Identity/biometrics/technology marketing and writing services
“Let’s not market that product until the new year. Let’s not even build anticipation for the product until the new year. What could go wrong?”
Plenty.
Bring someone on board NOW to market your anti-fraud technology product NOW.
Bredemarket Content-Proposal-Analysis:
(AI image from Google Gemini)
Effective product marketing usually won’t help you make your numbers this quarter. But it can provide long-term benefits…if properly executed and maintained.
In a down employment market such as the one the tech industry is experiencing right now, the common wisdom is that if a company isn’t hiring new employees, it can definitely use independent consultants.
Sometimes the common wisdom is faulty.
One of Bredemarket’s former clients (whom I will not name) illustrates the gaps in the common wisdom. I had worked on projects for this company several times…until I didn’t.
If I had provided said company with top-notch content-proposal-analysis work, would those laid-off people have kept their jobs?
Probably not. Content, proposal, and analysis work is not a quick fix.
While not a quick fix, doing the work now will benefit the company in the long run. Even in the short term, setting the strategy communicates to everyone, including both internal and external stakeholders, the direction in which your company is heading.
But you can’t just treat this as a one-time oroject and be done with it. Looking at the content portion alone, you have to regularly revisit your content and update it as needed.
This is a trick I learned back in my proposal days. Some of my former employers used proposal management software packages, many of which used a “timeout” feature on standard proposal text that required someone to review the text by a certain date.
Does your proposal text state that your software supports Windows 10? Perhaps it’s a good idea to mention Windows 11 also.
Or you may need to revise your standard proposal text to mention that new feature…or new benefit. Any proposal text for a health application that was written in December 2019 definitely required an update in December 2020.
If you haven’t laid the groundwork for your company’s product marketing, Bredemarket can help in a variety of ways. After asking questions (starting with “Why?”) about your needs, we can jointly decide on the most critically important things Bredemarket can do for you and your company.
To find out how John E. Bredehoft of Bredemarket can serve as your “CPA” (Content-Proposal-Analysis marketing professional), go to my CPA page.
And no, I’m not going to share an Eagles song. I’m going to share a Madness song.
(AI wildebeest “Keep Moving” image from Google Gemini)
Most of you who developed a sudden interest in healthcare this week WON’T be interested in this, so move along.
I’ve added 3 new posts (so far) to the Bredemarket Health page since November 2024:
(And no, I have no real interest in addressing the recent murder of a healthcare executive. It’s a crime. End of discussion.)
I approach health and health product marketing from both an identity and technology perspective, recognizing the similarities and differences between biometrics and biometrics, and between PHI and PII.
(4/14/2025 Fixed a typo. It’s KORN Ferry, not KORAN Ferry.)
Maybe it’s me, but I’m wondering if Kristen really works for SourceOwls. I know she has 980 followers and all, but yet…
I’d post the link to Kristen’s profile, but it would probably be gone by the time you read this.
Anyway, she sent me an InMail, and I responded.
I got my answer.
Seriously, LinkedIn is filled with people who falsely claim that they work for SourceOwls, Korn Ferry, Kelly…even Amazon. And a verified profile doesn’t offer protection, because a verified profile only confirms identity—not employment.
Oops.
Gemini just told me that Spotify Wrapped and Spotify Unwrapped are two different things. Most companies won’t do an “unwrapped” (“50% of our employees are job hunting because of our RTO policy”).
My product marketing observation: “Bredemarket Unwrapped” would be pretty pointless.
For those who DID create their own “Unwrapped” product promotion, congratulations on looking just like everybody else does with your lack of differentiation.
When everyone heads down, you should head up.
(Image from Google Gemini. This wildebeest doesn’t use ChatGPT.)
I’ve talked about standards to death, but what do you do when there are two standards? Do you support standard 1, or standard 2?
Yes.
If you need to charge both USB-C and Lightning mobile devices, Native Union has the cable for you.
The ultimate cable you’ve been searching for is finally here. Solve all your power needs with a faster, more sustainable, more durable cable. Designed for superior convenience and versatility, this unique 2-in-1 connector houses both USB-C and Lightning connectors in a single head and is strong enough to withstand the most active all-day, all-device use.
As you can see from the image above (upper left corner), you can choose either the Lightning adapter or the USB-C adapter.
Sounds great…
…except that Apple is slowly discontinuing use of Lightning, to comply with European Union regulations in 2022. The 2023 iPhone 15 doesn’t offer Lightning at all, and over the next several years Lightning will go away as older Apple devices become obsolete.
But for now it’s a good cable.
I’ve talked about Protected Health Information (PHI) before. Sadly, the health information is not not protected that well, since fraudsters can acquire PHI very easily in some cases.
Sometimes REALLY easily.
For example, I could call a medical provider or go to a pharmacy and say that my name is Donald John Trump.
Do you know how many medical practitioners verify identities?
By asking for the person’s birthdate.
So there is the possibility that a medical practitioner, after I say that I am Donald John Trump, will simply ask for my birthday without a second thought.
I would reply “June 14, 1946.”
And some of these medical practitioners would immediately grant access!
Of course, the number of successful fraudulent accesses goes up substantially when the real person is NOT well known.
Yet birthdates are considered an acceptable form of security in some parts of the medical world.
Scary.
I recently wrote a non-published document explaining, among other things, how I would perform competitive analysis as a product marketer for a particular firm.
Since the firm elected not to use my product marketing services, I will now publish a very small portion of my document, with proper redactions, explaining how Bredemarket (or I as an individual) could perform competitive analysis for YOU.
I recently applied for a product marketing position with a firm outside of the identity/biometrics industry (“Firm X”). This required extensive research on the firm and the industry.
I framed this research using a tool that I learned about through Phyl Terry’s Never Search Alone program. Specifically, the “Job Mission with OKRs” tool.
You draft your OKRs (objectives and key results) yourself, while you are still interviewing for the job. Sure they may be off—when I performed a similar exercise in early 2022, I assumed I would have to create social media content, but subsequently discovered the firm had a very talented social media manager. But even OKRs that are only 25% accurate are better than no OKRs at all.
Returning to 2024, I started drafting my “Job Mission with OKRs” for Firm X’s product marketing position before I went to my first interview, and iterated it through the second one, creating OKRs for seven key areas.
I planned to iterate my OKRs through subsequent interviews with peers and non-marketing executives, then present them to the hiring manager before my offer.
Unfortunately, I never got the chance. One day after my second interview, the Firm X recruiter sent a personalized letter to me.
While we really enjoyed getting to know you, and after careful consideration, we have determined that there is not a fit at this time, and we will not be moving forward in our process.
I know its not the news you were hoping to hear, but we appreciate your interest….
Have you ever written something and then found out it’s not needed any more? Well, now I had these seven OKRs and no immediate use for them…
…except for one of the OKRs that ties into something I’ve discussed before.
One of my seven OKRs dealt with competitive analysis. And I have a lot to say about that.
Earlier this year I started a LinkedIn newsletter for Bredemarket called “The Wildebeest Speaks.”
The July 12 edition of the newsletter was entitled “Three Tips That Show Why Bredemarket Excels at Product, Market, and Competitive Analysis.”
As you can probably guess from the title, the tips in question are Excel-specific and relate to how I format my investigative workbooks. So they’re more nuts-and-bolts than high-level.
Despite this, early this morning I reshared those Bredemarket tips on my personal profile, just in case someone from Firm X happened to take a look at my LinkedIn profile. (They didn’t.)
Sadly, my wildebeest discussion of competitive analysis confined itself to nuts and bolts, and I needed a higher level discussion of how Bredemarket performs analysis for its clients.
It turns out I had already written it, when I described to Firm X how I intended to perform competitive analysis for them.
So here’s a redacted version of the competitive analysis OKR I prepared for Firm X, last revised yesterday, but never shared with the firm.
Using techniques developed at IDEMIA, Incode, and Bredemarket:
- Identify true competitors (approximately 20 possible competitors identified as of 11/26/2024).
- Perform feature comparison to indicate closeness of competitors, [FIRM] strengths, and [FIRM] failures.
- Identify key collateral required for each competitor (SWOT analysis, one-page battlecard, messaging/positioning document).
- Identify key competitors (high, medium, low).
- Complete collateral for high competitors.
- Complete collateral for medium competitors.
- Complete collateral for low competitors.
- Revisit collateral on a regular cadence, revise as necessary.
- Identify new competitors as necessary.
Now that I have the chance, let me elaborate on two of the points.
Have you ever heard a company say “we have no competitors”?
Bull.
Every single company that sells something ALWAYS has one competitor: “do nothing.”
And many companies have competitors that are not always apparent at the surface. For example, your average U.S. satellite television network (CBS, Fox News, Game Show Network, whatever) doesn’t only compete with other satellite television networks, but also competes with YouTube, TikTok, and other sources of information.
But no company has a truly infinite number of competitors. Yes, one could argue that a View-Master is a legitimate competitor to a U.S. satellite television network…but how much market share will View-Master steal from CBS?
So you need to identify the POSSIBLE competitors to your product, and then see if they TRULY compete.
One way to do this is to compare the features of your product against the features of other firms’ products.
But you have to do it right.
If you are completely enamored with your product, you may choose to ONLY list the features that YOUR product has, and compare only those features against possible competitors. By definition, your product will have every feature in the comparison, and therefore it’s the best product ever.
Perhaps you can start with this…but then you need to look at your competitors’ features and determine which ones your product DOESN’T have.
For example, your product may be the best on-premise solution ever, but if your competitors offer SaaS implementations and you don’t, that’s one way in which your product sucks.
Once you have a true feature comparison, you can proceed with ranking the competitors as high, medium, or low, then with enunciating your benefits and closing your weaknesses.
If your knowledge of your competitors is lackluster, perhaps I can help.
Does your firm want to employ me to spearhead your analysis services? Contact me on LinkedIn.
Or, if you only require my services on a consulting basis, contact me through Bredemarket’s “CPA” page. Unless I’m employed by one of your competitors.
“Everybody uses ChatGPT.”
“Everybody uses the STAR method.”
Are you everybody else?
I’m sure I’ve tried ChatGPT at some point during the last two years.
But I don’t use it on a regular basis.
Even though whenever someone talks about generative AI, they usually talk about ChatGPT and nothing else.
So if I want to be like everybody else, I would use ChatGPT just like everybody else does. After all, I am a human and I need to be loved.
But if I were to use ChatGPT regularly, that would require me to create an account.
And I have too many accounts already.
Why not use the credentials of one of my existing accounts for generative AI work?
And if you want to send a prompt to ChatGPT, ask it to reformat a story based upon the STAR method.
For the few who don’t know what that acronym means, you’re obviously behind the times because everybody uses the STAR method.
The acronym STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. You can apply this in many situations: for example, during a job interview, you could describe one of your past accomplishments using this format.
After all, it only takes four steps.
But what if I can accomplish the same, um, result in THREE steps?
That’s the format that Bredemarket used when writing a dozen case studies for an identity/biometric client.
And it worked just fine.
The client’s prospects didn’t stop doing business with the client because it didn’t differentiate between the situation and the task, or the task and the action, or whatever.
The prospects wanted, um, results, not a deep outline.
I’ve railed about a lack of differentiation before, but for some odd reason the billions of workers in the world don’t listen to me.
They still think the key to success is to copy what everyone else is doing.
But if I were to intentionally adopt a yellow website them and wear retro glasses and sing a lot like Ray of Social’s Georgia Williams, that doesn’t mean that I can achieve the same results that she can.
For one, if you call her to have a natter about your mish, she probably won’t talk about wildebeests at all.
But she’s still doing OK.
You need to adopt your own tone of voice. I was just discussing this with a Bredemarket client regarding a critical piece of content that needs to be in the client’s own voice. Not mine. Not Georgia’s.
So communicate your way, use your preferred generative AI platform, and use your preferred storytelling method.
Someone scheduled a half hour meeting with me this morning. While waiting for the person to show (they never did), I completed most of this post.
So the half hour wasn’t completely wasted.
(And it could very well be that the person had a valid reason for not showing. I will, or won’t, find out.)
For those who caught my line
I would use ChatGPT just like everybody else does. After all, I am a human and I need to be loved.
here’s the video. But I want to hear Georgia singing it.
(Note to self: find the “This Charming Charlie” website, in which Charlie Brown cartoons are adapted to contain Smiths lyrics.)
Bredemarket