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Product Marketing for Engineers

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Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#21

Post by MattGaiser »

enriquto wrote: post #17

This is nice and fine, but I feel that the world needs more engineering for marketeers. Some of the marketing stuff that they pull out is so outrageulsy ridiculous (cf. zoom's infamous "end to end encryption") that we are afraid to talk about their products in polite company.

> they pull out is so outrageulsy ridiculous (cf. zoom's infamous "end to end encryption")

You assume it is a matter of ignorance and not them simply not caring. I've come to find many people who work in marketing almost Trumpian in their relationship with information.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#22

Post by allendoerfer »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #18
luckylion wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's narrow mindedness, I feel like it's mostly principles and not seeing that marketing isn't only spam, lies and shit. I think most engineers associate marketing with sleazy SEO/affiliate/self-promotion people who offer little to no added value to the web, society or humanity, who will lie, cheat and steal to make a buck. Most engineers don't want to be like those people in any way, and that's a good t…

I think your view on this will depend on what do you believe the distribution of good vs. evil in marketing looks like. Is it like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | ---> /---- EVIL GOOD Or like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | -> |\ | \ EVIL GOOD I personally believe it's the latter. I added arrows indicating opposing incentives at personal level, and I believe the profit motive is much stronger than personal morals, for two main rea…

> One, market competition means you won't survive unless you're optimizing for profits very strongly; with strong enough competition, if your competitor does something shady, you have to follow suit or risk being outcompeted.

I have recently learned here on HN, that this is called a Red Queen's race. Since like me everyone on HN loves expressive language I am spreading the word.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#23

Post by TeMPOraL »

allendoerfer wrote: post #22
TeMPOraL wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your view on this will depend on what do you believe the distribution of good vs. evil in marketing looks like. Is it like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | ---> /---- EVIL GOOD Or like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | -> |\ | \ EVIL GOOD I personally believe it's the latter. I added arrows indicating opposing incentives at personal level, and I believe the profit motive is much stronger than personal morals, for two main rea…

> One, market competition means you won't survive unless you're optimizing for profits very strongly; with strong enough competition, if your competitor does something shady, you have to follow suit or risk being outcompeted. I have recently learned here on HN, that this is called a Red Queen's race. Since like me everyone on HN loves expressive language I am spreading the word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Quee…

If you haven't seen this, you'll be in for a treat:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

It's a very thorough discussion of the topic. A rather long read, but absolutely worth it.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#24

Post by Gravityloss »

allendoerfer wrote: post #22
TeMPOraL wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your view on this will depend on what do you believe the distribution of good vs. evil in marketing looks like. Is it like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | ---> /---- EVIL GOOD Or like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | -> |\ | \ EVIL GOOD I personally believe it's the latter. I added arrows indicating opposing incentives at personal level, and I believe the profit motive is much stronger than personal morals, for two main rea…

> One, market competition means you won't survive unless you're optimizing for profits very strongly; with strong enough competition, if your competitor does something shady, you have to follow suit or risk being outcompeted. I have recently learned here on HN, that this is called a Red Queen's race. Since like me everyone on HN loves expressive language I am spreading the word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Quee…

Depends. If you're on the market for a time period, customer A who bought your shady competitor's product will see all its warts quite soon. Meanwhile, your own customer B will be happy with your honest product.

The fence sitters on the marketplace might ask both A and B of their experiences and opinions. They will then calibrate that against A and B marketing. Maybe one or two customers might be random, but if it repeats over a longer time, things get quite obvious to everyone in the scene...

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#25

Post by hnick »

luckylion wrote: post #13
harryf wrote: post #11

I’ve often found engineers really struggle to jump over their own shadows when it comes to marketing. Things like... - “Marketing is evil!” ... perhaps but it’s also a necessary evil if you want anyone using your product - “Build it and they will come” ... except they won’t unless you tell people - “I hate spam/push messages/ads therefor everyone else must do to” ... but engineers tend to be the grumpiest about this…

I'm not sure it's narrow mindedness, I feel like it's mostly principles and not seeing that marketing isn't only spam, lies and shit. I think most engineers associate marketing with sleazy SEO/affiliate/self-promotion people who offer little to no added value to the web, society or humanity, who will lie, cheat and steal to make a buck. Most engineers don't want to be like those people in any way, and that's a good t…

I think it's less narrow mindedness and more of the engineering mindset that deals with the tangible, the literal, the quantifiable, and the possible.

From that perspective, if you are not lying in your marketing, then you must just be telling truths about your product. So what's wrong with just writing the features and letting us decide instead of adding all the flowery weasel words?

Obviously this doesn't work for most people. Long feature lists can even be a turn off. But I think software people often see products through the lens of what it can do instead of how it makes them feel. That is the hurdle I think a lot of us have to get over because we are so used to writing code to make programs do things and not to make people feel things (I can't imagine how that unit test looks).

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#27

Post by allendoerfer »

Gravityloss wrote: post #24
allendoerfer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One, market competition means you won't survive unless you're optimizing for profits very strongly; with strong enough competition, if your competitor does something shady, you have to follow suit or risk being outcompeted. I have recently learned here on HN, that this is called a Red Queen's race. Since like me everyone on HN loves expressive language I am spreading the word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Quee…

Depends. If you're on the market for a time period, customer A who bought your shady competitor's product will see all its warts quite soon. Meanwhile, your own customer B will be happy with your honest product. The fence sitters on the marketplace might ask both A and B of their experiences and opinions. They will then calibrate that against A and B marketing. Maybe one or two customers might be random, but if it re…

Which I would counter with another short phrase:

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Your competitors earned some money and will gain interest on it, if they are smart.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#28

Post by walrus01 »

hnick wrote: post #25
luckylion wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's narrow mindedness, I feel like it's mostly principles and not seeing that marketing isn't only spam, lies and shit. I think most engineers associate marketing with sleazy SEO/affiliate/self-promotion people who offer little to no added value to the web, society or humanity, who will lie, cheat and steal to make a buck. Most engineers don't want to be like those people in any way, and that's a good t…

I think it's less narrow mindedness and more of the engineering mindset that deals with the tangible, the literal, the quantifiable, and the possible. From that perspective, if you are not lying in your marketing, then you must just be telling truths about your product. So what's wrong with just writing the features and letting us decide instead of adding all the flowery weasel words? Obviously this doesn't work for…

> So what's wrong with just writing the features and letting us decide instead of adding all the flowery weasel words?

From the perspective of an engineer this works really well if your target market is also engineers, in a very clearly defined vertical market for a highly technical product. Such as components for UAVs or DWDM transport systems.

Some engineers choose specifically to work for companies in a niche field because they find it easier and less stressful to also deal with customers who are their respective companies' subject matter experts on the subsystem.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#29

Post by hnick »

walrus01 wrote: post #28
hnick wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's less narrow mindedness and more of the engineering mindset that deals with the tangible, the literal, the quantifiable, and the possible. From that perspective, if you are not lying in your marketing, then you must just be telling truths about your product. So what's wrong with just writing the features and letting us decide instead of adding all the flowery weasel words? Obviously this doesn't work for…

> So what's wrong with just writing the features and letting us decide instead of adding all the flowery weasel words? From the perspective of an engineer this works really well if your target market is also engineers, in a very clearly defined vertical market for a highly technical product. Such as components for UAVs or DWDM transport systems. Some engineers choose specifically to work for companies in a niche fiel…

Yes, definitely. Know your audience etc. When I'm looking at SaaS software and it's missing key info, features, and has the old "ask for a quote" it's code for "go get your manager, kid".

As a side note, this is why landing pages exist. Another marketing gimmick of course, but having separate pages that people won't reach by mistake lets the message suit the audience. I struggled with that concept for a long time. Shouldn't every page on our site be nicely accessible from a menu just like the contents page of a book? Not always. Give the wrong first impression and you might not get another.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#30

Post by the_bear »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #18
luckylion wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's narrow mindedness, I feel like it's mostly principles and not seeing that marketing isn't only spam, lies and shit. I think most engineers associate marketing with sleazy SEO/affiliate/self-promotion people who offer little to no added value to the web, society or humanity, who will lie, cheat and steal to make a buck. Most engineers don't want to be like those people in any way, and that's a good t…

I think your view on this will depend on what do you believe the distribution of good vs. evil in marketing looks like. Is it like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | ---> /---- EVIL GOOD Or like this? ^ DECENCY PROFIT | -> |\ | \ EVIL GOOD I personally believe it's the latter. I added arrows indicating opposing incentives at personal level, and I believe the profit motive is much stronger than personal morals, for two main rea…

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I don't think it's true that optimizing for profits makes you more competitive.

When a company makes a profit, it essentially means that they're capturing wealth that could have otherwise gone to the customer. The more wealth the customer captures, the more they want to use your product or service. This is why so many startups are unprofitable for so long. They burn money in order to compete with more established players until eventually they dominate the market, and then they turn the knobs to become profitable. All else being equal, profit is at odds with competitiveness.

Of course if you have outside investors (especially institutional investors) they'll eventually require you to start optimizing for profit. But it's not to be competitive, it's because the competition is now over because they've effectively monopolized their space, and now it's time to cash in.

I'm a big proponent of bootstrapping, and this is why. In the early days, you have to be a little bit profitable (you can't burn money for years like a Softbank-backed company would) but once things start working, you can stay in the "a little bit profitable" world which allows you to treat customers and employees well, instead of moving into the "maximize profit" world that most successful companies end up in.

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