Part 4 – The “OUR [product name]” element from the positioning statement
The Our Product Element
In this series of blogs we’re looking at the elements of the positioning statement format that Lustratus uses in our REPAMA research methodology.
In this entry I’m going to tackle one of the easier elements, where little specific planning or strategy is needed. Here we’re looking at the “Our [product name]” section of the positioning statement. So as usual let’s look at the context of this element in the wider positioning statement.
FOR [the ideal customer] WHO [has this specific pain or problem] OUR [product name] IS A[product category] THAT PROVIDES [this main benefit and reason to buy] UNLIKE [the primary alternative or competitor] OUR PRODUCT [has… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, esb, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning, product marketing, product name, Vendor-Related Posts | 
Danny Goodall, esb, Lustratus, marketing strategy, positioning, positioning statement, product marketing, product name, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing, strategy | 
1 CommentTeaching Oracle to Suck Eggs
Working out the depositioning strategy used by specific vendors is normally complex. Do they actively look to emphasise their positives over their competitors? Do they look to highlight their competitors’ perceived negative attributes? Do they infer who the competition is? Do they actively name the competitors, or the class of competitor?
Reverse-engineering this information usually involves a great deal of inference and subtle interpretation of the way certain features are spun and certain advantages are claimed. In some cases I even conclude that the vendor has no specific competitive marketing strategy and that no direct depositioning of the competition occurs. So it was with some mutual professional respect that I started to review Oracle’s… Continue reading
What do you do?
It’s an easy question isn’t it? But its one that in my experience is so often misinterpreted or wrongly answered by high-tech software vendors through their web sites, marketing materials and meetings with prospects.
When a prospect poses that question of a software vendor, what are they looking to understand? The answer is that they actually want to know what you can do for them. They want to quickly envisage what will be left behind after they have bought software from you.
So an answer like:
“ACME provides KJ8 compliant infrastructure that is compatible with the latest WP* series of standards”
…does not really answer the question “What does ACME Corp do?”.
Consider the situation when a… Continue reading
Funded Initiatives and lead generation
I’ve been scanning other marketing blogs recently, attempting to get a feel for what other folks are doing out there at the moment. I see lots of advice on creating strategies to generate leads through social media and the creation of networks. Whilst I wholeheartedly support any efforts to get closer to prospects by creating communities and networks, that alone will not cut it when IT spend is under such close scrutiny.
Imagine this situation.
You’re a senior manager in an IT division of a large corporation who is tasked with delivering more than you did last year with less resources than you previously had. You’re technically very savvy and when a software vendor proposes new technology… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, cloud computing, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, go-to-market, high performance middleware, marketing, Marketing Management, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, positioning, prospects | application virtualization, budgets, competitive, lead generation, low latency messaging, Lustratus, marketing strategy, REPAMA | 1 CommentREPAMA Guide Now Online
Despite being available in “beta” form to REPAMA users for some time, I finally got round to packaging up a publicly downloadable version of the Lustratus REPAMA Guide. This can be downloaded from Lustratus.com for no charge.
I should say a big thank you to clients, colleagues and everyone else who has provided feedback on the guide, which studies should be included and how they should be presented.
So “Thank you”!
And for those looking to understand the product marketing and go-to-market strategies of TIBCO’s competitors in the High Performance Messaging space – specifically Solace Systems’ Content Router, 29West’s LBM and IBM’s WebSphere MQ LLM – I’ve also put the High Performance Messaging REPAMA Segment Analysis Study in… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, go-to-market, high performance middleware, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning, product management, product marketing, Vendor-Related Posts | 29West, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, competitive, Content Router, Danny Goodall, go-to-market, ibm, LBM, LLM, low latency messaging, Lustratus, marketing, marketing strategy, middleware, REPAMA, solace systems, strategy, tibco | Leave a commentRunning the REPAMA rule over mainframe SOA
I’ve just finished the REPAMA Segment Analysis Study and Marketing Efficacy Assessment on High Performance Middleware. It’s just going through our buddy checking process at the moment so now I can get on with the next project. We’re about to start looking at vendors of integration and SOA solutions on the mainframe with the REPAMA methodology.
It’s really interesting (well if you’re a marketing analyst) when you start a new project. You have to leave a lot of your preconceptions behind. If you’re reverse engineering the marketing strategy from a vendor’s go to market material, it’s quite wrong to form firm opinions about the results before you even start the analysis.
I mean, if I were… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, go-to-market, positioning, SOA and Integration, Vendor-Related Posts | datadirect, gt software, hostbridge, ibm, mainframe integration, mainframe soa, marketing strategy, microfocus, progress software, rocket software, soa software, software ag | 3 Comments
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Recent Comments
May 12, 2011 (12:01) The Goodall Technology Reading Ease Index - How Complex is Your Marketing Copy? Hmm. I really do like the name Sarah but what about my ego? If I were to call the index 'GoodRead...
May 12, 2011 (11:36) The Goodall Technology Reading Ease Index - How Complex is Your Marketing Copy? I suggest calling it the GoodRead Index. Maybe it's over-reaching a bit, but you'll just have to ...
October 14, 2010 (4:19) Truth Denied? The Software Appliance Revisited. I hope you could tell that I was being more than a little flippant here Jacques. Perhaps I should...
October 13, 2010 (1:56) Truth Denied? The Software Appliance Revisited. Allow me to disagrre. At a customer, we have used Datapower for years to process XML (BTW, it is ...
June 7, 2010 (4:38) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Pete,Thanks for your comments, and those of your colleague. I think Danny has answered the 'mar...
June 4, 2010 (4:03) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Hi,I'd very much like to develop a point made in the report where it is asserted that software ...
May 6, 2010 (12:35) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Thanks for your comment Blake. This is a marketing-focused blog that looks at different vendors' ...
May 5, 2010 (1:23) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Hello There - It seems that this is a very provocative report, especially with respect to the sta...
April 14, 2010 (2:57) The Decision Making Unit for Cloud Computing Nice Technology Related Blog. Will visit again.
October 16, 2009 (5:56) The Decision Making Unit for Cloud Computing Very interesting point of discussion. I would be very interested to hear your results.