A Few Good Sources for Ideas; Inspiration; and Lessons on Product Marketing

I recently came across three blogs that I thought were good resources on product marketing.  Marketing is a tricky animal.  One of the biggest challenges in effective marketing is pushing ourselves beyond our own selfish needs and perspectives, to see the needs and perspectives of our customers and align our products with them from the start, get them back on track in the middle, or try again at the end.  It’s a process that requires consistent upkeep, continual assessment, and renewal.  Strangely, I think I heard that last line at a friend’s wedding somewhere this summer.  Different context, but same idea.

• PragmaticMarketing: Read this post about The New Rules of Marketing.  It’s not just another post discussing the impressive marketing job done by Apple with the Iphone.  What I like about this post is that it draws attention to the fact that Apple built a phone that is a product people want to talk about.  Have you noticed that their commercials on TV are simply a hand using the Iphone and showing it’s features.  No one yelling in your face "$129 value all for $19.99".  No text flying all over the screen.  And it’s not depending on the SuperBowl for national acclaim.  It’s already a product that simply speaks to people in a way that makes them want to spend a sizable amount of money on a phone.
• DuctTapeMarketing Blog: This blog on marketing is no secret and has enjoyed quite a bit of popularity.  The author, John Jantsch, gives a lot of great ideas, stories, and lessons to small businesses that need to not only get out the word, but get it out in the right way.  His post entitled, How Long Should it Take For My Marketing to Work?, is a great start.  Simply put, it takes time.
• UserDriven:  The blog’s subtitle says it all, "Developing Products and Services from the Outside In".  The blog is written by a product manager at ATG, a software company.  The insights are valid for hard products and software alike.  I found this post, How Many User Tests Should You Run, to be particularly interesting.

Finally, one last quote, which you very well may have heard before, but I enjoy every time I hear it.  A little marketing inspiration, if you will…  This was posted on PragmaticMarketing.com’s blog, in Are You a Gazelle or a Lion?:

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up and knows it must run
faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in
Africa, a lion wakes up and knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or
it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle;
when the sun comes up, you better start running. –An African proverb