Is Marketing Important? Yes.
I had a moment of clarity over the weekend.
As a developer I’ve always despised “the marketing people”; they just drove me bananas with their half-baked plans, the checks they wrote to others that the development team had to cash.
To boot, I always thought the development team was superior because we actually made the stuff that the marketing team was pushing. If it weren’t for us, I’d think with my chest puffed out and my head the size of a blimp, there would be no company. My goodness, I must have been obnoxious.
Over the weekend my brother-in-law asked me what I’m planning to do after I Can Has Cheezburger?, which isn’t soon, but knowing that I’m a startup junkie he was curious. I said that I want to get into the content creation business…basically, do a media company (which is what we have now, so I guess I should say “do another media company”).
And, then it occurred to me: in the media business, the marketing people are critical. You can make all the content you want, and it can be the best content in the world, but if you can’t get people to view it, if you have no audience, then you’re done. Kaput.
I suppose this applies to all businesses, but for some reason it was most obvious to me with media. For every Susan Boyle, there are hundreds of people making great videos or music and posting them on YouTube or wherever, but getting no traction.
So, I’m sure I’m not the first to say it, but let me be the most recent to remind you: when you’re doing your startup—whether it’s media or otherwise—the people who distribute the product are just as important, if not more important, than the people who create it. It’s a ying-and-yang: a startup cannot succeed with out the interdependent strengths of each.
P.S. To all of “the marketing people” I’ve worked with in the past, I would like to take this moment to apologize. I am sorry for having been a complete jerk and not treated the work you were doing with the respect that it deserved. I am truly, genuinely, sorry.
I’d also say that even more important are the business people who can monetize the stuff you’re making! A lot of companies start with marketing and a product and absolutely no plans to monetize.
BradOFarrell
16 Jun 09 at 9:10 am
I’ve had the opposite experience. I was always the one guy on the dev team that the marketing people didn’t hate.
One of the reasons that techies have a hard time with “the marketing people” is that people on both sides have a narrow and insular view of what marketing is.
Marketing is understanding the desires and motivations of the users. Marketing is empathy. Marketing is too important to be left to just the marketing department.
When a developer decides to change a complex and intimidating form into a 3-step annotated wizard so people can understand it more readily, that’s essentially a marketing decision. Most good developers understand this intuitively, even though they don’t consider it a marketing thing.
Martin Cron
16 Jun 09 at 11:03 am
I agree with Martin.
Businesspeople need to understand both the marketing side and the product side. Trying to separate the two is dangerous for any company. I have worked with some smart marketing people who just didn’t understand the product and ended up harming the business. The best marketing people I have seen are those who work hard to understand the big picture. They make better decisions and are much better at earning clients’ trust.
Joel
19 Jun 09 at 3:31 pm