it working in detail
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 59
Games, micro-payments
The “battle” technique can hardly be applied to games with micro-payments. Its all percolation there.
For games there is no fight to replace other applications, the figth is for who will get the next layering.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 60
Early adopters may be enough
Consider Minecraft: doing nothing for going down the ziggurat. Using gravity and word of mouth.
Transparency is highly appreciated.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 61
1,000 True Fans
“A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce.”
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.phpDepends on the industry.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 62
The Ziggurat Plan
Make a Ziggurat Plan (not a business plan) -> how am I going to pass this step.
A blog post with PPT will be online athttp://pietro.open-lab.com
Booklet of links: http://bit.ly/mziggu
top related