Tag Archives: Solutions

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

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 →

Icebergs & Solution Launches

By Steve Robins

It’s what lurks below that drives solution launch success

Icebergs: pretty, grand, glistening in the afternoon sun. The stuff of movies. And even disasters like the sinking of the Titanic.

And yes, these icy wonders share more than a few traits with solution launches.

The process of launching a new solution is much like an iceberg. The most important trait? Just like an iceberg, you see only 10% of the effort above water. Up top and above the water, everything looks shiny and crisp. Pretty even. But just like an iceberg, a launch’s success is based on the 90% of effort, the foundation below the surface — the planning and preparation that sit well below the surface, invisible to the public and to many of your colleagues. Oh, and yes, just like an iceberg, a bad launch can, well, sink a ship. Yikes.

Let me explain. Continue reading →

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Tagged as Icebergs, Marketing, Solution launches, Solution Marketing, Solutions, Steve Robins, technology marketing

Secretaries, Typewriters and Solutions

This week’s news mentioned 2 intertwined stories, one of which is a hoax.

The Hoax

R.I.P. Typewriter

Last week, India’s Business Standard reported Typewriters about to become a page in history since an Indian typewriter producer was running out of the typewriters they stopped producing in 2009 (sounds kind of inevitable to me but I digress). Subsequently England’s The Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal’s India site and no less august an institution than the Huff Post ran the same story.

Just one problem: as it turns out though, the typewriter (at least the electronic version) is far from dead – heck you can even pick one up at Staples according to the Washington Post. (Thanks HuffPost and WashPost for debunking the story).