Trying to fix the product by doing the advertising is one of those problems that looks like a small one when you start and turns into a lifetime occupation.

The answer, of course, is simple to say. Marketing, like usability and other critical features of a product, are best accomplished when designed into the early phases of development. Software that really works has marketing hooks designed into the code. Simplification of the product is easier at the beginning.

So, now that we've defined the problem with 75% of the offerings in the industry, how do you fix it once it's broken (knowing that the second time around lots of things are easier)?

Screwed up marketing is a critical enough problem to stop everything else until it's fixed. Do we think anyone will listen? Not a chance. But, what you do, once you've tried advertising and it doesn't work because the product was technical from the beginning is stop everything else until you're sure that advertising is straightforward.

Marketing is harder work than technical development. That's why technologists avoid it. It can't be fixed by squeezing that extra increment of code into the functionality. It can't be tweaked (initially). It takes concentration, often without the tangible results of a technical process. It's the protracted thinking that scares most people away. But, the product isn't completed until the marketing works and the ads have demonstrated results.

- John Sumser © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.

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2002 Electronic Recruiting Index

Check out the Table of Contents of the 2002 Electronic Recruiting Index.

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