Re: Formalizing the marketing team

[John Williams <john williams lists gmail com>]

On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 10:19 +0530, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay wrote:

> The broad goal of a Marketing function is to let as many folks "know"
> about GNOME which in turn means provide guidance and support towards
> events, activities, material that allow folks to "know" about GNOME. 
Oh dear.  I am going to try again to push the idea of what marketing is.
BTW: If anyone is getting sick of my pontification on this, please let
me know, publicly if necessary.

Perhaps the best way to explain it is this:

Q. What is a marketer?
A. The agent of the customer in the firm.

Letting people "know about" is "telling them", which is advertising (or
IMC: integrated marketing communications).  Saying "hey, we've got this
cool thing; you should buy|use it" is selling.

Marketing is adapting the output of the firm to meet the desires (wants,
needs) of the market.  It starts with the market, then responds to the
market.  

Selling, OTOH, starts with the product and tries to convince the market
to buy it.

Which orientation is more likely to lead to success?

Now, selling is not bad.  Neither is advertising.  But for "success" the
thing which is being sold and advertised must be "good", i.e. deliver
benefits.  In a competitive market, those benefits should at least match
and preferably exceed those of the competition in the chosen market
segment.

Ask any salesperson what the number one factor in their success is, and
they will tell you that it is the genuine belief that what they are
selling will be good for the customer.  Can we say that about GNOME?  I
suppose this depends on who the customer is, i.e. what market segment(s)
we want to compete in.  I think we're not there for Aunt Tilly yet.

OK, cutting to the chase.  One of the top-level goals of the Marketing
Team must be to be the conduit between the (non-developer) users of
GNOME and the developers of GNOME.  If we don't do that, we should call
it the "Sales and Advertising Team".

Phew, I'm exhausted.  Again, don't be shy about telling me to shut the
fuck up if I'm getting to academic on yo' ass.  I am an academic after
all: I am used to rejection ;-)

Peace and freedom from suffering to all beings,

John