China technology products are coming … FAST!

Buzz Factor - HIGH - Each time I visit mainland China and see the technology vendors there – both multinationals and indigenous Chinese firms – I come away impressed. But can you pass this simple Buzz test? Name me ONE Chinese technology company.

Ok, you pass – Lenovo (with thanks to Big Blue, which is making them market themselves).

How about another one?? Can’t do it can ya? Dopod and Aigo – make cool hardware (what I call gadgets). But as sure as we are sitting here, the Chinese will be coming out with software and eventually services and support.

Buzz Factor – SUPER HIGH! - China represents a huge opportunity for technology marketers to be aware of and ready for. Bill Gates has been crowing about how we are not turning out enough educated technologists, while China is cranking out 300,000 of them A YEAR! Someday your paycheck may be coming from China – how about that for a Buzz!

And what will Chinese technology firms need most? Brand building and Buzz.

Anyone out there know how to say Buzz Marketing in Chinese?

 

Technology Marketing spend on the Rise!

Buzz Factor – MEDIUM - Ok buzz marketers, this is good. Check out the latest IDC research on “Technology Marketing Spending and Resource Priorities for 2006”. The study showed tech marketing spending was up for the third year in a row.

Now here comes the really good part: ALSO for the third year in a row, technology marketing spending outpaced global IT spending. Good for us tech marketers, bad for our companies.

Why? It is costing more in marketing dollars to get every dollar in revenue!

The Buzz Bottom Line – differentiation is an investment. Stop schizophrenic marketing, and focus on key areas that you can OWN. There has never been a better time to be a marketer. There has never been a better time to be marketing technology. And it is never too late to get down to business and focus. Focus on the value your firm drives for real clients.

You don’t think you have differentiation? Not to worry. Marketing is about finding a need – in our case a business need – and filling that need with your product or service. That is why they call it Market-ing.

A cautionary Buzz KILL: Anything short of differentiation – of finding a need and filling it – is just advertising.

So find that need. Create your message and build your core platform around it. And above all, integrate your marketing efforts for maximum leverage on a finite business need. We may have big budgets this year (some of us at least) but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make them go as far as we can.

 

Forget Focus Groups – Use the Blogosphere!

Buzz Factor – HIGH – I found this little Buzz gem in B2B Marketing magazine 3/13/06. Check out the Buzz Factor this consumer products company got using the blogosphere to do its customer research:

Hughes, a St. Louis-based channel-marketing agency, sniffed out about 20 active home decorating bloggers. And for three months, it listened. More than 1,000 blog entries referenced the paint maker during that time. The research revealed that many people didn’t understand the difference between primer and paint. They knew the brand, but they didn’t know the company was in the paint business.

Ok, I realize paint and technology are quite different. BUT the idea remains: Tapping into the blogosphere community is a potential source of significant customer feedback (hello BUZZ), and it sure as heck beats a focus group any day. Technology focus groups in particular are, well, useless. Consumers of your product or service will NOT be able to evaluate it – let alone innovate on it – in a one-hour session just because you wrote the best test script EVER.

Buzz Factor – The Downside - Hey, blogs aren’t perfect either. By their very nature, they are the work of anyone who can fog a mirror, acquire Internet service, locate a blog and feel passionate enough to write about a product or service. Is that who you want to entrust your destiny to? Then again, who would you rather listen to – a passionate blogger, or a guy just coming in after work for a free $100 bucks and some coffee?

You make the Buzz call ...