benefit

The marketing strategies of open source versus closed source ESBs

I’m continuing my series of blog entries where I am sharing some early results from REPAMATron – my automated competitive marketing intelligence gathering tool. In this entry I’m looking at the difference in marketing strategy between open source and closed source enterprise service buses (EBSs).

REPAMATron automates my REPAMA competitive marketing intelligence methodology and is currently in Alpha. I’m using the ESB market, a market I know well, to help to tune the algorithms at the heart of REPAMATron.

In my previous entry I looked at 3 Enterprise Service Bus vendors’ marketing strategies (WSO2, Talend and FuseSource) and compared them to the computed market mean. I’ve now added another 6 ESB vendors to the study from the long list… Continue reading

Part 2 – First output from REPAMATron – WSO2 versus FuseSource versus Talend versus the ESB market

In the previous post I shared some of the early results from REPAMATron – the technology I’ve developed that automates the process of gathering competitive marketing intelligence.

The previous post described what REPAMA and REPAMATron are all about so if you’ve landed here and have no idea what this is, then I’d recommend that you read the first post in this series. Having taken a look at how a section of the Enterprise Service Bus market (WSO2, FuseSource and Talend) communicates benefits or value propositions, I’m now going to share the research into the product features that each vendor communicates most prominently. To allow a comparison to be made between the vendors and to the market mean… Continue reading

First output from REPAMATron – WSO2 versus FuseSource versus Talend versus the ESB market

If you’ve been following this blog you’ll know that I analyse the marketing tactics and strategies of high-tech vendors – mainly in the infrastructure software space. It’s…

…an emotional day for me as I share the first output from my automated competitive marketing intelligence gathering system – REPAMATron. Well perhaps it’s not that emotional, but it certainly represents a significant milestone in a project that has been in development in my ‘spare time’ for a little while now. Below you’ll find my first tentative steps at automated analysis of the Enterprise Service Bus market.

REPAMA is a research methodology that allows me to categorise and compare the marketing strategies of high-tech vendors inferred from the language they use to… Continue reading

Value Proposition Categories – MITICOR

man with a megaphoneI’ve been working on a way of categorising value propositions for some timeI’ve arrived at something I refer to as MITICOR which I believe represents the atomic value proposition elements.

By this I mean that all business to business value propositions can be broken down into these 7 base elements. I’m sure I will refine this over time but for our purposes these elements allow us to analyse and categorise the different value propositions that vendors use in their go-to-market efforts.

So what do these categories refer to?

MITICOR - Value Proposition Categories (0.90)_Page_2

Market

Elements categorised as “Market” include value propositions that relate to the organisation’s market or competitive situation, new product or service introduction as well as the organisation’s marketing efforts… Continue reading

Standards-based marketing – an antidote “Sell Differently” Part 3

handing over moneyPart 3 – Sell Differently

I’m continuing this series of blogs here by looking at the techniques that software vendors can use to create the “illusion” of differentiation in markets where technical standards have led to little material product difference.

Perhaps the most obvious differentiator between organisations that have “broadly” similar technology, and an area that particularly hurts smaller or less well established software vendors, is the vendor’s approach to selling.

Which audience strata do you aim at and what do you say to them?

At its most crude this can be the difference between Vendor A talking to a technical audience about the features of Product A whilst Vendor B is talking to line of business managers within the… Continue reading

“Aim wider”, “focus everywhere” and other oxymorons

5 targetsI’ve just had a conversation with a friend, an ex-colleague who was picking my brains (for free I might add!) about what he could do to make his sales year look better.

I asked him how his product was positioned and where his focus was on the market. He told me, and in doing so mentioned 3 industries, 3 market categories and 4 sub market segments, 4 or 5 target audiences and a similar number of problems they address in each of the 3 industries. I told him that this isn’t a focus. It’s a hedging of bets. It’s a baiting of many hooks in the vain hope of landing at least… Continue reading

Positioning and the Positioning Statement

Positioning and the Positioning Statement

This page contains a summary of a series of blog entries I made during January and February 2009.  It describes the format of the positioning statement that we use in the REPAMA competitive intelligence methodology. I refer to the concept of positioning and the positioning statement frequently so I wanted to pull them all together in once place.  So here you are.

Danny Goodall

Links to Original Posts

The Positioning Statement
FOR… positioning element
WHO…positioning element
OUR…positioning element
IS A…positioning element
THAT PROVIDES…positioning element
UNLIKE…positioning element
OUR PRODUCT…positioning element

Positioning Cross HairsPart 1 – Positioning

Happy 2009! I’ve been in debate with a number of correspondents about the layout and format of the positioning statement… Continue reading

Part 8 – The “OUR PRODUCT [has this unique selling proposition] element from the positioning statement

USP red apple amongst greenThe Unique Selling Proposition

Throughout this series of blogs I’ve been examining the format of the positioning statement that we use in our REPAMA consultancy and analysis services.

In this final entry in the series I’m going to close out by looking at the pay-off, the crescendo, the exclamation mark at the end of the positioning statement – the USP or unique selling proposition.

But first, and for one last time, let’s take a look at this element in the context of the complete 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… Continue reading

Part 6 – The “THAT PROVIDES [main benefit]” element from the positioning statement

Present boxThe Main Benefit or Reason to buy

In this series of blogs I’m exploring the format of the positioning statement that Lustratus uses in our REPAMA research methodology.

Today I’m looking at one of, if not the most important elements.  This is an element that in my experience vendors often find the most difficult to define about their own offering.  This is the “THAT PROVIDES [main benefit]” element.  First some let’s look at how this element fits into the context of the complete 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… Continue reading

Part 1 – The positioning statement

Positioning Cross HairsPositioning

Happy 2009! I’ve been in debate with a number of correspondents about the layout and format of the positioning statement that we use in the Lustratus REPAMA-based research.  So I’m going to dedicate the next few blog entries to the positioning statement.  I hope to answer the following questions.

  • What is the positioning statement?
  • Why use a positioning statement?
  • What is the value of a positioning statement?
  • What is the format of a positioning statement?

The first thing to say is that over the years, having worked with some of the best product marketing people in the industry, I’ve seen many different approaches to positioning and equally many different formats for positioning statements. Each of them,… Continue reading


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  • Gravatar icon of Danny Goodall Danny Goodall
    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...
  • Gravatar icon of Sarah Bourne Sarah Bourne
    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 ...
  • Gravatar icon of Danny Goodall Danny Goodall
    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...
  • Gravatar icon of Jacques Talbot Jacques Talbot
    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 ...
  • Gravatar icon of Steve Craggs Steve Craggs
    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...
  • Gravatar icon of Pete Logan Pete Logan
    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 ...
  • Gravatar icon of Danny Goodall Danny Goodall
    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' ...
  • Gravatar icon of Blake Dournaee Blake Dournaee
    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...
  • Gravatar icon of SaaS SaaS
    April 14, 2010 (2:57)
    The Decision Making Unit for Cloud Computing Nice Technology Related Blog. Will visit again.
  • Gravatar icon of Zaki Usman Zaki Usman
    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.