Express the Buyer's Nonsense

"Sales and marketing people put a ton of effort into providing the "rational justification" for a buying, joining, whatever-it-is decision … Your passionate users don't need you to help justify the product, they need you to help them justify the passion."

--Kathy Sierra

Kathy's right. We marketing types do like to go on and on about features and benefits. That's why a lot of high-tech marketing comes off as generic.

As I've said in this blog before, business buyers are consumers too. When I said that, I was commenting on a Boston Consulting Group article, "Thriving in a World of Consumer Control." The BCG point -- that media companies selling to consumers need to apply consumer market segmentation strategies. These are strategies that "pull" consumers with highly differentiated offerings rather than try to "push" generic technology. My point -- that business buyers also require differentiated treatment.

BCG says to map your offering against what the customer needs. Kathy says to map your offering against what gets the customer excited. That's classic MTV style, MySpace style, Apple style consumer marketing — which helps explain why these media companies outperform their peers. The technology doesn't just make sense -- it expresses the buyer's nonsense -- which makes perfect marketing sense.