Abstraction

James Grunig is a noted public relations theorist best known for developing the “situational theory of publics,” which defines a method by which a population can be segmented (into “publics”) based on their understanding of a particular problem and the likelihood that they will change their behavior to address the problem.

Segmenting a population this way is a useful exercise for public relations practitioners because it helps predict the effectiveness of communication aimed at a particular group of people. It’s a useful exercise for product managers as well, because it can provide a foundation for a messaging strategy and help define what kind of collateral is needed and what it should say.

The situational theory provides for a number of variables that describe an individual, who can then be classified into “publics” based on commonalities. For example, an individual can be measured by the extent to which they:

Further, these variables affect the degree to which a person is likely to:

To a product manager, the population that matters is the group of people that can perceive a benefit from the product and are therefore likely to purchase the product. The initial stage of developing a messaging strategy, then, is to identify that group of people. For example, an application that helps restaurants manage their reservations has a fairly well defined target population — you aren’t likely going to market the application to Carphone Warehouse franchisees.

However, within this well defined population exist separate publics. The goal is to communicate with each of them. This requires the creation of multiple messages, each specifically tailored to a particular group. For example, you might segment your population as follows:

1. An information seeking public that already understand the problem, feel the problem affects them, and are seeking to solve the problem. They are looking for information about your product, and are best served by messaging that emphasizes the various features and functions of your product that differentiates you from the competition.
2. An information consuming public that is aware of the problem, but may not appreciate how it affects them. They aren’t looking for information in particular, and are best served by messaging that emphasizes the many ways they specifically benefit from solving the problem (e.g. an ROI study), or the many ways their competitor is stronger having already solved the problem.
3. An information consuming public that is aware of how the problem affects them, but isn’t aware of any way they can solve the problem. This public is best served by messaging that emphasizes how easy your product is to deploy, how inexpensive it is (in both CapEx and OpEx), and how effective it is.
4. An ignorant public that has little awareness of the problem your product solves. This public is best served by messaging that emphasizes the problem itself, and the many benefits that come from solving the problem.

The point isn’t to develop these messages exclusive of one another, the point is to develop a variety of collateral with different emphasis, designed for different publics. An information seeking public, for example, isn’t interested in wading through verbiage that describes a problem they already fully understand. Similarly, an ignorant public will ignore verbiage that describes how throughly your product solves a problem they’ve never thought about.

More than 10 years ago I moved from Washington DC, where I was communications director for a lobbying firm, to the media relations department at Netscape. The Netscape communications team were consummate professionals, very skilled at marketing and public relations, and I learned a lot from them. Being new to software, however, I was amused by the use of language that struck me as, well, odd.

One never spoke of using something; rather, it was “leveraged.” Software was never built for a particular purpose; rather, it was “architected.” Being the best was never good enough; one had to be “best of breed.”

No matter. This is the language of software marketing, and I got used to it. Besides, Netscape messaging may have popularized many of what became high-tech marketing cliches, but these phrases were never the focus of the message. Certainly never the entirety of the message. This, sadly, is no longer true.

Messaging in the software industry, by and large, sucks. Probably (and I mean this only in the most constructive possible way) even yours. Consider the following, taken verbatim from a brochure:

[Our company] develops flexible, best-of-breed intelligent software and services for the telecommunications industry and enterprises that accelerate convergence by leveraging communications networks, technologies and applications.

Wow!  Well.  Now that’s something. Except, what the hell does the company do? More to the point, what problem does the product solve?

Can you guess the most common phrase used in technology related press releases? It’s “next generation.” This is followed closely by “flexible,” “scalable,” and “robust,” among a host of others. Please. Marketing leaders must avoid architecting their messaging by leveraging these terms, if you’ll forgive me. Write to the customer. What does your product do?

But first, take a look at your website. At your collateral. Does it say “next generation” anywhere? Are you scalable, available, robust, flexible? Are you a platform? Do you feature an enterprise-class (or carrier-class) engine? Are you cutting edge? Easy-to-use, user-friendly, integrated, or interoperable? Tell me, do you leverage a bunch of industry standards?

Here’s the rule: when writing any marketing material, consider your customer first. Write for them. Start with them, and with their problems, first. Write about that for awhile. Then consider what your product does for the customer. What problem does it solve, what pain does it assuage, what pleasure does it provide, what would move someone to pay to experience your wonderful next generation product? Write all that down, then go back and edit and massage. Maybe even throw in a “leverage” or two, just to show you’re a team player.

Once you do that, that’s probably enough to stand out. You won’t have to go into why your product is differentiated from your competitors — you’ll be differentiated because your customers will understand what it is your product does. And your competitor’s product? Your customers won’t be sure what it does, except that it does it in a “next generation” kind of way.