Re: real marketing or just catchy slogans?

["Murray Cumming" <murrayc murrayc com>]

> Hi,
>
> Murray Cumming wrote:
> > > in other words, i'd like to see more marketing, and less
> > > selling/advertising...
> >
> > The selling/advertising does not stop you from doing marketing. Should
> > we
> > stop going to trade fairs, close down our website, and stop announcing
> > releases while we wait for the traditional marketing to reach step one?
>
> I agree with Santiago.
>
> Going to trade fairs, running a website and announcing releases are
> essential, of course. Suggesting that Santiago was saying otherwise is
> absurd.
>
> But this is perhaps the 3rd or 4th time we've had the slogan discussion
> over the past year. The only possible benefit of having it again is to
> get new people onto the list.
>
> What we need now is follow-through. Something which gets momentum, has
> posters and banners and community buy-in. Andreas created a bunch of
> really good posters

URL?

> - have we really done all we can to push them, and
> to get the slogans he used into the public consciousness?

This why I am trying to
a) Encourage a very simple positive theme (our only possibility until we
get some real marketing smarts) so we have something to rally behind. We
have never gone that simple before. It would be something new.
b) Start discussion about how to communicate that theme.
c) Encourage people to make these little decisions, and find out what they
can support enthusiastically, so they don't wait for someone (nobody) else
to do it for them.
d) Make it clear to the real marketers that we are this desparate for real
progress.

A slogan is the core of most campaigns. With a theme and a suitable slogan
we can start a little campaign. Because the theme and slogan will be
vague, we can adapt that to a variety of mini testimonials and smiling
endorsements while still building up market awareness through common
elements.

I'm not confident that we've found a suitable slogan this time, but the
discussion seems to be making people think.

> The target market discussion is another one which we've had at least 3
> times. I'm pretty clear on what our target markets should be:
>
> For the desktop:
>   - Public administrations - schools, governments, councils.
>   - Distributions
>   - Early adopter momentum users
>
> For the platform:
>   - Third party developers
>
> For applications:
>   - Hobbyist windows users

I have no objection to these.

> Why only early adopters? Because aiming for a mainstream desktop market
> isn't acting our age. Because the mainstream will adopt Linux, not
> GNOME, and GNOME will just come along for the ride (see: Distributions
> and third party developers). And the mainstream isn't yet adopting linux
> on the desktop, so focussing energy there is a waste of our time.

Quoting from John Williams GJ article, which I don't think offers us much
otherwise,
"a group of people must respond differently to a given marketing mix
(product, place, price, promotion) for them to be considered a distinct
market segment."

If we don't plan to target these people differently, then there isn't much
point in targetting them separately. They groups above have a great deal
in common - everything we do for them is about improving the experience of
their end users. That's the GNOME advantange that I'd like to push.

But I'm happy to support, yield-to, and generally celebrate, anyone who
does _something_ to push our marketing forward in _some_ direction.

> Why public administrations? Because we have a track record. Because
> there are decision makers in your town thinking about migrating to free
> software and Linux right now, because everyone's doing it. And you're
> there. And you can help them.
>
> Why hobbyist windows users? Because they install software off cover CDs
> to try it out, but they're not going to install a full OS. Because we
> can show someone the GIMP, Abiword, Gnumeric, OOo, Firefox, gaim and a
> gaggle of other applications, and get them used to the idea that free
> software is great. And once they're more or less running a GNOME desktop
> on Windows, it's an easy(ier?) sell to get them to switch to a GNOME
> desktop on Linux.
>
> There's one group that I think we should be focussed on too, which isn't
> in that list - and that's non-profit organisations outside the tech
> industry. There are thousands, it's a niche, and we could fit the niche
> well. But I really don't know how we can penetrate there.
>
> What we need, then, isn't another discussion to decide what our target
> markets are, it's answers to the following questions for each of those
> target markets.
>
>   - What do we have to offer?
>   - What are we missing?
>   - What are we doing to fill the gaps?
>   - What could we be doing that we're not?
>   - How can we get at the people involved?

I'm not a marketer, so I'm only guessing. But I guess that these are
secondary details - the information that goes into specific ads as part of
a simpler, more emotional campaign.

However, I think this is a very good basis for discussion. It can help the
marketing guys here understand what we think we have to offer, and what
our users think of us as offering.

> Getting at relevant people is all about communication, but that
> communication has to be 2-way, otherwise we never have an answer to the
> second question.


Murray Cumming
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com