Marketing high technology

How do you market an intangible product? As technology vendors, we have the unenviable task of marketing a solution that will take a while to show results, unlike consumer electronics or FMCG sectors where results are instantaneous.

In technology marketing, especially when you are marketing a solution like Cognos (Cognos is the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management systems which enable enterprises to turn reams of data stored on their computer systems into valuable business information), we need time to show off the advantages of our products.

We cannot indulge our consumers in experiential marketing. As the attention economy becomes more competitive, marketers are pulling out all the stops to capture consumers. Experiential marketing embraces event and location based marketing efforts that bring potential customers together face-to-face with products and services to create a connection, and a longer-lasting impression.

Creative function

A lot of marketing is creative. It's strategic. Cerebral. Even the most brilliant campaigns suffer occasional setbacks, and it is during those moments of crisis that the true mettle of the marketing team is tested.

The growing importance of business intelligence is quickly creating new competitors, as dedicated business-intelligence vendors and traditional platform vendors vie to meet users' analytical and reporting needs.

It is predicted that the demand for business-intelligence software will grow 15 per cent over the next several years, becoming a US $3.8 billion worldwide market, though the market is fractured and marked by heavy competition. And any time you see a market growing, that's going to bring intense competition.

Tech marketing

This is the dawn of tech marketing. I have always believed marketing is crusade that requires careful commitment. All business is local. The consumer is local, living in a local market, subject to local conditions and abiding by local traditions.

However globalisation means trends and aspirations migrate faster than people. Successful companies understand this reality. They capitalise on their international exposure and know-how and, most importantly, they apply their knowledge of the consumer's expectations in a locally relevant manner.

The Middle East is not one market: it is a geographic space with several common criteria. Though regional harmonization is happening across the Middle East, we face geographic diversity as well as demographic and psychographic variances.

This means the relationship between brands and their customers has become much more complex. For one thing, consumers simply know more than they used to. The Internet has opened up a wealth of information, allowing for instant price and quality comparisons.

Consumers are demanding more from the brands they love than simple reliability; passionate consumers want their brands to become a form of self-expression. They are customising products and services to achieve that.

Our first task is to define the market and its competitive environment precisely. Too often marketing programmes are designed in an ivory tower. Those programmes hatched in isolation can never work. Feedback from the field is critical. They say that Dave Packard, one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard, used to say that marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.

Market segments

We have to understand the market segments and why are losing or winning in each of them. Once that is done, marketing can devise a product to meet the needs of the customer.

We take the devices we have, add Cognos's credibility and a future direction and dynamically present the product line as a complete solution, a product line customers believe they need. In the process, we produce a strategy the field sales force can believe in as well.

I believe we have to plan products, not devices, and then give products a soul. To tackle competition head on, we engineer promotions, market internationally, motivate salespeople and rally distributors. Above all, with technology products and solutions, servicing and supporting customers is of critical importance. Total customer satisfaction, must be every high-tech marketer's ultimate goal

A big crisis is best answered by a crusade. Cognos is loaded with product champions and marketing intellectuals and people assume any problem can be solved.

When our competitors see this, they fall into the trap of confronting our strengths head on. They, very often, legitimise our programme by putting out an inferior imitation. They end up with an incomplete product that lacks many of the required peripherals without the support to meet customer needs.

Yes, marketing is civilized warfare.