marketers

Engineers hate “Pre-launch” activity.

Never tell an engineer that you are doing “pre-launch” marketing.  You will get anger, pleading, and hatred in ways you cannot imagine.  Why is this?  Why do engineers hate “pre-release” marketing activities?  And why do marketers love it?

Engineers hate it for an obvious reason: “what if that feature doesn’t work or live up to the hype?”  Fear of under-delivering is a healthy fear for your engineers, but it is also irrational.  If the product under-delivers, you’ve got bigger problems, usually, than the fact that you made bigger promises early.  My advice: deliver! Also commonly, engineers can’t understand the need for pre-launch buzz and hype. 
Marketers want pre-launch buzz and hype.  Why?  Three simple (and one sad) reason.
1. Sad reason: because many don’t know how to add much value in “pre-launch” phase.  It’s sad because there is much that can be done: competitive analysis, pricing studies, etc.  Those are not the sexy parts of marketing however, so they get “not done”, and pre-launch becomes the exciting focus.
2. Simple Reason: Economics.  Increase demand!  If you can get an early start on “creating unfulfilled demand” than when the product does launch, there will be a rush to buy and be proud you got one!
3. Simple Reason: Measure Demand.  If you do the buzz marketing, and get no buzz… you may have an issue (or need to tweak your marketing/positioning).
4. Simple Reason: Press.  Getting press involved early means getting 2 stories instead of just 1.  Without a pre-launch story, all you get (often) is the “launch” story.
Now get out there and “pre-launch” something!

Referral Marketing and League of Legends

First, if you love PC games… or even just like them… you HAVE to try this Free downloadable game: League of Legends.  It is really an amazing game, and it’s free.  How easy is that.  Best of all, if you use MY track-able link: http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4e80eb3ecc45f219796048  then, I get bonuses for you joining and could even earn the right to “design my own character”!

What was that?  A perfect example of referral marketing in action.  In truth, I do love the free game league of legends, and I do want you to try the game!  Here is that link again in case you missed it: http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4e80eb3ecc45f219796048 .   Why do I care?  Because IF people use my referral link (which is easily track-able and associated with my account), THEN I get stuff.  Some of it REALLY cool!  

Referral Marketing works.  It worked “before” Facebook.  It works “after” Facebook.  

Before Facebook:  People got paid to get their friends to buy stuff (Tupperware Party), and they could get a discount if they brought a friend, and they could get real hard cash if they referred somebody to somebody else…  

During Facebook: Everybody got crazy about this “Free” system that seemed to do referrals for free… but there was a cost: it was called SPAM.  And Facebook couldn’t afford to pay that cost any more.

Now After Facebook (because they virtually removed the SPAM capabilities of viral apps): Referral systems STILL work.

If you are NOT giving rewards for referrals for your business… I ask, why not?  Isn’t that cheaper than advertising?

Karmaback has actually built a FULLY track-able Online Referral system…. but we shut down the project once our Sweepstakes began to take off in popularity.

Any interest in us restarting the referral SaaS tool?

Marketing is WAY harder than Engineering

I’ve written on this topic before, but I just thought it would be worth a mention again.  I do think Marketing is harder/more challenging than Engineering, and I’m starting to think I understand why…

  1. Marketers have to figure out “what” to build… Engineers figure out how to build it.
  2. Marketers have to choose what to say, and when to say it… Engineers get to stay quiet in public.
  3. Marketers have to figure out why something isn’t selling well… Engineers get to work on the next thing.
  4. Marketers stress over business success and deadlines… Engineers fret over deadlines (sometimes).
  5. Marketers micro-optimize the un-measurable… Engineers optimize the measurable.
  6. Marketers have to deal with shifts in culture, business, and fashion… Engineers work with laws of physics.
Having been (and loved being) an Engineer, I can also make 1 more statement that I think perhaps most interesting of all….
Engineers get to see, daily, their progress and fruits of labor… they are appreciated for it.
Marketers often can’t see the effects of their work at all… and many question a Marketers value.
So, pat a Marketing guy on the back next time you see one… believe me, they are likely stressing more than you are!