Category Archives: Overviews

February 18, 2012 · 4:41 pm

Beyond Products: Solution Marketing

February 16 Presentation to the BPMA

Thanks to everyone who attended Thursday’s presentation at the Boston Product Management Association, Beyond Products: Solution Marketing. You helped to make it one of the best discussions I’ve ever led on solution marketing.

You can find the Beyond Products: Solution Marketing presentation slides as well as the Solution Marketing Framework, along with other solution marketing content on Slideshare.

I hope you’ll continue the discussion in a variety of ways:

Before you do anything else, make sure to join the Solution Marketing Pros group on LinkedIn where you can share your successes and get help with your challenges from other solution marketers. The group includes folks from leading companies around the world including…

Acronis, Adobe, ADP, Akamai, Amazon, Ariba, Aspen Technology, Autonomy (HP), Box, Cisco, CSC, Dell, Eloqua, EMC, Endeca, Epicor, FirstBest, Gartner, HCL, Hitachi, Honeywell, H-P, IBM, Informatica, Iron Mountain, KANA Software, Kronos, Level 3 Communications, Lionbridge, McAfee, Microsoft, Misys, Motorola, NetApp, Nortel, Nuance, Oracle, Orange, Pegasystems, Pitney Bowes, Progress Software, Red Hat, Salesforce.com, SAP, Sapient, Seagate Technology, Siemens, SONY, SunGard, Symantec, Tata, TELUS, TIBCO, Time Warner Cable, Tripwire, Verizon, Vertex, Wipro
Follow my Twitter stream for the latest solution marketing news.
Check out additional articles on The Solution Marketing Blog – and be sure to comment!
Come back for next month’s solution pricing presentation by Jim Geisman
Contact me if you have additional questions, s.robins [at] SolutionMKT [dot] com

Special thanks to the great folks at BPMA for organizing this event.

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Filed under Case Studies, Presentations, SEVA - Elements of Solution Marketing, Solution Framework, Solution Marketing, Solution Marketing Framework, Solution Marketing Strategy, The Solution Marketing Blog

Tagged as Beyond Products: Solution Marketing, BPMA, LinkedIn, Solution Marketing, Solution Marketing Framework, Solution Marketing Pros, Solution Marketing Pros LinkedIn Group, Solutions, Steve Robins

December 27, 2011 · 11:26 am

The Value of Value

By Steve Robins

Value is Key to Solution Marketing

You might think that the most important aspect of marketing a solution would be what goes into it. What goes into a solution are just a bunch of pieces, products, or components. But value is about the benefit and cost of those components to the user or buyer.

More specifically, value is equal to the difference between (1) the benefit as perceived by the user and (2) the total cost of the solution. By perception I mean that the user or buyer must appreciate and want the resulting benefit. In fact, if they don’t perceive it as a benefit to them, it’s not a benefit but is instead just a useless feature.

Value is interesting in many ways, some of which are counterintuitive and not so obvious. Following are a few important examples – both obvious and not so obvious. Continue reading →

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Filed under Case Studies, Solution Marketing, Solution Marketing Strategy, The Solution Marketing Blog, Value, Value

Tagged as I Tweet Live blog, Newspapers, SEVA, SIVA, Solution Marketing, Solution Marketing Blog, Solution Marketing Lessons, Solutions, Steve Robins, Value

December 13, 2011 · 10:00 am

Anticipation

By Steve Robins

Anticipation builds customer loyalty.

A few weeks back, I had a few “wow” experiences that demonstrated the power of anticipation. No matter that they were almost mundane: each experience improved my perception of the brand/company, service or location. And they offer great lessons for solution marketers.

Anticipated receipt

After filling up with gas at the nearby Hess Gas Station, I saw that the gas pump’s receipt printer was out of paper – which is a nuisance. But when I walked into the store to pick up a receipt, the cashier already had my receipt ready – before I could utter a single word. Wow! I’d say that I was actually more impressed with her anticipating my receipt needs than I would have been had the printer actually had paper. I’ve been filling up at this station because they had competitive gas prices. Now I’ll do it because they have great service as well. Continue reading →

Netflix: It’s About the Customer Strategy, Stupid – Part II

By Steve Robins

Six Solution Marketing Lessons from Netflix

As I mentioned at the end of the last post, Netflix: It’s the Customer, Stupid, Netflix’s recent misadventure is a cautionary tale for solution marketers. Following are a six key lessons:

#1: As a vendor or service provider, technology upgrades are good.

So, if you rent DVDs and know the market will eventually transition to video on demand, you need to offer video on demand as well – just as Netflx does today. Streaming is proven and consumers will demand it. It’s not a matter of if, but when. However…