Cloud Computing – Where does one Capability Start and the Other end?
OK so having arrived at the first cut of a segmentation model for the Cloud Computing market, I am now embarking on a series of Reverse Engineered Positioning and Messaging Analysis (REPAMA) studies.
The problem I now face though as I start tp look in detail at various cloud vendors’ marketing propositions is that their products, capabilities and value propositions all appear to blur into one.
I guess this is a symptom of the early market nature of Cloud Computing. I would expect that as the market develops, real prospects will make real decisions based upon their real needs, and real differences will be stressed and perceived between the products and services of different vendors/service providers.
But right… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, cloud computing, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, differentiation, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning | 
Appistry, cloud computing, competition, Danny Goodall, differentiation, early market, Lustratus, marketing, portfolio, REPAMA, strategy | 
Leave a commentPart 8 – The “OUR PRODUCT [has this unique selling proposition] element from the positioning statement
The 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
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, esb, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, product marketing, usp, Vendor-Related Posts | benefit, competition, competitive, Danny Goodall, esb, ESB Guidance, Lustratus, marketing strategy, microsoft, oracle, positioning, positioning statement, product marketing, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing, strategy, tibco, usp | Leave a commentPart 6 – The “THAT PROVIDES [main benefit]” element from the positioning statement
The 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
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, esb, go-to-market, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning, product marketing, reason to buy, Vendor-Related Posts | audience, benefit, competition, competitive, Competitive Marketing, Danny Goodall, esb, Lustratus, marketing strategy, positioning, positioning statement, product marketing, reason to buy, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing, strategy | Leave a commentPart 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 CommentPart 3 – The “WHO [has this specific pain or problem]” element from the positioning statement
Pain, problem, need or desire
Continuing the series of blogs looking at the elements of the positioning statement I’m going to look at the customer pain or problem section.
In this entry I will look at the pain, problem, need or desire that we believe that target customer is looking to resolve. So just so we have a the context for the discussion, here is the positioning statement format that Lustratus uses.
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 this unique selling proposition].… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, esb, marketing, Marketing Strategy, pain, positioning, product marketing, product name, SOA and Integration | competition, competitive, customer pain, Danny Goodall, esb, Lustratus, marketing strategy, positioning, positioning statement, product marketing, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing, strategy | Leave a commentPart 2 – The “FOR [ideal customer]” element from the positioning statement
The Ideal Customer
As mentioned in the previous blog entry on the positioning statement, I’m going to continue to flesh out the details of the seven other positioning elements.
This time its the ideal target customer, so let’s first revisit the format of the positioning statement just to give us a context.
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 this unique selling proposition].
The ideal customer allows the organisation creating the positioning statement to express the characteristics of their ideal target customer for the… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, esb, ideal customer, job roles, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning, product marketing, prospects | competition, competitive, Danny Goodall, esb, ideal customer, Lustratus, marketing strategy, positioning, positioning statement, product marketing, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing, strategy | Leave a commentPart 1 – The positioning statement
Positioning
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
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, ideal customer, marketing, Marketing Strategy, pain, positioning, product category, product marketing, product name, reason to buy, usp, Vendor-Related Posts | alternative, benefit, competition, competitive, competitor, Danny Goodall, ideal customer, Lustratus, main benefit, marketing strategy, oracle, pain, positioning, positioning statement, product category, product marketing, product name, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing, strategy, tibco, usp | 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 commentFocus and 8 fingered gloves
I remember using the phrase “You’re marketing 8 fingered gloves” with a client a few years ago. And without wanting to show any disrespect to those unfortunate or fortunate enough to have more than 5 digits on each hand, I think it illustrates perfectly the dilemma that some technology vendors face.
Imagine you are the VP Marketing for Octodigit Inc. – a manufacturer of 8 fingered gloves for men. Your market is pretty small. Really small in fact. Getting new customers is quite a chore and involves some incredibly detailed research, focus and a lot of leg work. However, when you find a prospect – an octodigit (or whatever the term is) male who… Continue reading
Ab initio
Welcome to the Lustratus REPAMA blog from Lustratus Research. I’ve never been a fan of mission statements for the sake of mission statements. I guess that is because most that I read are painted in the blandest shade of beige or taste of vanilla. This tends to make them less of an “inspiring, rallying-call” type of mission statement and more of “a collection of boring indisputable facts that we think the CEO won’t fire us for putting down on paper” type of mission statement.
Mission?
That said, I think it’s worth setting out a plan for the type of material that we’ll be covering in this blog in future editions. So here goes. I want… Continue reading
- On Informatica, Evangelism, Audience Strata and BIG-DATA
- The marketing strategies of open source versus closed source ESBs
- Part 2 – First output from REPAMATron – WSO2 versus FuseSource versus Talend versus the ESB market
- First output from REPAMATron – WSO2 versus FuseSource versus Talend versus the ESB market
- WSO2 – Fits in between Talend and FuseSource…
- WSO2, or rather one of its competitors, has thrown its hat into the ring
- Wordcount.org – it counts words…
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.