Talk:Marketing

What is marketing and what it is good for

The following is probably a redundant consideration of mine, written several years ago. I am leaving it here for the case someone finds it interesting --Dan Polansky 05:50, 4 Oct 2007 (PDT)

Marketing is an activity directed toward understanding and maybe conquering the market. But which market? What is there to understand? Of course, there is a need to understand demand and supply. To understand demand, you may inquire about what the users or people want and what is most critical to them. Or better, you may try to understand who your potential users are. What kind of people are they? What are their roles? To understand supply means basically to understand your competitors.

Understanding your competitors is beneficial for several reasons. Firstly, when you understand your competitors, you are able to say what it is that you do better than they do. If there's nothing you do better then they do, drop the project. You may then concentrate on that which you do really well, rather than trying to do something which somebody else already does pretty well. Secondly, you are able to explain your users what your added value really is, because the added value of your solution for a particular purpose is the basic value of your solution, minus the basic value of the best alternative. You should be able to tell what the best alternatives to your solution are, otherwise you're in a project not really knowing why. Maybe you're just having fun, but that's not what users are really interested in.

To conquer your market means to provide the added value of your solution to people who can really make use of it. You can consider your solution as a resource. A resource which cannot be found is often practically equivalent to a resource which you do not have. That means that you have to make it as easy as possible for people to find your resource, and to decide if the resource does what they really want. Unfortunately, this question cannot be ultimately resolved until you really try the solution out. This is also one of the reasons why easy installation is of crucial importance. If the users already knew your product is what they want, they would take the pain to install your product even if the installation is difficult.