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Talking about supposed benefits instead of features is the worst marketing advice I've ever heard that's often repeated by everyone. It obviously doesn't work.

by hsn915 3y ago

Talking about supposed benefits instead of features is the worst marketing advice I've ever heard that's often repeated by everyone. It obviously doesn't work. Can you imagine a restaurant flyer that just says "Enjoy delicious meals! Have fun time!" It's absurd. You show pictures of the food. Tell people how you source your ingredients. How your chefs have perfected their craftsmanship. Etc etc.

wmf 3y ago
I'm pretty sure it does work for complex enterprise tech being sold to people who don't understand it.
- hsn915 3y ago
  Doesn't even work there. It only appears to work if you think that kind of advertising is how they got to their market position. Usually it's not. Let's Docker for an example. Docker did not get adoption because of some cliche marketing on their landing page. It got adoption from people doing tech talks and tech demonstrations and several companies writing blog posts about how migrating to Docker saved them from the headaches of deployment they were having before with the ad-hoc systems. Complex enterprise tech gets sold by other means, usually personal relationships with key decision makers, and maybe some amount of bribery, who knows.
  - lmeyerov 3y ago
    That's a funny one wrt enterprise Docker failed to sell its commercial products to enterprises relative to the OSS adoption of its container runtime, at least at the venture scales they committed themselves to Afaict what was being sold: * Artifactory (hub): plenty of companies doing fine.. for product different than what docker did * DC OS (swarm): managed k8s etc doing fine too.. but diff product again They seemed close to PMF for both... But never quite hit it? Selling to enterprises is hard.. I'm not sure what the lesson is here beyond git stars not being revenue, nor guaranteeing that it can turn into revenue. Successfully building one thing but selling another means you have to do 2 hard things not just 1. Maybe a good analogy: Bloomberg has great reporters whose content goes out for free... But that's not what sells the terminal and data feeds
- hobofan 3y ago
  It's not either benefits _or_ features that you need, it's both. Benefits to pique their interest and draw them in. Features to tick the checkboxes and get through procurement.
paulddraper 3y ago
You say that, but have you seen drink commercials?
- iFreilicht 3y ago
  But drinks barely have any features you can market. If they do, they're front and center (less sugar or calories, more vitamins or minerals, sparkling or non sparkling) Same for cigarettes and other similar products. Some people may prefer the flavor of one product over the other, but at the end, it's purely about lifestyle and the feeling of a brand, and that is shaped by marketing.
- hsn915 3y ago
  So if I create a brand around a drink I can just run a few commercials on TV to associate my brand with something people want (like I don't know, being percieved as sexy by the opposite sex) then I will have a successful business? 100% anyone who tries this will fail
lelanthran 3y ago
I dunno if restaurants are a good example. People go to restaurants for the dining experience. If they simply wanted good food they'd eat at home that night. If they simply don't want to cook they'd get fast food. Declining both those options means that they want something more than food which is provided by the restaurant.

by hsn915 3y ago

wmf 3y ago

I'm pretty sure it does work for complex enterprise tech being sold to people who don't understand it.

hsn915 3y ago
Doesn't even work there. It only appears to work if you think that kind of advertising is how they got to their market position. Usually it's not. Let's Docker for an example. Docker did not get adoption because of some cliche marketing on their landing page. It got adoption from people doing tech talks and tech demonstrations and several companies writing blog posts about how migrating to Docker saved them from the headaches of deployment they were having before with the ad-hoc systems. Complex enterprise tech gets sold by other means, usually personal relationships with key decision makers, and maybe some amount of bribery, who knows.
- lmeyerov 3y ago
  That's a funny one wrt enterprise Docker failed to sell its commercial products to enterprises relative to the OSS adoption of its container runtime, at least at the venture scales they committed themselves to Afaict what was being sold: * Artifactory (hub): plenty of companies doing fine.. for product different than what docker did * DC OS (swarm): managed k8s etc doing fine too.. but diff product again They seemed close to PMF for both... But never quite hit it? Selling to enterprises is hard.. I'm not sure what the lesson is here beyond git stars not being revenue, nor guaranteeing that it can turn into revenue. Successfully building one thing but selling another means you have to do 2 hard things not just 1. Maybe a good analogy: Bloomberg has great reporters whose content goes out for free... But that's not what sells the terminal and data feeds
hobofan 3y ago
It's not either benefits _or_ features that you need, it's both. Benefits to pique their interest and draw them in. Features to tick the checkboxes and get through procurement.

paulddraper 3y ago

You say that, but have you seen drink commercials?

iFreilicht 3y ago
But drinks barely have any features you can market. If they do, they're front and center (less sugar or calories, more vitamins or minerals, sparkling or non sparkling) Same for cigarettes and other similar products. Some people may prefer the flavor of one product over the other, but at the end, it's purely about lifestyle and the feeling of a brand, and that is shaped by marketing.
hsn915 3y ago
So if I create a brand around a drink I can just run a few commercials on TV to associate my brand with something people want (like I don't know, being percieved as sexy by the opposite sex) then I will have a successful business? 100% anyone who tries this will fail

lelanthran 3y ago

I dunno if restaurants are a good example. People go to restaurants for the dining experience. If they simply wanted good food they'd eat at home that night. If they simply don't want to cook they'd get fast food. Declining both those options means that they want something more than food which is provided by the restaurant.