"Very knowledgeable, easy to communicate with, very proactive. I can't think of anything you could improve; everything went very well."
Tod
Schiff
Field Applications Engineer
Analog Devices
TechPromo, January 2007
Marketing Newsletter For Technology Promotion
Market Planning - What Do You Really Need To Make Money And Keep Your Job?
Quick
Tip -
Anatomy of a Successful
LAN Product
Too Many Tasks?
Many
of us use December and early January to plan marketing tactics and last-minute
strategy. You may have a general idea of the campaigns and supporting pieces you
need to create, but some of them have higher priority. Thinking about everything
you need to do may give you a headache.
There are ways to ease the load.
Lessons From Schedule Changes
First, think about what's really
necessary for the anticipated sales, and what you do best. Then have the courage
to eliminate the less-pressing tasks, or delegate the important ones you can't
do. Early in my career as a design engineer, marketing managers would come to
me asking for more product features beyond the specification. They'd also want
me to meet the original release schedule with the extra features. At first, I
tried to satisfy them, and got beaten up over missed schedules.
After awhile, I responded to requests for additional features with, "Fine. That will cost you an additional X-months of schedule time. Are you SURE you need those features?" That usually caused deep thought about what the product really needed to sell and the market window it had to hit. If the original spec was complete enough and the schedule was tight (like always), they'd back off.
Choosing
Priorities
You have at least two challenges - tasks that need doing and
the people to do them. Order the tasks by deciding which ones will be essential
to profits, need to be done first, are somewhat fun, and have the best chance
of getting done with the available resources.
Every business needs a mix of long- and short-term profits to survive. The way you support that mix is unique for every business, and beyond the scope of this short article. You'll also need to revisit long-term plans regularly - your market will change. The point is, you need to look at next quarter and the next couple years.
Wonder why I included fun here? You're far more likely to finish things you enjoy at least a little. Not all the required work will be fun, but you need some fun tasks to reward yourself for completing less-fun ones.
Expect The Boss Factor
The boss' priorities may not be the same as yours. He's usually got some of
the same ones you do. But he may feel influences you don't, and naturally he has
the final say on what gets done. Hopefully, you respect each other's judgment.
When you've achieved consensus on the tasks and their order, you need to line up people to do them. It's tempting to try doing everything yourself. But spouses will only tolerate a few 80-hour work weeks, and the quality of your work starts to suffer after a few of them.
Line Up Experts In Advance
You may not have all the expertise yourself anyway. Line up the technical
experts you'll need for facts and figures to promote those new products. Product
release schedules may not be fixed in stone, but they're usually pretty firm.
Those schedules will show you when supporting materials and experts need to be
available.
Even when all the resources exist in-house, you may not get to everything. Then it's time to call outside experts. Line up technology writers and consultants in advance, people you can call when the crunch comes. Experts in your product's application space who can also write are invaluable to your marketing campaign.
Your boss may say there's no budget for outsourcing. Remind him of the expected profits from those new products, and the contribution trade journal articles, PR, application notes, and other collateral make to sales. A value argument may bring him around.
Sometimes, the market changes quickly. Are you always going to get it right? No, but make good first choices, put qualified people in place to execute them, and you'll get it right most of the time.
Anatomy
of a Successful LAN Product
Most product successes start long before the
development plan. I began attending IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standards meetings in
February 1986. Over the next ten years, I represented two different companies
at those meetings, and worked on their LAN products. It made me very familiar
with Ethernet physical-layer standards, and the players in the Ethernet LAN market.
In 1994, the emerging technology was 100BASE-TX, ten times Ethernet's original data rate on inexpensive unshielded twisted pair cable. It borrowed the physical interface spec from X3T9.5's FDDI on copper, which would reduce the amount of time to get a firm standard. Conversations with other meeting attendees told me what additional features a 100BASE-TX product needed beyond standards compliance. Those conversations also told me there was a big demand for faster Ethernet. More chats with prospects filled in most of the blanks, and let me write a fairly complete specification for a physical interface chip.
I'd seen late products result from insufficient resources, and watched a chip get released for Ethernet's older coaxial standard when it was being eclipsed by the then popular 10BASE-T twisted-pair standard. So I knew I had to choose a product that would be released in time to hit a new, high-demand market. And I had to show the CEO and his VPs the return would justify the people I needed to develop it.
The LAN marketing manager and I helped management understand the likely profits from that chip. In return, they gave me the engineers I needed to meet the market window. I designed part of the chip myself. But I resisted doing more than was necessary, and let my chosen project leader and the engineering team do their jobs.
Meanwhile, the LAN marketing manager called on prospects to reassure them the chip had all the features they wanted. He also made sure we understood what the chip had to include for those prospects. Everyone's enthusiasm and concentration on necessary details resulted in a product within a couple months of its deadline, the first 100BASE-TX transceiver on the market. Sales of that product exceeded everyone's wildest dreams.
Looking back, that chip's success came from timely execution. It had the right features, but we got it to market on time. Well-timed articles and press releases about it got the word out to prospects, many of whom became customers. The written campaign produced far more customer inquiries than we got from one-on-one customer visits.
Your company invests a lot of its talent and development time in every new
product. Be sure to plan for article and PR promotion timed to support the product's
release, along with regular customer contact. Both are necessary. A balanced plan
will increase sales and profits, and should have a positive effect on your career.
Mark Bohrer is a technology writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Call him at (408) 866 9405, or email to ask about his availability to write online copy, articles and white
papers. He also does technical marketing research. Mark spent 25 years designing
and managing semiconductor products for analog and networking markets.
