Slashdot Mirror
The Product Marketing Handbook for Software, 4th Edition
Rick Chapman is also the author of In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters (previously reviewed on Slashdot.) He is also the publisher and editor of Soft*Letter and the Software Success Newsletter. The Handbook presents today's best practices based on Chapman's extensive experience, and includes up-to-date information on everything from advertising to OEM agreements, pricing to visual identity.
The book offers practical insights into vexing product marketing-problems. Throughout the book, Chapman gives relevant, down-to-earth descriptions of how to (and how not to) plan and deliver product-marketing efforts. There are case studies from every aspect of the high-tech industry, as well as detailed lists of dos and don'ts.
This is a great, safe place to learn about marketing, distributing and selling software before putting your own time and money at risk; the Handbook includes comprehensive checklists to help manage the product-marketing process. (These lists are also provided on a CD that accompanies the book.)
The text starts with an overview of some changes the software market has seen since the book's first edition. Chapman focuses on one of the most significant changes since then and discusses the rise of open source computing and Linux. He then continues to the book's raison d'être with a brief discussion of why software companies fail.
The first chapter covers market research. Before spending resources on writing code, it is always best to know if there is a real need for the product, and what other companies are up to in the intended market space. The chapter starts with an overview of several research techniques such as conjoint analysis, focus groups and competitive intelligence.
The next chapter discusses some of the hardest issues in marketing software: positioning, pricing and naming. A great example, the OS/2 debacle is a classic study in how not to name or position a product.
These chapters detail how to position a product, how to brand it, and how to price it so both you and your sales channels can make money off of it.
Chapter 3 discusses channel distribution. Channels are the organizations that move a product to the customer. First, you have to decide if you will provide the product as an ASP or shrink wrapped. In the latter case, selling the software requires a logistics backbone that small independent software vendors (ISVs) may not be able to afford. While some software packages can be successfully sold using online channels exclusively, these are the exceptions. Other ISVs have to utilize distributors, VARs, store chains and catalogs to move their products. Getting these channels to distribute the product is not as easy as sending them a copy and expecting them to "see the light." It takes a good understanding of the channels' business models and capabilities (as well as hard work on your part) to get to the point where a customer sees your product in a CompUSA or a printed catalog. Channels have to be located, contacted, convinced, trained and constantly supported to make this happen. This chapter also covers OEM and international distribution issues.
The next chapters discuss collateral advertising (brochures, white papers etc.), PR, advertising and sales promotions respectively. While none of these are rocket science, getting them wrong is a costly proposition. In addition to the effort involved and their cost, there are legal implications as well. For example, not properly estimating the return rate of a rebate coupon or making an inaccurate claim in a piece of collateral can land a company in hot water. Most ISVs outsource these activities to experts, but even doing that successfully requires at least a general understanding of these topics.
Chapter 8 discusses direct marketing. Some of the topics covered in this chapter are direct mailings, infomercials, telemarketing, mailing lists and fulfillment.
Chapter 9 covers software bundling. Bundling is where companies offer two or more products as a bundle. You're almostly certainly familiar with this from the way companies like Amazon offer two related products for a slightly better price then their combined prices. How and why to bundle are explained in this chapter.
Chapter 10 discusses the topics Internet marketing. In theory, the easiest way to market a product these days is over the web. One creates a website, submits it to Google and Overture (Yahoo!), and presto, there are visitors who buy the product. It's not so simple,though: The problem is luring potential customers to the website, keeping them there, and leading them to purchase the product. This chapter covers designing and optimizing websites as well as managing discussion groups, list servers and online ad campaigns. Another important topic is search engine optimization (in simple English, getting your website to the top of the Google and Overture Results pages). The text includes many dos and don'ts on how this is done.
Chapter 11 discusses trade shows. I don't think highly of tradeshows (see the rightful demise of Comdex) but if you decide to go down this road, here's how to do it properly.
Chapter 12 discusses sales methodologies and strategies. It opens with the trick question that most people get wrong: What is the number one reason that software companies fail? The correct answer, of course, is "not enough sales."
There are inherent reasons that you are a developer writing code or a sales rep doing sales. There are the basic character traits that make each of you good at what you do. I'm not saying that as a developer you can't sell. You may be able to -- but probably not as well as a seasoned sales rep. As with other issues, you will need to understand the dynamics of the sales process so you can create a product that makes it easier to sell. This chapter will introduce you to basic concepts such as the pipeline, prospecting and, the software selling cycle. It will also take you through the multiple steps of complex sales cycles which are a painful part of selling large systems. But, as bank-robber Willie Sutton supposedly said, that's where the money is. No less important is the discussion of negotiation and presentation techniques.
The last chapter in the book gives a brief overview of product management and the processes involved. While relevant and accurate, I would defer to other texts on the subject for a more thorough discussion of product management. See, for instance, Software Product Management Essentials by Alyssa S. Dver, or The Product Manager's Handbook by Linda Gorchels.
The book includes three appendices: A product marketing cost matrix, a product marketing resource directory and a product marketing timeline, and ends with a glossary and index. Attached to the book is a CD which includes all the checklists that are dispersed throughout the book as well as several sample files.
The Handbook's depth and breadth as well as the author's experience make it the best book on product marketing I've encountered.Reviewer Daniel Shefer is a Software Product Management expert and has written numerous articles on this topic. The Product Marketing Handbook, 4th Edition is available only through the author's website. For more about product marketing see: www.ProductMarketing. com.
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. At least until a second ago.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Yes, it's a great example of why you should be very cautious when working with Microsoft.
I mean, if you are serious about making money off of a product, is a book like this going to help you? Wouldn't you just be better off (assuming you have the money or access to money) outsourcing this to a consultant? I would guess it would pay off in the end. Just curious...
How to market your over priced book on Slashdot for free.
There's only one thing you have to know for Macintosh software:
http://www.versiontracker.com
I'm serious here. Mac software products live and die by their rating on VersionTracker. Tucows is similar for Windows software, but it just doesn't have the near 100% of users pull that VersionTracker does.
Oh, and one more hint. Since most people see your software while it's on VersionTracker's front page, release early and release often.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Wearing pants should always be optional.
In my limited experience, marketing books are usually not very useful. I assume this is because marketing people are better at marketing their book about marketing than they are at writing a good book. Which of course is understandable.
If i've learned anything from the tech industry. If you simply say "Linux, Database, Synergy, and dot com" anywhere in the product description you'll instantly make millions in the stock market and not need to actually sell your product.
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
1997 called, they want their strategy back. Don't worry it will happen again in about 10-15 years or so (remember 1986?).
...but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. One had better be SURE before one takes up DEALINGS which DISCLAIM and particlar LIABILITY or RESPONSIBILITY for anything that might go WRONG.
Yuck, marketing. Right up there with Lawyer and Politican for 'most fundamentally corrupt occupation'. 99% of the job is to trick people into buying shit that they neither want nor need.
I can't stand adverts these days--and I live in the UK, where advertising is relitively subtly. I think if I ever returned to the US I would die from an overdose.
Especially chapters 4 through 7. Albeit, judging from the review, the contents of some other chapters seems to be obvious, to say the least (Internet marketing, Web site optimization...) I guess the business bits are what developers are missing, not the technical ones! Then again, image is quite important and most of us devs only really care about internal structure, good design, etc. Seems like the book deserves spending some hours reading it to find out about those topics and whether they're obvious or not.
The revolution will not be televised.
The first step, I believe, to good marketing is having a good product. Easier said than done, I know, but if you spend your time making a great product then the marketing usually comes pretty easily.
Same thing goes for open source "products", if you want people to use your software, the best thing you can do is spend your time working on it (obviously), especially fixing problems other people have with your program.
As MS as shown, a good marketing strategy most often trumps a better product.
Books like these are good reading for sftwr designers. Some are obvious (determine product focus and need thereof), and including the flops definitely helps.
Much like the Linux marketing tends to be on the we're the good guys/we're free like beer.
Apple may have been much bigger than they are if the "We're just better" message resonated better than the fire-sale prices of early-MS ('like nickel beer night vs. Ballpark beer prices')
The software business is already oversaturated with people trying to sell code. Its a dead end, and this is why every diversified IT firm is going into services and why MSFT can't get above $30 to save its life.
Apparently the OS/2 betas used Star Trek names "Klingon", "Ferengi". When IBM decided to make "Warp" the official name of the product and launch it with a spacey futuristic marketing theme (right down to Patrick Stewart), Paramount got ticked and IBM dropped the space theme.
Rule #1: Marketing people are evil.
Rule #2: Even though they are necessary, Rule #1 is always true.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
...fron User Friendly can do it, how hard can it be?
If you want to make money by selling your software, it has to be marketed, promoted and then sold to the customer. Doing this is not as easy as it may sound.
However, marketing a book is easier than it sounds. All you have to do is have a fan write up a review on Slashdot and BAM free advertising to thousands.
Maybe it's not obvious from the review, but I would have thought that a big part of a software marketing program would be costing out how much the campaign will cost along with a dicussion on different methodologies for raising additional funds for paying for advertising, booths, travel, giveaways, etc.
While the focus seems to be on direct sales, I would be interested in seeing Chapman's comments on dealing with retailers. I have a bit of experience with the issues of dealing with retailers and would have liked to understand how to respond to how the retailers (Best Buy and Radio Shack specifically) carry out test marketing in their stores as well as helping underlings pitch your product to their management.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
how to make money on free software?!?!?
Wonder if they read the book while writing it?
I'm not a doctor, but I play one in bed.
2 caveats - the graphs/diagrams at the beginning look like photocopies of photocopies... kind of strange... and another curious thing is that when I got it in the mail, it smelled like tacos, but the smell is gone now :)
Platform independent bug tracking software
That pretty much assures me the author does not know what he's talking about. The vast majority of software packages are sold exclusively via the web. They are mostly Windows software, mostly small companies (<10 people, skewed towards the 1-man band), and mostly make such a modest amount of money that the author should perhaps be forgiven for not noticing where the bulk of the software market iceberg lies.
If you want to really learn about selling software, join the ASP and talk to the little guys who (cumulatively) are making most of the software that gets sold in the world today.
Disclaimer: I'm a member, but I (alas) make no money for telling people to join :-).
Just outsource it? Oh OK. I guess you really know how the small independants can compete with the big boys. Just pay someone to do it. Gosh, is it that easy? Then why didn't I just outsource the development too?! I must be an idiot.
LOL...subliminal marketing
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
The SCO edition of this book contains nothing but lists of copyright attorneys and their phone #'s.
Or you could encourage a system that does not rely on negative re-inforcement for the purposes of developing behaviour required to prop up its' archaic, unevolving, stagnant, corrupt and easily corruptable network. There is no software of greater worth than software that is given. How many burritos does one need, exactly?
I view this from a software developer point of view. This book is good and bad. It is good because it helps a programmer get the whole picture and in that may have a better understanding of his/her role. It is bad if a programmer uses a book like this for anything more than just a clearer picture of how things work. I have never met a great programmer that could also be a marketer of software. I am not saying it can't happen, I am just saying that I have known and do know a lot of programmers, the great ones would tend to find marketing software as boring and un inspiring. If you are a bad programmer, think about a career in marketing...it will make the programming area much happier.
Nuttles
Saved by Grace
First is simply understanding what's involved. Routinely, engineering types (I speak from experience) underestimate the effort and focus required to take a widget and convince someone to buy it. Having a brief understanding of the problem will allow for better project planning, bugeting and preparation, greatly speeding time to market.
Furthermore, if a marketing group's strategy and focii do not align with the prodct company's, such a mismatch is unlikely to produce a smoothly-running marketing campaign. Knowing enough about marketing to understand what marketers do (and evaluating how well do it) will allow you to select a provider and manage their efforts effectively. If the product company won't manage those wild-eyed creative types in marketing (who throw facts to the wind and revel in vague hype-speak; again, I speak from experience), who will? They will likely end up managing more than one would like, or else they give up in frustration; neither option will sucessfully increase business.
Finally, paying attention to marketing (rather than just the 'it's done, throw it over the fence' attitude commonly evidenced) is a proactive, agressive stance that helps eliminate factual, technical and tactical errors which can lead to costly reprints, embarassment in the marketplace, poor reception and possibly litigation due to misrepresentation.
As a marketing hack, I absolutely rely on the informed input of our engineering staff. I take time to learn the product so I can represent it fairly. The good ones in engineering take the time to learn what my group does so that they can support the work. The better our partnership is, the better represented the product is. One could almost graph it as a linear relationship.
To many, marketing is almost as unpalatable as politics, but it's a necessary evil. Knowing the rules and order of the game can be the difference between a sucessful, profitable experience and unmitigated, bank-draining disaster, no matter which group of over-dressed Powerpoint-wielding mercenaries is hired to do the dirty work.
"Yes, Jayne, she's a witch. She's had congress with the beast..."
"She's in Congress?" - Firefly, "Objects in Space
Here is some great marketing information based on the "22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" that has been adopted towards software, by an ISV. This is a windows-centric company, but still good info:
s _M arketing.html
http://software.ericsink.com/laws/Immutable_Law
(There is also a PDF download on this site)
(n/t)
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I totally understand what you are saying, and I appreciate your comments.
The need for a synergistic relationship between engineering and marketing is no doubt a must, however, it is important to remember the apparent target audience of this book.
I was not disputing the need for reciprocal knowledge of technical/marketing areas, but rather the need for a book such as this. You have to figure that the core audience of a work of this type would be a small software upstart (if in the technical field). Unfortunately, as it stands, if an upstart is going to go out into today's market without the basic marketing skills/knowledge that this book provides, then they will be dead in the water regardless. I am an engineer, but I also understand the need/merits of marketing. I just can't help but feel this book is targeted towards the helpless few who could never have such vision, and in turn, have already dug themselves into a hole.
In my experience, software companies (probably true of many other industries as well) fail because they are trying to sell kewl technology instead of selling a solution to the customer's problem.
FreeSpeech.org
I really liked "crossing the chasm", except for the bit about compensation for technical workers. On the whole, it's got a lot of insights that don't strike me as being stupid at all.
There are certainly things applicable to the open source market. And a market it is... why do people use Java or PHP or Tcl or Perl? Hint - it's not *just* about the technical differences.
Anyone got any other good recommendations?
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
Old Version + Bug Fix + 1 Eye Candy Feature -> Old Version - support -> Old Version Discontinued -> New Version (forced) -> $$$
No free patching. Repeat after me, if you want a bug fix, you have to pay for it.
In view of slashdot's majority view, I'm surprised the slashdot community is not more vocal when it comes to generic/specialized/independent software companies who on the average put out crappier, less-supported, very-closed software packages compared to MS, Adobe, etc.
AHHHH! THAT'S how to weaken ms (lower-casing/deprecation intentional/perpetual). Just keep cranking out code to do something needed more as a standalone than as part of a suite.
Make something that is EASY, so easy, to use that it reduces tech support calls to ms.
Just make sure to look for prior art, and to be sure your stuff plays nicely.
It might help if when marketing your tools or wares you:
--KNOW what your Customer is uing
--find suitable replacements or add-ons if needed
-- you have a working server and two or more clients (get laptops, if you have to, but don't force the client to have to put it on their machine until/unless they are "hooked"/"jazzed" by your stuff
-- you don't demand obtuse or obscene commitments of your prospects or you Customers
-- you offer an escape, to show you care
-- you GIVE SCREENSHOTS in marketing materials!
-- your box HAS representative, accurate, and meaningful artwork, not just some bland, blank, uninformative box. This isn't a VITAMIN; it's supposed to be a gadgety, attractive, USEFUL thingy or thing -- your demo is fairly functional
-- your demo can import your Customer's data, and give it back to them unadulterated
-- your stuff doesn't break other stuff
-- your code is minimal in space consumption (meaning, don't embed and hide Doom or Magic Carpet the way ms supposedly did back around 1996 in ms office/orifice)
-- you DON'T LIE to your prospective Customers
-- you don't charge an arm, a leg and a brain lobe for your product
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
In most tech companies, the marketing department is where the women are. It thus behooves geeks to have the largest and best-funded marketing department possible, so as to increase their chances of opposite-sex interfacing.
A large tech support department might work too, but tech support women tend to be uglier than marketing women.
All you have to remember is to deliver enabling technologies to your human resources in order to facilitate the concurrent development of an upside-down, inside-out, flat organisation that harnesses the synergy of the valuable employees in their various capacities with a view to consolidating the company's empowerment in all areas of the marketing mix so that ........
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Now, I can't be sure, but it sounds like Slashdot published a carefully placed success story. I work in marketing, and I can't say I blame Shefer or Chapman. But I've never seen such a blatant placement on Slashdot before.
-- SYS 64738 --
This free beer you speak of intrigues me. Do go on.
Ya think? Gee, now THERE's an understatement for you!
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I really should try crystal meth sometime.
The real problem was that nobody was pre-installing it, and IBM was also trying to push their own bus architecture on the PS/1, and people got confused about that too.
:-)
It was not hard to install if you knew what you were doing, but it could be impossible if you didn't.
Also, IBM just assumed all the printer and video companies would put out drivers, and they didn't. The smart thing would've been to PAY them and ship 'em with the package, but that didn't happen. So even if you got it installed it was entirely possible you wouldn't be able to get a decent printout or use your video card to the max.
The printing fiasco was a real shame, because Presentation Manager gave you great support for fonts, shearing, a lot of cool stuff. DeScribe was a really decent word processor/layout package.
I ported a DOS control system to OS/2 V1.3, and it rocked. Ran on a 25Mhz 386 with 8M of RAM, 50 threads, named pipes and shared memory between control processes and a separate graphics display, and it was solid as a rock in power plant conditions.
Now it sits next to my Amiga.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
It included tips on how to stand out from the crowd, e.g. by picking unusual stamps and using handwriting instead of sending serial letters to the CEO that just get dumped in the bin by the secretary.
-- .signature line.
Instead of buying the book, I might just market Nuggets , our new search engine for mobile phones, in my
I think the author's point, and the reviewer's reson for enthusiasm, is the good the book would do were it read by someone still pondering "Can I do this?" I wholeheartedly agree: someone in business should have looked at marketing before opening up shop.
"Yes, Jayne, she's a witch. She's had congress with the beast..."
"She's in Congress?" - Firefly, "Objects in Space
...market your product before it is even developed!
sure to win over your developers, and your customers won't be disappointed!!
all you will ever need to know about marketing and selling software:
1) "no" is not an effective sales technique.
2) Whatever the user asks for can be done in 6 months.
3) Get a deposit up front. And your commision.
4) Don't start development until after racking up sales, producing a product first is too risky. Sales are a good proxy for true market research.
5) Always list more features in your brochures than your competitors list.
6) Make sure everyone knows how 'shaky' your competitor is finanacially.
7) accuse competitor of selling 'vaporware'.
8) be buzz word compliant.
9) Be vauge. Don't let anyone force you to define what the actually software does. So no matter what you eventually deliver it is what was promised.
That's it. That's all you need...
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The stories (not just UL|FOAF) are rampant. Basically, "take our offer, or you'll face us a competitor."
. html
You also have to be careful (in Olympic lingo) "synchronized software development". Once the partnership is over, guess what's on their drawing board?
These should be considered using the word "together - a simple quiz for those who have been around for some time.
n.b. No google- or wick-cheaing!!! The answers should be clear enough.
1) Microsoft & IBM work on a windows-like product together what happened when they parted ways?
2) Microsoft & Sybase worked on a DBMS together. What Microsoft product arose when they parted ways?
3) Microsoft signed a contract to consult with Compu$serve to help them shore up their operations, etc. What online service arose when that contract was over?
4) When the specs for OLE2 were released, Microsoft was left in the dust. A company named Shapeware wrote a software product which was fully OLE2 compliant -- something Microsoft didn't accomplish until much, much later. (not unlike the fact many of their products do not make the same standards they hold 3rd parties to. Microsoft was in the process of writing a competitive product and decided to shop outside. What was that product?
I'm certain others can add - I'm just going to stop here so I'm not hogging the microphone.
\ As far as the naming conventions go, in the 10-15 years ago range, this was a common statement to those who were trying to make a move to OS/2:
DB/2, OS/2, PC/2
Half of a database running on half an operating system running on half of a PC.
Gotta love the peanut.
______________________________________ My Trunk Monkey can beat up your Trunk Monkey. http://www.suburbanautogroup.com/ford/trunkmonkey
As long as the packaging doesn't say "Mystal Creth"...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Guy Kawasaki's How to Drive Your Competition Crazy is great because it talks about what really makes people do your job for you in promoting your product. It also doesn't assume that you have a huge, traditional marketing department.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
if you want to make money, write a book about how to make money
did you forget to take your meds?
I count five degrees of separation there. That's for two people who live in the same country, and work in the same field. That hardly seems like convincing evidence of a conspiracy to me.
Reality check: 99.9% of your potential customers will never know your product even exists unless you a) are lucky enough to be working on the new killer app that would need to be drawn, shot, and quartered to die or b) spend a lot of time and/or money on marketing.
So how are the seminars?
I'm not sure how you got 5 degrees. They both write for Pragmatic. And Chapman seems to know Shefer well enough to have contributed some one-liners to a "Top 10 List" on Shefer's site. This comes up in the Google link I posted.
-- SYS 64738 --
I assume this is because marketing people are better at marketing their book about marketing than they are at writing a good book.
IOW: all marketteers really want to know is how to sell utter crap for the price of 24K gold.
And marketting-books authors MUST excell at that
(On a more serious note, yeah, I know there's a lot more to marketting than that - but it's hard to seperate chaff from grain)
Working for necessity's mother.
I've been to Pragmatic Marketing training. It's useful stuff for helping product management types get real about it takes for a product to become successful in the market.
After all, I've been learning over the years that with few rare exceptions, marketing drones are basically idiots. It absolutely drives me insane. Not nearly as bad as sales people who insist on "Networking... Networking... Networking...". A technical definition of the sales drone word networking has nothing to do with wires. It specifically relates to hanging around a bunch of other sales drones finding a way to leverage your current title which must match (Chief|Cheif|Executive|District|Manager|VP)+[A-Za- z ]+ with the word sales being optional. The leverage is not used to make sales, but instead is used to impress people in other organizations to realize that it's time for this person to move up the ladder at their company instead which provides at least one extra word in their new title. A proper sales drone is simply embarrassed to have a title which doesn't require two lines on a business card. The wrapping should occur at a maximum age of 24 or it's time to start selling used cars.
: :
My sales person rant being over, marketing fools are typically sales drones with less people skills and more capacity to interpret any random statistic into a completely inaccurate slogan misusing as many buzz words as possible. These slogans only make sense to corporate execs which have elevated through the ranks from sales drone or couch jockies which feel the gray matter in their skull is strictly for memorizing war stories and sports statistics.
A perfect example of marketting intelligence which I ran into yesterday is right here. Symantec recently announced that they'll be shipping their 2005 series of applications shortly. They'll stagger the releases over the next two months. The cost for Symantec Norton Antivirus 2005 is $49.95 for one, $89.95 for 3, $199.95 for 5, or $399.95 for 10. Let me break this down
- For 1 unit it's $49.95 per copy
- For 3 units it's $29.98 and 1/3 cent per copy
- For 5 units it's $39.99 per copy
- For 10 units it's $39.995 per copy
What this tells me is that if I buy in 3 packs, I can do this
Buy 6 copies for $179.90 instead of 5 units for $199.95 saving me $20.05 and getting an extra license for mom.
Buy 12 copies for $359.80 instead of 10 units for $399.95 saving me $40.15 and getting an extra one for mom and one for my neice.
The only kind of intelligence that can possibly produce a pricing scheme like this has to come from marketting since sales people aren't even smart enough to come this close.
My 2 cents.
Dear "westendgirl",
I would like to point out the following:
1. I paid THE FULL price for the Handbook.
2. I NEVER received anything of monetary value from Pragmatic Marketing for the articles I posted there.
3. I added a disclaimer to my review to clarify the relationship between Chapman and myself. It seemed to have been dropped by mistake during the posting process. I asked the editor to look into this. Specifically, I stated that I offered my comments to the Handbook's chapter on webinars. I was not paid for this advice in any way.
Sincerely,
Daniel Shefer
This is incredible. Go here to check out this dumb shit.
- Credit card (refused, 2 cards)
- Phone (voicemail)
- Email (bounced)
Should I trust a Marketting Guru who doesn't know how to treat his own (potential) customers?!?Tom Newton
I never said that you were paid by Chapman. I pointed out the relationship and that this appeared to be a placed piece. Given that you actually contributed to the book, it appears that you had reason to promote it and purchase a copy for yourself. Decling receipt of items of monetary value doesn't mean your review is without potential spin. I'm sorry to hear your disclaimer was dropped, because this entire thread would thus be unneccessary.
-- SYS 64738 --
***ProductMarketing.com is sponsored by Pragmatic Marketing. And who is Pragmatic Marketing? Well, it's a company that provides training seminars -- and they list Aegis Resources***
I have not nor have I ever had any business relationship with Pragmatic Marketing. As for links on their home page, it's not surprising that a site that deals with product marketing would list other sites that do the same. I am not an "alumni."
Dan Shefer first contacted me after reading "In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters" and does contact me from time to time ask my opinion on various facets of software marketing. Not surprising, actually. When he quotes me or uses information I provide, he of course gives me proper attribution. I've never met Dan in person, BTW.
***Now, I can't be sure,***
No, you can't be, since you have no idea of what you're talking about.
*** but it sounds like Slashdot published a carefully placed success story. I work in marketing,***
Not very well if this is an example of your behavior. Before making silly accusations, you might check your facts just a bit.
rick
You and Daniel Shefer have made it clear that you share connections. Shefer has stated that he contributed to the book in question, which further erodes potential for an unbiased review. Slashdot's book review policy says that a disclaimer must disclose any relationships -- Shefer says he attached such a disclaimer, but, if it was dropped, you should pursue Slashdot, not persons who question the author's relationship to the reviewer. (If you look further up the threads, you'll see I'm not the only person who suggested that Shefer was purposefully marketing your book.) Throughout your own postings to Slashdot, you typically include the name of your books or company URL, allowing you to promote your goods, which suggests you see the value of placing stories and comments on Slashdot. This does not mean that your book is without value or that Shefer's entire review is uncredible. However, there is the potential for bias, and it's important to point out possible relationships. See the Slashdot book review policy.
-- SYS 64738 --