I don’t create content THAT quickly.
But I do prioritize iterative action.
(Just don’t look at my draft 0.5.)
Original video on Instagram.
Author Archives: bredemarket
Marketing and writing services.
Doing Case Studies the Wrong Way…and Loving It
One of Bredemarket’s services is case study writing—I wrote a dozen case studies for one client alone.
But what is a case study? Here’s how HubSpot defines the purpose of a case study:
“In marketing, case studies are used as social proof — to provide buyers with the context to determine whether they’re making a good choice.”
In short, case studies are wonderful buyer-facing content.
Normally.
One of my clients needed four case studies…that would NEVER be seen by a potential or actual buyer. They would ONLY be seen by internal staff.
Did I say “you’re doing it wrong”?
Definitely not.
After all, if case studies motivate external audiences, why not use them to motivate internal audiences?
(Suitcase image CC BY 4.0)
Go-to-Market Partners
The next paragraph is inaccurate.
Go-to-market initiatives have ONLY two audiences: the external prospects who are the hungry people (hopefully) wanting the product, and the internal staff in the company who deliver the product.
You know who I forgot? The partners.
Such as the very important partner for MorphoTrak’s Morpho Cloud back in 2015:
“Morpho worked with Microsoft Corporation to develop a cloud service for Morpho’s flagship Biometric Identification Solution (MorphoBIS). Morpho Cloud is hosted on Microsoft Azure Government, the cloud platform with a contractual commitment to support several U.S. government standards for data security, including the FBI’s CJIS Security Policy. Backed by the Microsoft Azure Government platform, Morpho Cloud complies with the stringent security standards for storage, transmission, monitoring, and recovery of digital information.”
When Names Infringe (Biometric Products Coming to America)
Then there was the time I was performing U.S. go-to-market activities for a global identity/biometric offering.
The product marketing launch went great…
…until the home office received a communication from a competitor.
A competitor with a previously existing product with a name VERY similar to that of our subsequently launched solution.
Oops.
We definitely made a mistake by not thoroughly checking the name.
Of course, with the way that some companies want to imitate the things their competitors do, I’m sure some firms perform this intentionally, rather than accidentally.
(McDowell’s 2017 West Hollywood pop-up image from Buzzfeed, https://www.buzzfeed.com/morganshanahan/we-went-to-a-real-life-mcdowells-from-coming-to-america-and)
Too Many Dollar Trees?
Are there/will there be too many Dollar Trees in or near Ontario, California?
This used to be my Alpha Beta, a grocery store chain acquired by Kroger and Albertsons.
Then it became a 99 Cents Only Store. (Actually a 99.99 Cents Only Store, but close enough.) And we know what happened there.
Now this location, on Mountain Avenue near D St. in Ontario, California, is slated to become a Dollar Tree. (Actually a Dollar Twenty Five Tree, but close enough.)
Just like the former 99 Cents Only Store on Euclid near Francis, which has already reopened as a Dollar Tree.
And just like the three Dollar Trees within a two mile radius in Ontario, Upland, and Montclair.
Maybe it’s just me, but I doubt all of them will survive. The dollar store market hasn’t gotten appreciably better.
More on Go-to-Market Tiers
In my post “Seven Essential Product Marketing Strategy and Process Documents, the August 30, 2024 Iteration,” I alluded to the fact that not all go-to-market efforts are the same.
You can’t just slap a few things together in three days and say your go-to-market is complete. You need a plan on how you will go to market, including the different tiers of go-to-market efforts (you won’t spend four months planning materials for your 5.0.11 software release)…
Unless you’re in very unusual circumstances, your go-to-market efforts will encompass variable efforts.
Two tier
In its simplest form, you will have two tiers. For example, Holly Watson of Amazon Web Services distinguishes between “launches” and “releases.”
Release to me relates to the update of an existing product vs. a net-new addition to a solution offering. It’s common to have multiple releases a quarter vs. large launches 1-2x per year.
Three tier
You can get fancier.
My former product marketing team devised a three-tier system, in which the top tier encompassed a full-blown effort and the bottom tier just had some release notes, a bit of internal education, and maybe a blog post.
Defined tiers
But as I said on August 30, you need to define the tiers beforehand. Don’t just shoot from the lip and say you want a blog post, a press release, and a brochure…oh, and maybe a cool infographic! Yeah!
Establish your tiers.
Establish the content for each tier.
Execute.
And repeat.
In Case You Missed My Incessant “Biometric Product Marketing Expert” Promotion
Biometric product marketing expert.
Modalities: Finger, face, iris, voice, DNA.
Plus other factors: IDs, data.
John E. Bredehoft has worked for Incode, IDEMIA, MorphoTrak, Motorola, Printrak, and a host of Bredemarket clients.
(Some images AI-generated by Google Gemini.)
Always Remember…and Differentiate
I’ve railed against copying the competition with “me too” messaging…and this morning I ate my own wildebeest food and did something about it.
While Bredemarket usually doesn’t mark significant dates, I observed 9/11 on my social channels. While 9/11 is relevant worldwide, it is especially relevant to Bredemarket’s identity/biometrics customers because of its revolutionary impact on our industry.
But I didn’t use the tried-and-true messaging with an image of the former World Trade Center and the words “never forget.” After 23 years, we’ve seen that message thousands of times. It blends into the landscape, like a mention of the band the Dead Kennedys that no longer raises an eyebrow.
So instead I differentiated Bredemarket’s message and said “always remember” with an image of the destruction to the Pentagon. Perhaps that will wake people up to what happened that day.
Apologies to Shanksville. We will always remember you also.
WHY Ask Why?
LHC shared this bit of history from the advertising world.
If you don’t remember, “Why ask why? Try Bud Dry” was a short-lived advertising tagline from a short-lived Budweiser product from some short-lived part of the early 90s…
But “why ask why” is not just an old advertising slogan. It’s also an excellent question in its own right.
If you’ve read my writing for any length of time, you know I spend a lot of time on the questions why, how, and what.
Heck, I even wrote a book about those (and three other) questions. Then I rewrote the book when I came up with a seventh question.
But during the last few years I failed to realize one true power of these interrogative questions—and other interrogative questions such as who (an important question for identity folks).
The power, according to Camp Systems, is this:
In negotiating, if you start asking questions with these words, you’ll invite more thoughtful and thorough answers.
Now look at what happens when you start a question with a verb….These questions can be answered in a single word, and it’s usually yes, no, or maybe.
I won’t go into detail about why the Camp Systems devotees—the “start with no” people—despise “maybe” responses and REALLY despise “yes” responses.
For my present purpose I’ll simply say that you receive a lot more information from interrogative questions.
And if you want to maintain a customer focus, don’t you want information from the customer so you can understand them?
Whoops, let me rephrase that. What are the best types of questions to ask when you really want to understand a customer?
Practice, practice, practice…
Positioning
Remember my August 30 post about seven essential product marketing strategy and process documents?
Well, I posted a follow-up on LinkedIn (as part of my “The Wildebeest Speaks” series) about one of those seven documents.
If you’re not already following Bredemarket on LinkedIn (why not?), be sure to read “A Deeper Dive Into Positioning,” and the complexities that occur when you have to position and message for multiple products, personas, industries, use cases, and geographies.
Even for a single product such as the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service, the matrix can get pretty hairy.
Bredemarket 