Hi, this is Chris Halliwell continuing the thread of posts on technology messaging for the Technology Marketing Center.
This post revisits aspects of Part I, Ries & Trout's The New Positioning, which was originally summarized and reviewed here by Sudhakar Raman, a TMC Leader, last December.
In my last post I set up a whole product model for technology messaging that dictated development of competitive differentiation in the context of "table stakes", "ante", and "an unmet raise". If you are buying the value of this line of thought the next question to ponder deals with how to communicate competitive value in a way that sticks in the customer's mind. I recently re-read The New Positioning. It would be very interesting to see this book updated with what has been learned about the mechanics of the brain in the last 10 years, but even for its time the first few chapters about short and long term memory are fascinating and instructive. So, here is a quick refresh to inform technology messaging strategy.
Short term memory: we are reminded that data consumed by our senses goes first into short term memory and that this cache is about the size of a telephone number, somewhere between local and long distance. As we know, to get even fleeting recall of something in our short term memory we have to verbally repeat it so that our eyes, our mind, and and our ears are working to cross-reference the data.
Long term memory: A pioneer in scientific memory research found that within 24 hours we forget up to 80% of what we thought we had learned; never transferred into long term memory. The insight is that data is moved from short term to long term only when it becomes information. Our brains are full. We don't want to stuff more stuff into them so we apply filters to sort data from information. The exposure filters asks if the message has personal relevancy, whether we have to know it. The attention filter asks if the message is consistent with what we already believe, how much work it will take to connect it to what we already know. The retention filter asks whether it is new/unique data, whether it is worth the effort/space to store it.
Technology messaging implications: We have to communicate competitively differentiated complex technical information in the minimum number of carefully crafted bite-sized chunks, over and over again.
For instance, early Silicon Valley marketing guru Regis McKenna observed that the value of a new technology must be crisply communicated in the category name, and that the industry must be baited into discussion about the definition and meaning of the name. His ultimate naming coup: mini-supercomputers. It is brilliant because it is short, tells me how it relates to something I know about already (supercomputers) and how it is different/better (mini, i.e. lower cost). For those of you competing in mature existing categories the idea is to apply these same principles to create a bite-sized chunk of information about your product.
We have the admonition to be brief, to not create your own complex technology noise, in hand. So we can go on next week to explore how the selection of the appropriate message medium can help you resolve the tension between communicating complex competitive value at 3 levels of whole product differentiation and the need to do so in simple sound bites.
Until then...
There are several good ways to overcome the problem of prospects having short-term memory.
When you know the decay rate of your messages you can choose a frequency of exposure and impact level that will overcome the decay. Fortunately, this is can be a lot easier (and less expensive) to do with B-to-B sales cycles of 6-18 months than with consumer products.
The challenge, of course, comes when a competitor is out messaging you for the same position in the potential customer's mind.
This is when it really helps for the marcom team and the sales team to be presenting a well-timed, coordinated marketing message that builds on earlier impressions.
Posted by: Cliff Allen | July 20, 2009 at 04:12 PM