If you’re not a LinkedIn connection you missed this. Here’s something I wrote on the one year anniversary of losing my job.
Here’s the Story…
Tag Archives: product marketing
Positioning, Messaging, and Your Facial Recognition Product Marketing
(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)
When marketing your facial recognition product (or any product), you need to pay attention to your positioning and messaging. This includes developing the answers to why, how, and what questions. But your positioning and your resulting messaging are deeply influenced by the characteristics of your product.
If facial recognition is your only modality
There are hundreds of facial recognition products on the market that are used for identity verification, authentication, crime solving (but ONLY as an investigative lead), and other purposes.
Some of these solutions ONLY use face as a biometric modality. Others use additional biometric modalities.
Your positioning depends upon whether your solution only uses face, or uses other factors such as voice.
- If your solution is only a face solution and does not include voice, your company will spend a lot of time trashing voice biometrics because of the demonstrated spoofs against voices.
- Similarly, a face-only company will argue that facial recognition is a very fast, very secure, and completely frictionless method of verification and authentication. When opponents bring up the demonstrated spoofs against faces, you will argue that your iBeta-conformant presentation attack detection methodology guards against such spoofing attempts.
- On the other hand, a company that uses multiple biometric modalities will argue that ANY single biometric modality can be spoofed, but that it is much, much harder to spoof multiple biometric modalities at once.
Of course, if you initially only offer a face solution and then offer a second biometric, you’ll have to rewrite all your material. “You know how we said that face is great? Well, face and gait are even greater!”
If biometrics is your only factor
It’s no secret that I am NOT a fan of the “passwords are dead” movement.
It seems that many of the people that are waiting the long-delayed death of the password think that biometrics is the magic solution that will completely replace passwords.
For this reason, your company might have decided to use biometrics as your sole factor of identity verification and authentication.
Or perhaps your company took a different approach, and believes that multiple factors—perhaps all five factors—are required to truly verify and/or authenticate an individual. Use some combination of biometrics, secure documents such as driver’s licenses, geolocation, “something you do” such as a particular swiping pattern, and even (horrors!) knowledge-based authentication such as passwords or PINs.
This naturally shapes your positioning and messaging.
- The single factor companies will argue that their approach is very fast, very secure, and completely frictionless. (Sound familiar?) No need to drag out your passport or your key fob, or to turn off your VPN to accurately indicate your location. Biometrics does it all!
- The multiple factor companies will argue that ANY single factor can be spoofed, but that it is much, much harder to spoof multiple factors at once. (Sound familiar?)
So position yourself however you need to position yourself. Again, be prepared to change if your single factor solution adopts a second factor.
A final thought
Every company has its own way of approaching a problem, and your company is no different. As you prepare to market your products, survey your product, your customers, and your prospects and choose the correct positioning (and messaging) for your own circumstances.
And if you need help with biometric positioning and messaging, feel free to contact the biometric product marketing expert, John E. Bredehoft. (Full-time employment opportunities via LinkedIn, consulting opportunities via Bredemarket.)
In the meantime, take care of yourself, and each other.
A 20-Minute Peek Behind LinkedIn Recruiter
Of all the technologies I don’t know about, jobseeker technology is the most important. Between July 2000 and today, I’ve spent over 30 months searching for full-time employment. So it helps to know how employers search for potential employees.
And a lot of those 30-plus months have been filled with self-styled experts advising people “how to beat the applicant tracking system (ATS)” (as if there were only one) and “how to access the hidden job market” (because of course employers don’t want anyone to know that they’re searching for talent).
So when Melanie Woods of CGL Recruiting offered 20 jobseekers the chance to see how their LinkedIn Profile appears to users of LinkedIn Recruiter, I really wanted to win one of those 20 slots.
I won a slot, and in our 20-minute session Melanie Woods imparted a great deal of knowledge, including the 7 LinkedIn Recruiter tips highlighted at the end of this post.
If I could boil all 7 tips down to 1, I’d emphasize that recruiters have limited time, and something a recruiter can understand in 0 seconds is much better than something that would take a recruiter 5 seconds to understand.
Melanie’s offer…and what she wanted in return
A few days ago, I ran across Melanie’s post that described her offer. It opened as follows:
Instead of spending money on advertising, my team is going to be taking a different approach and it involves YOU #jobseekers!
Sounds like a plan, since a word-of-mouth testimonial converts more effectively than copy written by a marketing hack. (But what if the testimonial is FROM a marketing hack?)
The offer
She then described the offer.
We are going to be offering 20 free 20 minute sessions to job seekers who are currently out of work. During your session I will pull you up live in LinkedIn Recruiter and test your profile to show you where you are coming up in searches and where you are falling out. I will help you adjust your profile so you can appear in more searches for the jobs you are targeting.
What is LinkedIn Recruiter?
As you can probably guess, LinkedIn Recruiter is the premium-priced service that recruiters use to search LinkedIn for job candidates. The top-tier package (“contact Sales” for the price) includes:
- Unlimited LinkedIn network access: Find and engage anyone on LinkedIn
- 150 InMail messages/month per license and bulk messaging
- 40+ advanced search filters, including “Open to work” and “More likely to respond”
- Multi-user collaboration tools
- Prepaid slots to rotate job postings in and out as needed
A comparison of all of LinkedIn’s talent solutions is provided here.
If your company is recruiting more than 4 positions a year, the high-end version of LinkedIn Recruiter could be the tool for you.
But when recruiters use LinkedIn Recruiter, they don’t look at a candidate’s LinkedIn profile—they look at the LinkedIn Recruiter view of the candidate’s profile, optimized for their purposes.
Hence Melanie was offering job applicants the opportunity to see how their profile appears to a recruiter. Valuable information to have.
What CGL Recruiting wanted in return
But remember that the lucky winners had to provide “advertising” to CGL Recruiting in return.
Here is where the advertising piece comes in….if you feel that the 20 minutes was helpful to you and your job search, we would appreciate you doing a review of our services on LinkedIn and one other social media platform (your choice), sharing how the time spent was useful to you and your job search.
After I indicated my interest, and after Dee Daniel provided a boost to my application, I was one of the lucky 40 winners. (Yes, they increased the number of winners due to high demand.)
Melanie’s top 7 LinkedIn Recruiter tips
Melanie and I met via Zoom early Monday afternoon Pacific Time (late afternoon Central Time), and I received a firehose of information during the 20-minute session. I’m not going to cover ALL the information she provided; instead, I’ll confine myself to the top 7 tips.
- The first job on the LinkedIn profile is the most important.
- Use all 5 “job title” slots.
- Some employers AREN’T 1st and 2nd degree connections.
- You can have 6 on-site job locations, not just 5.
- Consider listing at least one college-related date.
- Ampersands are bad.
- Temperamental writers shouldn’t fall in love with pet phrases.
Tip 1: The first job on the LinkedIn profile is the most important
For my job search for a Senior Product Marketing Manager role, my Incode position is (maybe) more important than my current Bredemarket position. On my resume, I take care of this by listing Incode BEFORE Bredemarket. But because LinkedIn profiles are chronological, and Bredemarket is my current “employer,” I can’t reorder like that.
The LinkedIn Recruiter view of the profile doesn’t show all the positions, but only the top 3. And the first position takes great prominence.
In the default view, the recruiter can’t see my fourth position (Strategic/Product Marketing Manager from 2015 to 2017), but only the first three. And only one of those three positions is product marketing-related.
Melanie zeroed in on my “Sole Proprietor” position, which tells a recruiter nothing about what I actually DO at Bredemarket. Sure the recruiter could click through and read about the marketing and writing services that Bredemarket provides…but recruiters have limited time.
I thought about her advice after the call, and for LinkedIn (and resume) purposes I’m changing my Bredemarket job title to “Product Marketing Consultant.” My work for my clients is all product/service-related, so the job title makes sense.
Now recruiters will see that two of my three most recent positions were product marketing-related, which makes me more attractive to the one position that I’m targeting.
One position? Wait a minute…
Tip 2: Use all 5 “job title” slots
That’s right. In my “job preferences,” my only listed job title was “Senior Product Marketing Manager.”
I can list up to 5.
Why not use all 5?
So now my job titles include the following:
- Senior Product Marketing Manager
- Product Marketing Manager
- Marketing Content Manager
- Global Product Marketing Manager
- Product Marketing Consultant
So I have the position title from Incode, the consulting title from Bredemarket, two product marketing title variants, and a content marketing title for good measure (Bredemarket readers know why).
Now some people question why I’d list all these similar titles, since anyone who takes a few seconds can figure out that I’d be interested in a global product marketing manager position or whatever.
That’s the problem. Recruiters DON’T HAVE a few seconds. When hundreds or thousands of people apply for positions, recruiters need to get through the profiles as quickly as possible.
So Melanie wanted me to make her job easier.
Tip 3: Some employers AREN’T 1st and 2nd degree connections
You can control the visibility of your email address and your phone number on LinkedIn. While I don’t list a phone number on my LinkedIn profile, I do make my jobseeking email address (which is separate from my Bredemarket email address) visible. In fact, I configured my email address visibility for viewing by my 1st degree and 2nd degree connections.
But there was a fallacy in that tactic.
It became obvious in the session because Melanie (not a connection since her LinkedIn connections are maxed out) could NOT see my email address. Therefore, if recruiter Melanie wanted to contact me, she could ONLY contact me via InMail.
If you want ANY potential recruiter to see your email, increase its visibility to all connections. Obviously there are risks to this, so you need to judge what visibility is right for you. (Especially for phone numbers.)
Tip 4: You can have 6 on-site job locations, not just 5
While all of Bredemarket’s work is remote, and my previous work at Incode was remote, I’m not averse to on-site work. As long as it’s within driving distance.
To help local companies, I listed a selected five cities (the maximum) where I am available for on-site work:
- Ontario, California, United States
- San Bernardino, California, United States
- Covina, California, United States
- Pasadena, California, United States
- Anaheim, California, United States
But Melanie pointed out that I didn’t need to list Ontario, since my profile already states that I live in Ontario. That freed up one slot to add another city. I chose to list Riverside, although I could have listed Brea or Fullerton or Industry or Pomona or Corona or many other cities. (LinkedIn, your on-site locations feature needs work.)
Tip 5: Consider listing at least one college-related date
Now let’s get into age discrimination talk.
If a company desires to discriminate against job applicants due to age, one effective way to do so is to look at the dates the applicants attended college. It’s pretty easy to quietly filter out the geezer applicants with no one the wiser.
Well, maybe.
For this reason I didn’t bother to add my college attendance dates to my LinkedIn profile. Why give the discriminating (in a negative way, not a positive way) firm the ammo they need to get the young, cheap workers they really want? (Of course those workers are inexperienced, but that’s another topic entirely.)
But Melanie pointed out one truth about companies that want to discriminate: if they don’t discriminate against you when they read your LinkedIn profile or resume, they can easily discriminate against you when they SEE you.
Oh, and there’s one more thing: if recruiters search for candidates based upon their graduation dates, profiles without graduation dates will never been seen by recruiters.
So I mulled over her advice.
- I decided not to list the date that I started attending Cal State Fullerton’s MBA program.
- And I decided not to list the date I graduated from Reed College.
- I certainly didn’t list the date I started attending Reed College. (But I will confess that this song blasted from the Old Dorm Block. And I’ll also confess that I could lose the last 4 1/2 minutes.)
But I did pencil in my 1991 graduation date from Cal State Fullerton’s MBA program. Since my LinkedIn profile includes ALL my biometric positions going back to 1994, this isn’t a shocking revelation.
Tip 6: Ampersands are bad
LinkedIn profiles can include skills. I’ve listed near the limit of 50 skills, some of which are tied to particular positions, LinkedIn Learning courses, and other education and certifications.
Among many others, two of my listed skills are “identity & access management” and “sales & marketing management.”
Technology experts immediately see where this is going. So why didn’t I?
Melanie immediately noted that the ampersand character in those two skill descriptions can wreak havoc with some computerized systems.
I swapped out those skills for some new ones: identity and access management, and sales and marketing management, removing the problem.
Tip 7: Temperamental writers shouldn’t fall in love with pet phrases
Melanie’s biggest concern about my LinkedIn profile involved the very first sentence.
The one that appears below my profile, name, and preferred pronouns, but above my city of residence.
Senior Product Marketing Manager in identity/technology who is expert in describing why customers benefit.
She read that sentence word for word.
- “Senior Product Marketing Manager”? She liked that.
- “In identity/technology”? I guess she liked that; at least she didn’t comment on it.
- The rest of the sentence? Not so much.
Regular Bredemarket readers are familiar with the last three words of that sentence, and realize that every one of those three words is critically important. Why rather than what, customers rather than producers, and benefits rather than features. I’ve devoted a post (plus another post) to those three words. If I only had a few seconds to explain the importance of those three words…
Um, yet again, recruiters aren’t interested in taking a few minutes to read everything I have written about Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle, customer focus, or benefits. They don’t even want to watch a short reel on the topic.
So I have to rewrite the last part of that first sentence. As I write this post, I’m still mulling over alternatives.
CGL Recruiting’s expertise was highly beneficial
The 7 items above were just some of the tips that Melanie Woods imparted to me, all in the space of 20 minutes.
Again, the common theme is that recruiters have limited time, LinkedIn Recruiter lets them maximize that limited time, and jobseeker data also has to let recruiters maximize that limited time. If you can do something in 0 seconds, don’t take 5 seconds to do it.
I haven’t even explored some of the other features that CGL Recruiting offers, including Melanie Woods’ YouTube channel.
But the 20 minutes I spent with her were certainly valuable.
Now I just have to figure out another way to say “why customers benefit.”
Cutting Through the Fog
Buonasera • CC BY-SA 3.0
How can your productmarketing message cut through the fog and get results vs. your competitors’ me-too messaging?
Two tips when planning and creating content:
- When planning, the first question to ask is why. Once you know your product’s (or company’s) why, everything else just flows naturally.
- When creating, call your first draft 0.5. Don’t show it to anyone. Between draft 0.5 and draft 1, take the razor out and cut ruthlessly.
The Best Way to Talk About Complex Technology Features? Don’t.
Are you a product marketer or content marketer at an engineering-focused technology firm?
Have you been asked to tell your prospects about the marvelously complex features of your firm’s dazzling engineering products?
Well…why would you want to do that?
The complex product with a lengthy feature list
Many years ago I worked at a firm in which the products were driven by engineers, and therefore resulted in engineering marvels.
I recall one product in particular (not a Segway, but a biometric product housed in a tower) that was an impressive fusion of algorithmic and mechanical excellence. The complex design that went into developing the tower product resulted in a device that performed its function superbly.
The complex engineering also caused the product to have such a high price that no one would ever buy it…but I digress.
But there was another issue with the product. I was writing proposals at the time, and we certainly could have written up a product description that emphasized the product’s lengthy set of features.
But the people receiving our proposals wouldn’t have cared one bit.
Prospects don’t care about lengthy feature lists
You see, prospects don’t care about lengthy feature lists.
And they don’t care about your product.
Frankly, they don’t even care about your company.
- Even if your company has stellar engineers that develop wonderful products.
- Even if your company has won prestigious awards for technical excellence, or as a great place to work, or whatever.
- Even if your company just completed a successful funding round.
It’s painful to admit it, but prospects only care about…themselves.
And the prospects focus on their problems, not your technical superiority.
For example, if your prospects work for certain government agencies, they really care about terrorists who try to board airplanes.
If your product stops terrorists from boarding airplanes, then and only then will they care about your company or your product.
If your product can’t stop terrorists from boarding airplanes, or if there is another product that is better at stopping terrorists from boarding airplanes, then your prospects won’t care about your product.
So how do you get prospects to care?
You don’t get prospects to care by talking about your extensive feature lists.
Let me give you a tip. If you find an employee at the prospect’s company who wants to spend a lot of time talking about your extensive feature lists, that employee probably DOESN’T have the authority to approve the purchase.
The people who DO have the authority to approve the purchase don’t have time to talk about extensive feature lists.
The approvers want to know, in 30 seconds or less, how your solution BENEFITS them.
Do you need help explaining your benefits?
Talking about benefits rather than features is just one tactic to successfully appeal to your prospects.
If you need help ensuring that your written materials (blog posts, white papers, web pages) resonate with your prospects, you can ask Bredemarket to help you.
Doing Double Duty (from the biometric product marketing expert)
I’ve previously noted that product marketers sometimes function as de facto content marketers. I oughta know.
For example, during my most recent stint as a product marketing employee at a startup, the firm had no official content marketers, so the product marketers had to create a lot of non-product related content. So we product marketers were the de facto content marketers for the company too. (Sadly, we didn’t get two salaries for filling two roles.)
Why did the product marketers end up as content marketers? It turns out that it makes sense—after all, people who write about your product in the lower funnel stages can also write about your product in the upper funnel stages, and also can certainly write about OTHER things, such as company descriptions, speaker submissions, and speaker biographies.
From https://bredemarket.com/2023/08/28/the-22-or-more-types-of-content-that-product-marketers-create/.
That’s from my post describing the 22 (or more) types of content that product marketers create. Or the types that one product marketer in particular has created.
So it stands to reason that I am not only the biometric content marketing expert, but also the biometric product marketing expert.
I just wanted to put that on the record.
And in case you were wondering what the 22 types of content are, here is the external content:
- Articles
- Blog Posts (500+, including this one)
- Briefs/Data/Literature Sheets
- Case Studies (12+)
- Proposals (100+)
- Scientific Book Chapters
- Smartphone Application Content
- Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, Twitter)
- Web Page Content
- White Papers and E-Books
And here is the internal content:
- Battlecards (80+)
- Competitive Analyses
- Event/Conference/Trade Show Demonstration Scripts
- Plans
- Playbooks
- Proposal Templates
- Quality Improvement Documents
- Requirements
- Strategic Analyses
And here is the content that can be external or internal on any given day:
- Email Newsletters (200+)
- FAQs
- Presentations
So if you need someone who can create this content for your identity/biometrics product, you know where to find me.
Avoiding Deleterious Forensic Nursing
Warning: this post discusses sexual assault and child abuse.
The Hippocratic Oath imposes duties on medical professionals, including this one:
I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.
From https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/first-do-no-harm-201510138421.
For people like me who do not use the word “deleterious” on a daily basis, it means “harmful often in a subtle or unexpected way.”
The dictates of the Hippocratic Oath lead us to forensic nursing (as defined by 1NURSE.COM), the invasive nature of some forensic techniques, and what companies such as Foster+Freeman are doing to minimize invasive evidence capture.
What is forensic nursing?
As 1NURSE.COM notes, forensic nursing is multidisciplinary, operating “at the critical juncture of medical science and the legal system.”
Forensic nursing is a specialized branch that integrates medical expertise with forensic science to provide comprehensive care for individuals impacted by violence, abuse, or criminal activities. These professionals serve as a crucial link between the realms of healthcare and the legal system, collaborating with law enforcement, attorneys, and other professionals to gather evidence, provide expert testimony, and ensure justice for victims.
From https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/forensic-nursing-exploration-intricate-profession-1nurse-com-iedyc/.
When I started my forensic career 29 years ago, I was solely involved in the capture and processing of fingerprints from criminals. If I may be honest, the well-being of the individual who provided the forensic evidence was NOT an overriding concern.
But within a year or two I started to get involved in the capture and processing of fingerprints from NON-criminals who were applying for and receiving government benefits.
- For that market we HAD to concern ourselves with the well-being of our clients, to make fingerprint capture as easy as possible, and to treat our clients with the utmost respect.
- In the end it didn’t matter, because in the popular mind fingerprinting was associated with criminals, and benefits recipients didn’t want to be treated like criminals no matter how nice we were. To my knowledge, all of the benefits recipient fingerprint programs in the United States have all ceased.
Forensic nursing needs to gather the necessary forensic evidence while preserving the compassionate care that nurses are required to provide.
Invasive forensic techniques
So if we have to take care when gathering information from benefits recipients, imagine the level of care we need to take when gathering information from crime victims. Returning to 1NURSE.COM’s article, here are two of the tasks that forensic nurses must perform:
Sexual Assault Forensics: Specializing in sexual assault examination, forensic nurses provide not only compassionate care but also play a pivotal role in collecting evidence essential for legal proceedings. Their expertise ensures a sensitive approach while preserving the integrity of forensic evidence. Example: A forensic nurse conducting a sexual assault examination may collect biological samples and document injuries to aid in prosecuting the assailant.
Child Abuse Investigation: Forensic nurses are instrumental in assessing and documenting cases of child abuse. They collaborate with child protective services and law enforcement to ensure the safety and well-being of the child. Example: A forensic nurse working on a child abuse case may conduct a thorough examination to document injuries and provide expert testimony in court.
From https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/forensic-nursing-exploration-intricate-profession-1nurse-com-iedyc/.
The “compassionate care” part is important, as Foster+Freeman notes in a separate article:
We have focussed a lot on how the investigation works when looking for crimes of a distressing nature but not actually how this investigation process can affect the victim of these crimes and put the victim first. This period can be incredibly distressing for the victim, and the investigation can make this worse as it is making the victim re-live this experience.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/victim-first-forensics-focusing-victims-crime-foster-freeman-gnw6e/
As part of their duties, the forensic nurse has to capture evidence from the very parts of the body that were assaulted during the abuse crime itself. No one wants to go through that again. How can evidence capture be less invasive?
Three ways to minimize invasive evidence capture
While it’s not possible to completely erase the pain that crime victims suffer during a forensic investigation, there are ways to minimize it. The Foster+Freeman article highlights three ways to do this:
- Capture evidence via non-invasive techniques. As a supplier of alternate light source (ALS) technology, Foster+Freeman notes that its products can discover evidence, even at the subdermal layers, without touching the victim. “Using an ALS is a non-invasive and non-destructive way to examine potential evidence on the skin. This is especially important when dealing with fragile or sensitive skin, as it minimizes the risk of causing further harm during the examination process.”
- Capture evidence quickly. Forensic nurses do not want to prolong an examination. There are ways to gather evidence as quickly as possible. For example, rather than using multiple ALS devices, you can use a single one; Foster+Freeman’s Crime-lite® X Serology Search Kit is “a multispectral light source that has been made with five wavelengths of light integrated into one unit.”
- Capture evidence thoroughly. What’s the point of putting a victim through the trauma of evidence capture if it doesn’t result in a conviction? Because of this, it’s important to capture as much evidence as possible. A variety of alternate light sources accomplishes this.
Foster+Freeman is just one of a multifarious array of companies that supply evidence collection solutions to forensic nurses and other forensic professionals.
And no, Foster+Freeman didn’t sponsor this post, although Bredemarket is available to provide writing services to Foster+Freeman or to other companies who need to drive content results.
And now that I’ve successfully used “multifarious,” I need to find a way to use “deleterious.” Keep your eyes open.
Friday Deployment, Brittany Pietsch, and Marketing to “Thirsty People”
As you may know, I dislike the phrase “target audience” and am actively seeking an alternative.
So far the best alternative to “target audience” that I’ve found is “hungry people,” which not only focuses on people rather than an abstraction, but also focuses on those who are ready to purchase your product or service.
But I just found an instance in which “thirsty people” may be better than “hungry people.” Specifically, for the Colorado spirits company Friday Deployment, which engages in product marketing in a very…um…targeted way. Including the use of a micro-influencer who is well-known to Friday Deployment’s thirsty people.
Heads up for regular Bredemarket blog readers: the “why” and “how” questions are coming.
Why are Friday Deployment’s “thirsty people” technologists?
Why does Friday Deployment aim its product marketing at technologists?
The website doesn’t elaborate on this, but according to LinkedIn, company owner Rishi Malik is also the VP of Engineering for Varo Bank (an active user of identity verification), and Malik’s history includes two decades of engineering experience. That’s enough to drive anyone to drink, on Fridays or any other day.
Presumably because of this background, Friday Deployment’s product marketing is filled with tech references. Here’s a sample from Friday Deployment’s web page (as of Friday, February 2, 2024).
It was inevitable. The tree is out of date, the history is a mess, and you just want to start your weekend. Maybe you just do a quick little
From https://fridaydeployment.co/.git push --force? Maybe someone already did, and you now get to figure out the correct commit history?
But that isn’t the only way that Friday Deployment markets to its “thirsty people.”
How does Friday Deployment’s marketing resonate with its thirsty people?
How else does Friday Deployment address a technologist audience?
Those of you who are familiar with LinkedIn’s tempests in a teapot realize that LinkedIn users don’t spend all of their time talking about green banners or vaping during remote interviews.
We also spend a lot of time talking about Brittany Pietsch.
TL;DR:
- Pietsch was an account executive with Cloudflare.
- Well, she was until one day when she and about 40 others were terminated.
- Pietsch was terminated by two people that she didn’t know and who could not tell her why she was terminated.
- This story would have disappeared under the rug…except that Pietsch knew that people were losing their jobs, so when she was invited to a meeting she videorecorded the first part of the termination, and shared it on the tubes.
- The video went viral and launched a ton of discussion both for and against what Pietsch did. I lean toward the “for,” if you’re wondering.
- And even Cloudflare admitted it screwed up in how the terminations were handled.
Since Friday Deployment’s “thirsty people” were probably familiar with the Brittany Pietsch story, the company worked with her to re-create her termination video…with a twist. (Not literally, since Pietsch drank the gin straight.)
Well, the product marketing ploy worked, since I clicked on the website of a spirits company that was new to me, and now I’m on their mailing list.
But let’s talk alcohol age verification
The Friday Deployment product marketing partnership with Brittany Pietsch worked…mostly. Except that I have one word of advice for company owner Rishi Malik.
With your Varo Bank engineering experience, you of all people should realize that Friday Deployment’s age verification system is hopelessly inadequate. A robust age verification system, or even an age estimation system, or even a question asking you to provide your date of birth would be better.
Bredemarket can’t create a viral video for your tech firm, but…
But enough about Friday Deployment. Let’s talk about YOUR technology firm.
How can your company market to your thirsty (or hungry) people? Bredemarket can’t create funny videos with micro-influencers, but Bredemarket can craft the words that speak to your audience.
To learn more about Bredemarket’s marketing and writing services for technology firms, click on the image below.
Sugar Pie Honey Bunch
Sorry, but all this discussion about Friday…well, I can’t help myself.
And Rebecca Black, who actually has a very fine voice and sounds great when she’s singing non-inane lyrics, has engaged in a number of marketing opportunities herself. See if you can spot her in this ad.
The Pros and Cons of Discriminating Your Product by Quantifying Your Benefits
Some firms make claims and don’t support them, while others support their claims with quantified benefits. But does quantifying help or harm the firms that do it? This pudding post answers this question…and then twists toward the identity/biometrics market at the end.
The “me too” players in the GCP market
Whoops.
In that heading above, I made a huge mistake by introducing an acronym without explaining it. So I’d better correct my error.
GCP stands for Glowing Carbonated Pudding.
I can’t assume that you already knew this acronym, because I just made it up. But I can assure you that the GCP market is a huge market…at least in my brain. All the non-existent kids love the scientifically advanced and maximally cool pudding that glows in the dark and has tiny bubbles in it.
Now if you had studied this non-existent market like I have, you’ll realize from the outset that most of the players don’t really differentiate their offerings. Here are a few examples of firms with poor product marketing:
- Jane Spain GCP: “Trust us to provide good GCP.”
- Betty Brazil GCP: “Trust us to provide really good GCP.”
- Clara Canada GCP: “Trust us to provide great GCP.”
You can probably figure out what happened here.
- The CEO at Betty Brazil told the company’s product marketers, “Do what Jane Spain did but do it better.”
- After that Clara Canada’s CEO commanded, “Do what Betty Brazil did but do it better.” (I’ll let you in on a little secret. Clara Canada’s original slogan refereneced “the best GCP,” but Legal shot that down.)
Frankly, these pitches are as powerful as those offered by a 17x certified resume writer.
The quantified GCP
But another company, Wendy Wyoming, decided to differentiate itself, and cited independent research as its differentiator.
Wendy Wyoming Out of This World GCP satisfies you, and we have independent evidence to prove it!
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, as part of its Pudding User Made (PUM, not FRTE) Test, confirmed that 80% of all Wendy Wyoming Out of This World GCP mixes result in pudding that both glows and is carbonated. (Mix WW3, submitted November 30, 2023; not omnigarde-003)
Treat your child to science-backed cuisine with Wendy Wyoming Out of This World GCP!Wendy Wyoming is a top tier (excluding Chinese mixes) GCP provider.
But there are other competitors…
The indirect competitor who questions the quantified benefits
There are direct competitors that provide the same product as Wendy Wyoming, Jane Spain, and everyone else.
And then there are indirect competitors who provide non-GCP alternatives that can substitute for GCPs.
For example, Polly Pennsylvania is NOT a GCP provider. It makes what the industry calls a POPS, or a Plain Old Pudding Sustenance. Polly Pennsylvania questions everything about GCP…and uses Wendy Wyoming’s own statistics against it.
Fancy technologies have failed us.
If you think that one of these GCP puddings will make your family happy, think again. A leading GCP provider has publicly admitted that 1 out of every 5 children who buy a GCP won’t get a GCP. Either it won’t glow, or it’s not carbonated. Do you want to make your kid cry?
Treat your child to the same pudding that has satisfied many generations. Treat your child to Polly Pennsylvania Perfect POPS.
Pennsylvania Perfect remembers.
So who wins?
It looks like Polly Pennsylvania and Wendy Wyoming have a nasty fight on their hands. One that neck-deep marketers like to call a “war.” Except that nobody dies. (Sadly, that’s not true.)
- Some people think that Wendy Wyoming wins because 4 out of 5 of their customers receive true GCP.
- Others think that Polly Pennsylvaia wins because 5 out of 5 of their customers get POPS pudding.
But it’s clear who lost.
All the Jane Spains and Betty Brazils who didn’t bother to create a distinctive message.
Don’t be Jane Spain. Explain why your product is the best and all the other products aren’t.
Copying the competition doesn’t differentiate you. Trust me.
The “hungry people” (target audience) for THIS post
Oh, and if you didn’t figure it out already, this post was NOT intended for scientific pudding manufacturers. It was intended for identity/biometric firms who can use some marketing and writing help. Hence the references to NIST and the overused word “trust.”
If you’re hungry to kickstart your identity/biometric firm’s written content, click on the image below to learn about Bredemarket’s services.
The Bredemarket Rule of Corporate Tool Adoption
(12/7: Thanks for catching the typo, Orlando!)
Whoops, I forgot something.
Bredemarket hasn’t proposed any rules.
This may not seem to be a significant gap to you, but it is to me.
I’ve proposed rules on my prior platforms, but haven’t proposed one from Bredemarket. Here’s a list of some of the “Empoprises Rules” I’ve proposed in the past. My favorite:
The Phineas-Hirshfield score measures, on a scale of 0 to 100, the probability that someone will ask exactly what the Phineas-Hirshfield score is.
From https://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-is-your-phineas-hirshfield-score.html. The Phineas-Hirshfield score is copyright 2012 by John E. Bredehoft.
Time for me to make a cryptic LinkedIn post. Although now that I’m sharing the secret here, I’ll have to lower the score to 89.
Bredemarket’s first rule
But before I share my revised Phineas-Hirshfield score, I need to share the first Bredemarket Rule, the Bredemarket Rule of Corporate Tool Adoption. (Copyright 2023 Bredemarket.)
In any organization, the number of adopted tools that perform the exact same function is always in excess of one.
In other words, if there’s someone in your organization who is using an iPhone, there is someone else in your organization who is using an Android phone.
Or someone has a Mac, and another person has a Windows computer.
Or someone has one brand of software, while someone else has the competitior brand.
Even if an organization dictates that everyone will use a single tool, there will be someone somewhere who will rebel against the organization and use a different tool.
Three reasons why the Bredemarket Rule of Corporate Tool Adoption is true
Here is why this rule is true:
- Except in very rare circumstances, there are always multiple tools that perform the exact same function.
- Except in very rare circumstances (Bredemarket being a counter-example), organizations are made up of multiple people.
- In all circumstances, different people have experienced different realities and therefore like different things.
For example, on Wednesday morning I attended a Product Marketing Alliance-sponsored panel discussion in which one of the panelists mentioned that Asana was a valuable tool that helps product marketers get work done.
Another panelist was a Monday user.
Presumably the first panelist was exposed to Asana at one point and liked it, while the second panelist was exposed to Monday and liked it.
Or, since the panelists were from two different companies, maybe each company standardized on one or the other. Or maybe the departments within their companies standardized on a particular tool, but if you poll the entire company, you’ll find some Monday departments and some Asana departments.
Multiple tools in a single department
Even in the same department you may find multiple tools. Let me cite an example.
- Several of the people who were in the Marketing department of Incode Technologies have since left the company, and I’m working with one of them on a project this week.
- I had to send a PDF to him, and was also going to also send him the source Microsoft Word document…until I remembered from our days at Incode that he was (and I guess still is) a Google Docs guy.
- (As I’ve shared previously, I’m not a Google Docs guy except when a client requires it.)
Even brute force will not invalidate the Rule
Of course, there are times in which an entire organization agrees on a single tool, but those times never last.
My mid-1990s employer, Printrak International, was preparing to go public. The head of Printrak determined that the company needed some help in this, and brought several staffers on board who were expert in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs).
One of these people took the role of Chief Financial Officer, preparing Printrak for its IPO and for two post-IPO acquisitions, one of which profoundly and positively impacted the future of the firm.
Along the way, he established the rule that Printrak would become a Lotus Notes shop.
For those who don’t remember Lotus Notes, it was one of those Lotus-like products that could do multiple things out of the box. And because the CFO was the CFO, he could enforce Lotus Notes usage.
Until the CFO left a couple of years later to assist another company, and the impetus to use Lotus Notes dropped off significantly.
And that, my friends, is why my former colleagues in IDEMIA aren’t using HCL Notes (the successor to Lotus Notes and IBM Notes) today.
So how do you settle the Tool Wars?
Do you know how you settle the Tool Wars?
You don’t. It’s an eternal battle.
In the case of Bredemarket, I can dictate which tools I use…unless my clients tell me otherwise. Then the client’s word is law…unless there’s a compelling reason why my tool should be used instead of the client’s tool. In Bredemarket’s 3+ years of existence, I haven’t encountered such a compelling reason…yet.
Just be flexible enough to use whatever tool you need to use, and you’ll be fine.
Bredemarket 
