These are all my posts about Product Marketing.
BusinessWeek launched a redesign. My favorite part about the magazine is the teasers they put to keep you flipping pages. They know how to keep me interested in the boring economic sections. haha
Pretty cool..The first button you see in the Eventbrite’semail is “Invite Friends”. They must have tested this and realized that the best place to put this button is right at the top even though it doesn’t really look that good in that spot.
In some spots a “Invite Friends” button doesn’t really make sense. But it totally makes sense for eventbrite.
I love seeing soap commercials on TV. Especially Dove‘s Superbowl commercial.
They pretty much have had the same product for years. They are just marketing it different ways to gain market share. As a product guy I have the mindset of constantly trying to launch new features to out do the competition or be more innovative. But there are tons of ways to be innovative and gain market share by simply marketing your product in different ways.
Instead of just changing things up. Facebook gives you a little message about their new layout. Good idea.
Take a look at LinkedIn‘s top bar after signing in.
They bold “Add Connections” it is the first thing my eyes see. They clearly want you to add more people. The bigger your network gets the more value LinkedIn is to you (and them).
To the left they have “Basic Account: Upgrade”. I bet most people didn’t even know LinkedIn has a premium account.
We’ve all used Evite. It is safe to say they are the worlds biggest online invitation site. When you have a ton of users you can do some pretty cool stuff. Recently I just RSVP’ed online and this is what shows up next:
It was cool to see the personal questions they ask you and how they want you to sign up.
I just upgraded Skype on my Mac and learned about their “Mood Messages” feature. It is an easy way to post twitter/facebook/AIM like status updates.
This must work! Make people enter status messages. If you leave a status more people will instant message/reply back to you. When people message you back you feel great about yourself and you want to use the service more.
Lets take a look at all the different services and what they use to make you leave a status message:
AOL Instant Messenger (Old):
A simple “Set Status Here” works. I like Twitter and Facebook’s direct approach on asking a question for them to answer.
I always hear that you should focus on benefits and not features. I agree. It is easier to sell your product when the customer knows and understands how it will benefit them.
Here are some examples I found on the web focusing on benefits:
Crazy Egg focuses on how you can make more money.
Mintgives you ideas on what you should be saving for already. When I saw this I immediately thought “I really need to be saving more and creating a budget for grad school.”
Hotwireshows you how much money you can save. They don’t focus on all their cool travel tools they have – just a direct cash benefit.
oDesk’s tag line “Guaranteed Work. Guaranteed Payment.” does a good job telling employers will get their work done hassle free and freelancers will get paid. oDesk does a good job not putting all their time management tools first.
37 Signals’ Basecamp tag like “Get Projects Done” says it all. This is a direct benefit to project managers.
This is my favorite one. “Know where your business stands” and even better “Nearly 70% of users say QuickBooks helped them be more profitable.” They don’t focus on telling their customer all the reporting tools they have.
TurboTax: “Get Your Biggest Tax Refund” – pure benefit.
Facebook doesn’t talk about how you can share photos really easily or play games. They focus on connecting people in your life a direct benefit to me.
Facebook is the 4th biggest website in the world. Their goal is to get everyone on the internet on Facebook. Pretty big goal. But after seeing this email. I think they can do it. I love how they leverage their existing community.
Here are some things that I learned:
1. They send reminders every 30 or so days that someone you know has invited you to facebook.
2. They include a picture of the person.
3. The include pictures of people in the past that have also invited you.
Facebook does a great job leveraging the community they already have. Customer testimonials are huge. Pictures of your customers smiling is even better. I think we need to start putting pictures of our customers in our reminder emails.
Have you ever shown up to a party with only 2 people? Your first instinct is to leave. Facebook does a good job showing you that you already know a ton of people at the “Party”.
