A vent...or maybe an observation

I have a pet peeve. We all have a few and I’m no different. One of my bigger pet peeves is the abundance of idiotic radio and tv commercials out there, locally and nationally. I’m not talking about a couple either, I mean a boatload! Let me give you an example: Last night, while watching a local channel here in Minneapolis, a 30 second spot came on with a young attorney promoting his firm. Now, I’m no Marketing guru but I’m going to go out on a limb and say the next thing I saw was probably not a good move. The attorney started singing an obnoxious little ditty regarding how his firm will be the “rock in your time of need.” Then his colleagues entered camera range and started singing background vocals.

Hmmm...what’s wrong with this picture.

I could understand if the attorney was doing some sort of parody or making fun of himself, but that’s the thing...he wasn’t! He was being sincere! I know that’s exactly the kind of attorney I want to turn to in “my time of need.” What an idiot. Why on earth would someone spend prime-time money on and ad that insults the intelligence of his potential customers?
Here’s a tip: If you don’t have the money to pay for an ad firm, don’t try to whip up an ad yourself. Today, marketing and advertising is all about branding, positioning, and identity. With this commercial, no matter how impressive this firm’s track record is, they now are going to be labeled as unprofessional and amateurish.

Moral of the story: Respect the intelligence of your customers when advertising your product or service. They are probably a hell of a lot smarter than you are.

Rant concluded.


Thanks for reading.
Mike

PS: I have been getting blasted for not including any pictures in my blog. I’ll try to get some in with the next post.

PPS: Yes, I am using MacJournal 4 to publish my blog.

Exposure, mind share and the retail channel

While I agree with the old adage, "image is everything," I also am a firm believer that exposure is everything, and then some.

Let me explain.

Mariner is a small company. Tiny compared to some. Matter of fact, we probably couldn't even fill a Microsoft conference room! And as tiny companies and startups can attest, getting mind share with your products and publicizing your company is one of toughest challenges out there.

So what do we do?

Many things but here is one example:

We have been fortunate to have some success in a few different channels. Our product line can be found not only on our web site, but also in many retail stores such as the Apple Stores, CompUSA, Office Depot, Fry's, and several others. Some day I will write about the "process" in which a small developer can get their product(s) on the shelves of these major retailers - believe me, it's _not_ a painless process. Having our products in these retail stores gives us exposure to retail buyers we never could of reached. Thousands upon thousands of potential customers put eyes on your product(s) when they are browsing the aisles of their favorite retail outlet. And while we ultimately want the guy or gal browsing the retail store to purchase our product, it's not all that bad if he/she doesn't.

Sound crazy?

Here's what I mean. If Joe Blow walks into his local Apple Store, picks us our MacJournal box, and yet doesn't buy, we still have _exposed_ a potential future buyer to our brand, our product, and the category that it fills (ex: MacJournal = journaling and blogging). The next time Joe sees an ad of ours in a magazine or passes by our booth out at the Macworld Expo, he will, if we made a good enough first impression, associate the two experiences. The more exposure to our brand, the more associations he makes, and the more Joe Blow will only think of MacJournal when he thinks about this specific category and ultimately feel confident in buying.

That's mind share and if you get it, count yourself lucky.

Mike

An Intro

Hi. I'm Michael Wray. I'm the President of Mariner Software. Thanks for reading. A while ago, one of our customers recommended I write a blog and share some of the inner workings of a software company, specifically ours. My first reaction, I recall, was why would anyone share pseudo-confidential details in this fairly competititve industry? I wouldn't. In this risk/reward kind of world, I didn't see any benefit. Count me out.

Fast forward several months...

I caved. Call it peer pressure. :-) The reality is that this blog gives me a good venue to give you a unique perpective of an industry that, at times, can be pretty exciting. And who knows, maybe a few of you will find it interesting! I'll even get some of the other folks here to put in their two cents every once in awhile.

Therefore, starting today, once a week or so, I will share some of the more intriguing nuggets of our company and my perspective on certain snippets of the software industry. I obviously won't give away any of our corporate secrets but I will try to make this blog worth keeping up with.


Talk to you soon.

Mike