Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

Marc Shillum, Senior Director of Global Brand Creative at eBay, left attendees at last week’s “SHYFT Design + Innovation Conference” with 11 thoughts on successful product marketing strategies going forward. Here they are:

• Talk about the problem, not the product. It helps the customer justify the purchase.
• Define the vocabulary of the experience, not the slogan.
• Tell the story of the interface, ideally with a product demonstration.
• Create an understandable cadence, something predictable like the routine of product and software launches from Apple.
• Ask for help to achieve the product aspiration.
• Market small bursts . . . work fast.
• Exist in interactive media such as Kickstarter where you get feedback on the product.
• Componentize the product, maybe by creating modules that can be combined in various ways to create new versions.
• Correlate marketing and technology roadmaps.
• Reorganize the business to put brand and product together.
• Create shared key performance indicators.

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