What are the significant high-tech marketing trends for 2007?

The continuing rapid pace of technology advancements and integration will require retooling of marketing campaigns. More attention will be paid to competitive analysis and differentiation because in most technology sectors, there are more competitors than ever before. Technology products and services are by their nature complex to understand and customers are starting to push back, demanding more simplicity, ease of use, and fit with their needs. Marketers must be clearer and more succinct with their messages and promotional content. Technology trends such as multimedia convergence and mobility will yield more marketing platforms from which to reach potential customers. Marketers must also find a new balance between electronically delivered content and old-fashioned in-person communication to get the customer's attention.


TECHNOLOGY MARCHES ON
Maybe it's just too easy to turn ideas into startups these days. You start with a laptop and a home office, throw some savings into the venture, wait a year or two and then Google or Yahoo or Microsoft wants to buy your latest and greatest tool for squeezing even more digital data onto the web or into a cell phone. Whatever the reason for this continuing technology surge, it shows no signs of stopping. Just look at wireless mobility and what's happened just in the last year. You can do almost anything on a cell phone now that you could do on a laptop (albeit a little less comfortably). As the packaging changes, and communication modes proliferate, and as we figure out ways to move information around, so technology solutions evolve. In all technology sectors, time to market is becoming shorter and competitors are becoming more diverse and numerous.

When the competitive environment heats up, it's time to be more vigilant about what your competitors are doing so you can stay one step ahead of them. More than ever before, continuous updating of your competitive analysis is necessary. Not only must you identify and analyze new entrants to the market, but you also need to pay attention to the often miniscule differences between your competitors' products and your product. More players mean greater similarity in products, so it's more difficult to even identify any real differences.

DROWNING IN COMPLEXITY
Why does an ordinary cell phone need 47 different functions? Judging from some of the recent backlash from consumers on technological complexity, the manufacturers should have stopped at 46. That's just one example of the over-engineering that is inherent in technology products today. Why do companies do this? To gain competitive advantage, to draw attention away from previous inferior products, or simply, because they can. This is bad marketing. Companies really, really need to understand the customer needs first and then build the product to meet those needs and nothing more. Maybe when the bottom line suffers, high-tech companies will finally get it.

What can you do if you work for a company that is launching an over-engineered product? Well, if it's already built, it's a little late to have them remove functionality. However, you can choose to create messages around the features and functions that have more value to your customers, and don't even mention the rest. (Let the customers read about those extra things in the Appendix of the manual.) When you do write marketing content, make sure to be clear about the product and what it does, and reduce the use of technical buzzwords. Keep it short, simple and to the point.

NEW MARKETING PLATFORMS
It's only a matter of time before we start to routinely do marketing on the tiny screens of wireless mobile devices; in fact, it's already starting to happen. Now that service providers are teaming up with content providers, the convergence of multimedia is actively underway. Any advertising you can place on a web page, in email, or on TV can be viewed on a mobile device. The only difference is that of size; you don't want your customer to have to scroll in ten different directions to view your ad. You will need to have less content with a clear and simple message for this to be an effective form of advertising. The whole point of wireless mobility is to save time and connect from anywhere, so don't bog down the user with unnecessary content.

PERSON VERSUS MACHINE
With the proliferation of electronic media in our daily lives, people are beginning to crave human contact again. The Internet, TV, email, cell phones, and iPods all compete for our constant attention, once we have mastered the use of all of them. Wouldn't it be nice to just sit down and have a conversation with another human once in a while with no technology present in the room?

As marketers today, we need to think about providing more opportunities for human conversations during the marketing and sales process for high-tech products. In a way, that can be an important differentiator. There are many ways to implement this in a marketing campaign. Have one of the execs give a talk before a live audience (instead of a webinar). Meet face to face with existing customers to obtain feedback on products under development or those planned for the future. Have your sales team schedule more one-on-one sales calls, with the goal of cultivating the personal relationship first, the business relationship second.

Catherine Kitcho
The Launch Doctor
January 2007