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Product Marketing for Engineers

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Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#61

Post by libertine »

MattGaiser wrote: post #21
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.

I think the "them" should be broader than marketing - it's easy to point the finger on the ones that write the message, but everyone was in on it.

"End to end encryption" doesn't show up in a marketing brainstorm that goes unnoticed into branding creatives. Chiefs, Management, Product Teams, marketers, engineers, product managers, everyone knew it.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#62

Post by Sodman »

tomcooks wrote: post #58
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…

The reason for the grumpiness is that, marketing or not, software works and exists. The opposite doesn't happen. Cue in the stereotypical markethead rappresentation: vapid, buzzword filled, socially successful.

All of the "no code" websites you see (even on HN) asking for an email address to sign up for updates on a non-existent product (ie gauge interest) seem to disagree with you.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#63

Post by libertine »

shirak_untel wrote: post #14

Great resource! One of the main problems with project that launch their marketing campaign is their attempt to create an image of something they are not yet to become. I think that by being transparent along the way with your target audience, telling them about the progress you've made and the difficulties your company face and overcome, that's worth more than any marketing trick. That's when your company becomes a b…

>One of the main problems with project that launch their marketing campaign is their attempt to create an image of something they are not yet to become.

This is more about perception and something to aim at. It's extremely difficult to develop a brand if you don't have anything to aim at, because from the moment you have an hook, you can anchor pretty much everything based on that and this allows you to do something that's extremely important in branding: consistency and congruency.

Your brand, communication, product, should all be in line with what they might not be yet, but are aiming at.

>I think that by being transparent along the way with your target audience, telling them about the progress you've made and the difficulties your company face and overcome, that's worth more than any marketing trick.

Being transparent when necessary, yes. If you have something that's harmless and innocuous, it brings no value to anyone to flag it.

Telling about progress works with a small minority, like a dev log works mainly for that audience. Stripe, Facebook, Google, have a lot of this in place to try to lure in talent, or more of that than to make people use their product - so in a sense, this is a "marketing trick".

Most people want something that works, either from a tangible point of view like a flash light that turns on, or intangible, like a piece of clothing that makes them feel they belong to something that others will recognize.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#64

Post by wtracy »

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…

An amazing number of people make purchasing decisions without seeking advice from existing customers. There are industries where businesses almost never compare notes with each other. (Independent restaurants come to mind. Really, any field with a high rate of turnover.)

Also, the sunk cost fallacy means that some organizations will continue shoveling money at the bad system they already purchased because of the shiny marketing. If you're prepared to sell "upgrades" and consulting services around your product, it's sometimes possible to make more money from a bad product than one that "just works".

I'm not cynical enough to say that the situations I described are normal. But they are common enough.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#65

Post by dang »

philshem wrote: post #16
dang wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, changed from https://github.com/michael-andreuzza/Marketing-for-Engineers .

I would petition to add “Software” in front of “Engineers” in the title, and perhaps adding “Product” in front of “Marketing”. I’m supporting a mechanical engineer get his remote services business going, and as far as I can tell this resource is _not_ of interest.

I've done half. I think on HN the word 'engineer' probably carries a halo of 'software' around it. Not saying that's right, just that it's probably the culture. Also, there must be some things in there that aren't software-specific.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#66

Post by invalidOrTaken »

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 tend to share your view, and your views in general (lisp, moloch, etc), and I wanted to run an idea by you.

I feel like much of the marketing problem comes from three places:

- overcompetition (too many useless products competing for mindshare) - inefficiency (if you can't target your marketing well, you just shotgun it out) - debt (pressure for cash makes people do things they otherwise wouldn't)

So we end up with a push-based economy.

The idle thought in my head is: what would a pull-based economy work? And not necessarily a whole economic overhaul, but for instance, what if I personally wanted to do things in a pull-based way, or encourage others do so? What would any of that look like?

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#67

Post by neutronicus »

phab wrote: post #50
sweetdreamerit wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, no. They are different jobs, that require skills that an engineer is not required to have. It's not just mindest, it's about methods and skills and theoretical backgrounds. UX is about eliciting the needs, the knowledge, the mental models of the users and to contribute to create (digital) representations that help them (the users) to accomplish their goals. This is not what an engineer is asked to do, and not w…

I completely disagree. Engineering at its core is about building useful solutions to real-world problems. If you're not considering the user (including the theory behind the user's interaction with your product), you're not embracing your role as an engineer holistically. If I was hiring engineers, that is exactly what I would be asking them to do.

There are only so many hours in the day.

We sell a complicated product for professional designers. I am bad at using it and I don't have a great understanding of user workflows. I could learn more about that but then I would have less time to read our huge codebase and figure out how it works.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#68

Post by jason0597 »

Product Marketing for Engineers, or developers/programmers? Because I have a feeling that actual engineers (process engineers, systems engineers, mechanical engineers, etc.) aren't going to be able to utilise this list.

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#69

Post by jason0597 »

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…

Those ASCII graphs look nice! What tool did you use to make them?

Re: Product Marketing for Engineers

#70

Post by cercatrova »

amelius wrote: post #47
TeMPOraL wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting read. What I don't get is that they compare Moloch (total competition) to Nature. > (I’m not really sure how widely people appreciate the value of analogizing capitalism to evolution. Fit companies – defined as those that make the customer want to buy from them – survive, expand, and inspire future efforts, and unfit companies – defined as those no one wants to buy from – go bankrupt and die out along wit…

Organizations into cells, organs, systems, is basically describing mergers and acquisitions, and also that companies have different roles inside them, each doing various tasks: marketing, sales, engineering, management, etc.
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