In my day job, I help IT vendors create marketing materials and campaigns. Although you probably would not guess it from reading these columns, what I do most is write.
Marketing sometimes garners a bad reputation. (That is "sometimes" as in "the earth sometimes revolves around the sun.") However, I still believe that what I do is useful. It allows prospective customers to discover how my clients can help them capitalize on opportunities and solve problems, opportunities and problems that companies otherwise might not capitalize on or solve. Hopefully, my writing is clear, concise, and honest, and it helps people make informed buying decisions.
The preceding serves merely to introduce what I am going to go on about today. You would probably understand the rest without the introduction, but they pay me by the word, and this tirade is running a little short. I hope that everyone else will excuse me, but I decided to use this week's tirade to deliver an open message to my clients. The message is this: Please stop forcing me to use only the word "solution" to describe what you sell.
There is absolutely no shame in selling "products," "services," "software," "applications," "utilities," or any other non-solution word, other than maybe the words "crap," "rubbish," "drivel," or some variation on that theme. Customers would be happy to buy accounting software or manufacturing software. You don't have to always refer to them as accounting solutions or manufacturing solutions. (I don't currently have any manufacturing or accounting software vendors as clients, but I didn't want to single out any existing client. I would like to hold onto a little of my business.)
Let me say that I really do believe that my clients sell truly wonderful products and services, many of which really are head and shoulders above the competition. Of course, my clients pay me to believe that. It is just that no vendor, whether a client of mine or not, would ever admit publicly to trying to sell something that does not fulfill any customer requirement whatsoever. And, let's face it, most products and services really do solve some problem or need, small though it may be in the case of your competitors' products. Maybe the competitors' products or services don't perform as well as yours does or maybe they don't provide as many benefits as yours does, but they do provide a solution to something. So, all products and services are solutions. The word is superfluous.
I am not saying that we should never refer to your product or service as a solution. It is a solution, so we should not be afraid to use that word occasionally. It is just that, after a while, refusing to allow me to ever use any other word in your marketing material becomes very tedious for both your prospective customers and me. (Especially me, but that's OK. That's why you pay me the big bucks.)
The second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989, included 291,500 entries. I'm sure that if we work together, we will be able to find at least three or four words that we can rotate through your marketing text to identify what you sell.
Now that we have got that out of the way, let's talk about the word "advanced"....
P.S.: After this column appears, I may not have any clients left. So, if any IT vendors are reading this, please call me. I can provide advanced solutions to fulfill your unique marketing communication needs.
Joel Klebanoff is a consultant, a writer, and president of Klebanoff Associates, Inc., a Toronto, Canada-based marketing communications firm. Joel has 25 years experience working in IT, first as a programmer/analyst and then as a marketer. He holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science and an MBA, both from the University of Toronto. Contact him at
Joel Klebanoff is a consultant, writer, and formerly president of Klebanoff Associates, Inc., a Toronto-based marketing communications firm. He has 30 years' experience in various IT capacities and now specializes in writing articles, white papers, and case studies for IT vendors and publications across North America. Joel is also the author of BYTE-ing Satire, a compilation of a year's worth of his columns. He holds a BS in computer science and an MBA, both from the University of Toronto.
MC Press books written by Joel Klebanoff available now on the MC Press Bookstore.
 |
||
 |
|
BYTE-ing Satire Find out the hilarious answer to the eternal question: "Is technology more hindrance than help?" List Price $14.95 Now On Sale
|
More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.
TRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now! Request Now.
Forms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.
Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn:
LATEST COMMENTS
MC Press Online