Friday, December 05, 2008

What attracts a click?

I said click!

Advertising - Web Marketing That Hopes to Learn What Attracts a Click - NYTimes.com
“It’s reporting back to the advertiser and agency saying, ‘Guess what? The soccer mom in Indiana likes background three, which was pink, likes image four, which was the S.U.V., and likes marketing message 12, about room, safety and comfort,”

We have a very dynamic marketing team at WSO2. Personally, I believe that having a great, selling product is better than having a perfect product that doesn't make much money. Most household names today didn't start by having the perfect product. They built something innovative and useful to a broad audience. When people liked it and the money started flowing in, they used part of that revenue towards perfection by way of R&D while using the rest to pay bills and give stakeholders return on their investments. Don't take my word for it, look at Micro$oft. They still haven't made Windows perfect!

Perfection is a long term goal but generating revenue and sustaining growth in the short term will make sure your company will last long enough to achieve this. The very first startup I worked for went under because we were naive enough to think perfection will somehow generate revenue. That was a painful lesson that made me realize the value of marketing. Years later, I now help our marketing team in whatever little way I can to achieve their goals. Why? ABS and ABC. Always Be Selling and Always Be Closing.

But, the important thing about marketing today, in a post Web 2.0 world is the change of strategy required. The good old days of hiring an agency to do the needful seem to be gone, at least in the software industry. No one seems to have found the silver bullet either, but we try. Again, this was my personal view. Until I saw the article above. This doesn't look like the silver bullet we hope for, but it is an interesting development nevertheless.