1. Essentials for Successful Marketing
of Technology Businesses
22° Encuentro GeneXus.
Montevideo, Uruguay
Professor Jakki J. Mohr, Ph.D.
Regents Professor of Marketing
University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA
Universidad ORT Uruguay

2. Barriers to Successful Marketing
in Technology Companies
• “Our technology is so new, we have no
competitors.”
• “Our technology is so good, it will sell itself.”
• “Our customers just don’t understand.”

3. Other Common Problems
• No resources for marketing
• No personnel trained to do marketing
• Aversion to marketing:
– “Fluff and bluff”
– Money spent on logos, ads, brochures is wasteful.

4. Reason: Lack of Clarity
• What is marketing
• The impact of marketing on company
success
• Difficulty in getting data to make marketing
decisions

5. Marketing is…
• Strategic decision making:
– Which customers should we focus on?
– What is our value proposition?
• Functional planning:
– Product features; price; go-to-market strategy
– Relationship between engineers and managers
(marketing, sales, business)
• Tactical:
– Which trade shows, Website design, which journals

6. The Impact of Marketing on
Success of Technology Companies
Great Technology? Great Marketing?
Technological superiority Great marketing can help
alone does not yield success. even “good enough”
technology win.
Great marketing can beat
great technology.
Success requires great technology
combined with great marketing.

7. Standard Marketing Tools
1 Strategic planning
2 Segmentation and value proposition
3 Understanding customers and
competitors
4 Creating awareness

8. These Tools are Di"cult to Apply
in Technology Businesses
• Technology companies are managed
differently than other types of companies
• Customers experience greater uncertainty in
their product choices
• Technology industries
operate differently
than other industries

9. Managing Technology Companies
– Who manages?
– Core competencies?
• Marketing competencies?
• “Core rigidities?
– Customer orientation?

10. Engineers Manage Tech Companies
• What do they say about marketing?
– Marketing:
• what you do when your products aren’t selling.
– Marketing Research:
• when marketing goes down
to engineering to see what
they’re working on.
• Even the people who do
marketing are often engineers!

11. How do engineers think?
• Good products = sophisticated
• If I had more time to work on this product, I
could add
more cool features;
It would be Brilliant!
• What happens with time?
– delays to market =
– customer needs change;
– competitors come in;
– window of opportunity is lost.

12. Customer Purchase Decisions:
Complex and Uncertain
• Switching costs
• Fear, uncertainty, doubt
– Ease of use
– Feature Fatigue
– Industry standards and compatibility
• Costs of obsolescence
• Unintended consequences
• Leap frogging
• “Wait and see” =
kiss of death for tech company

13. “The Chasm”
Main Street
The Tornado
The Bowling Alley
Enthusiast Visionary Pragmatic Conserva- Laggard/
The tive Skeptic
Chasm
{
{
{
{
{
Proven
High Results
Risk/High
Reward

14. Goal: Cross the Chasm
• Pick a single target market with specific application: The
beachhead/bowling alley model
• Define market segments narrowly
• Build the “whole product”
– (end-to-end solution)

15. Unique Considerations in
Technology Industries
• “Network effects”
– Customer value depends upon how many
other customers also use the product.
– Value =
f (communication & connectivity)
• Ecosystems
(“Platform Competition”)

16. Self-Reinforcing Nature of
Industry Standards
Raise
Establish Lower fear,
compatibility of
Industry uncertainty
products for
Standards and doubt
customers
Increase
likelihood of
Increased value addoption
to each user
Due to direct
Due to Increase
network effects number
indirect
network of users
effects
Increase incentive
for developers of
complementary

17. Essentials for Success in
Technology Companies?
• Develop marketing competencies
• Develop customer orientation
• Understand ecosystem dynamics
“Be as knowledgeable about your
customers’ businesses as you are
about your own”
“When defining your B2B
customers, also define their
customers; you must identify the
octubre 4, 2012
need your customers must fulfill for
their own buyers.”

18. Muchas Gracias
Jakki.Mohr@umontana.edu
www.markethightech.net
www.business.umt.edu/
faculty/mohr
18

19. Best practices
high-tech marketing
• The Google model:
– 7 rules of innovation
– Beta (learn, fail, learn)

20. The Apple Model
– Innovation + Marketing
– Design and customer experience
– Focus on premium market position (choice of
target market, product, price)

21. A Few More…
• The Intel model:
– Branding, OEMs, distribution,
customer research
• The Cisco model:
– Customer value, industry trends,
distribution partners
• IBM
– “I’m By Myself”
– Reinvent as services business
• GE:
– Sustainability