The Elephant is Not its Trunk: Stop fooling yourself about marketing
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Protip: When trying to convince a bunch of programmers that you're right, painting them with a broad, stereotypical brush is generally not helpful to your cause, like:
"But only stupid people fall for marketing"
"Please tattoo your name in binary on your forehead. It would make social interaction ever so much more functional."
"I failed Art class because my teacher took exception to me pointing out that her grading formula was calculated incorrectly!"
"Geeks tend to think that marketing is nothing but deception."
... etc. I've met very few people, computer geek or otherwise, who actually think/talk like this. By filling your article with caricatures and stereotypes like these, you're simply reducing the ability for people to identify with it (not to mention being insulting to the reader's intelligence).
There are some good insights in the article - but I do not think these points are as mind-shattering to the average geek as the author seems to believe. Marketing is not intrisically scummy and scammy? You don't say! Marketing need not be deceptive? What a concept! Marketing can be honest about its products? Woaaaaaah, duuude.
> There are people like he describes
No doubt there are - but in my experience they are few and far between. There's no need to call out a vast minority of people to try and make the point that this sort of anti-marketing belief is widespread... it is not.
I work with other programmers every single day, most of whom do not read HN, nor have entrepreneurial ambitions. More than a few are your stereotypical hackers whose sole purpose in life appears to be hacking on code.
Yet I have yet to meet someone who fits the profile the author describes. I'm sure they are out there, but to suggest that this is common, or even anything but a remote minority is absurd.
Not involving elephants.
Remember, the more sure you are of something, the more you are likely to be blinded to its flaws.
That assertion could use some quotes to back it up. My perception of the marketing talk here is completely different. I think you are suffering from confirmation bias.
Remember, the more sure you are of something, the more you are likely to be blinded to its flaws.
That's tautological. "You don't see any reason to believe in a secret conspiracy? That's because it's so secret that there's no evidence!". Being aware of possible flaws is orthogonal to being sure about something. Hell, most of the time 'being sure' means 'having a balanced opinion, because you are aware of the different sides of the story'. Of course, while being critical of the question whether you are aware of the different sides of the story, etc. It's caveats all the way down, even when you are 'sure'.
Regarding that statement, I read a great book called "I'm with the brand" (Euro title) or "Buying In" (American title). I don't have it with me, so I can't cite pages, but in it, the author described various studies that suggest that the more a person believes himself to be "immune" to advertising messages, the greater their impact.
It dovetails nicely with the post-hoc justification studies that show that you can trick people into doing things, and later they will come up with reasons why that are completely unrelated to the real reasons. (E.g., reading stories with lots of priming words like "elderly" and "infirm" and "creaky," people walk more slowly, then they make up reasons why when asked).
And, as for the attitude on HN, it's more subtle. Like I said before, my geek's "internal thoughts" in the article were hugely caricaturized for effect.
What you see here, instead, is a mixture of the two:
1. People talking about how if you just build something great, you don't need to promote it, and
2. People who focus on local maxima with things like split-testing copy text changes, and Adwords tweaking, etc., rather than promotion strategies
To me, those are both signs of "marketing anxiety" of one stripe or another.
#1 - It's true that having a great product helps a lot, but it doesn't do all the work for you.
#2 - People avoid uncomfortable things. People on HN are stereotypically comfortable with numbers and quantifiable, provable things. So they take something uncomfortable to them ("marketing") and turn it into something comfortable ("split-testing").
But there is a big difference between advertising and marketing, and optimization and marketing. There is a big difference also between conversion tactics and marketing.
Marketing is the big picture under which all those things fall -- and a lot more, too, which goes silent here on HN.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about a long-term promotional strategy that wasn't almost entirely about ads and conversion strategy.
How's that?
So all you really have is a different set of stereotypes about geeks than the author has. Who's right?
I'm starting to think the question "what is a geek" is the ultimate elephant of our time - no two geeks anywhere are feeling the same body part. (No jokes, please.) We all mistake our own local, small sample sets for the totality, and anyone who tries to make a general assertion just gets picked apart by a million people who have exceptions to bring up.
It's distressing to me, because we need powerful marketing conversations, and conversations that are all about exceptions aren't very powerful.
The very definition of geek tends to include words like "non-conformist" and "totally focused on some tiny tiny niche that no one else knows anything about"
Hint: if it pissed you off, it hit a nerve.
It was a deliberate exaggeration in order to highlight the absurdity of the actual arguments MOST geeks do make. And, for the record, I've heard various forms on those actually used - well, except the binary name one. And that one was a joke.
I totally understand that my writing is not for everyone, but it seems like you are deliberately misinterpreting it. I mean, that phrasing was couched between "tailywaily" and calling an elephant "muscly cookie dough." Surely it was obvious that while the content was serious, the delivery was not.
There is a pattern - yes, even on HN - of saying "I'm bad with names" or "I'm not an artist" -- and then turning around and denigrating those skills that other people have taken the time & effort to develop.
They hide behind a shield of überrationality instead of admitting that they find marketing & other social skills distasteful or frightening because they are hard.
Maybe as a designer/writer/social butterfly in addition to programmer, I have more of those comments directed at me than you do. Or maybe I just notice them more readily.
And that's the unnecessary bit - by caricaturing whatever real perceived problem there is you've both lost credibility and created a strawman where none needed to have been created.
If geeks make these absurd arguments, then repeat them, let your readers be the judge of it. As it is all you have are farcically exaggerated fake quotes, which does little to convince the reader that any problem even exists.
> I've heard various forms on those actually used
I've also heard new programmer hires exclaim "what's SQL?!". This doesn't mean it's a common (or even uncommon) occurrence. I too have met people (from all walks of life, mind you) who are vehemently against product placement and advertisement in any form... doesn't mean they are common, and certainly I do not get the impression this attitude is more prevalent in the geek community than elsewhere.
> "I'm bad with names" or "I'm not an artist" -- and then turning around and denigrating those skills that other people have taken the time & effort to develop.
I agree with you here, but again, this is not a problem unique to the geek community. It's a problem that seems to span all of humanity... e.g., "I'm no computer whiz / What a nerd!" Calling out the geek community on this is unnecessary and distracts from the fact that it's a far more fundamental human issue.
I'm not saying I'm half as good as they are, but your assertion that it shouldn't be used comes across as rather strident.
And by adding your new programmer/what's SQL? argument, you fell into the same trap yourself.
We're not going to agree, might as well not bother.
Are you trying to do what they did? If not....
Perhaps, but if that is the case, then I don't doubt someone corrects them and they learn. Then their stance becomes "I'm bad with names and while I understand it can be an asset, I don't believe it is worth my time" and "I'm not an artist, but I understand how designing a UI is tricky work and I'm glad we have someone who is good at it. If I had to design that UI, it would suck.".
The next stage of enlightenment may come when they say such things to equivalents of their historical selves and someone yet again adds something to their understanding, for instance by pointing out how they could understand these skills better and how that are perhaps even more worth then they thought. Or by pointing out that while they were paying lip-service to the concept with their 'I respect that' utterings, they actually still seem to look down on the skills.
Finally, some people really are unmovingly convinced of something seemingly ludicrous, but they can defend that position, even when we disagree. Instead of bashing them for not conforming, we can sometimes learn from them, because they make us reconsider a core assumption. Perhaps 'marketers' really are all lying scumbags, but we don't see that, because people like you keep nuancing and defending what they do, which keeps hiding their actual natures.
Edit: To explain that last paragraph some more: sometimes there aren't multiple levels of enlightenment and you were right in the first instance. While everyone is busy sketching complex, nuanced, faceted, balanced accounts of the issue, all they are doing is in fact trying to straighten what is bent beyond repair. Why? Because society asserts it is straight and we try to fit in.
As an example, most atheists (want to) allow for religions in their world view. Everyone, them included, bash those 'intolerant' atheists that firmly hold there should not be any room for any religion. But the latter party may simply be right in asserting that humanity will be best of if we started a hundred year effort to get rid of all the religions. If that were the case, then a seemingly simple view would yield the best results, while all the nuanced accounts turned out to be nothing but fog.
I read this style all the time, and take it for what it is: a construct that makes things easier to digest, even when neither the argument, nor counterargument, apply to me.
Again, I usually find it helpful/intellectual lubricant, and did in this case.
That said, I can't deny your experience. If you felt friction, there must be something to reconsider in this style of presentation. Thanks potatolicious for taking the time to describe how it make you feel. I will consider your ideas the next time I have to present slightly counter-intuitive things to folks. (I often present really technical things to business people who are handicapped not by their lack of technical skill, but extremely conservative approach to risk.)
And thanks as well to ahoyhere, who posted the article. Good stuff.
I agree 100%, the more you realize you do this the better your company will be in the long run.
On the other hand, I would hope that any serious entrepreneurs on HN would already have grasped the point that marketing is good for business, so it might be a bit redundant.
"If people don’t like reading about unicorn tears on the sales site, there’s no way they’re going to like the book. [...] Only one person has ever taken advantage of the 30-day refund."
Yes - that's because people are a) lazy, b) trying to justify their choices. They did not bother to return the book; they got it as a present; they resold it on ebay; etc. etc.
Marketing in real world that we walk through every day is about selling you as many products as possible as fast as possible. That's how the performance is measured typically. That's why it doesn't matter anymore if a real person calls you. It's cheaper to do an automated call to 100 times more people, because someone will respond. That's why spam works!
"marketing is about support" may work for a 1-person shop. Sure - you will get the information you need, because that person knows his business. Then at the size of ~100 people there will be a buffer of 2 managers between him and the standard worker - each manager with their own decisions and measured by performance. They know that there's a support department and they know what it's for - answering the questions about the shit people bought. That's why you'll get a call to ask you whether you want to upgrade your service from a person who doesn't know what they're talking about.
Both marketing people and programmers have the same problem - there are loads of drones in their business. It would be foolish to judge marketing by the article's author and it would be foolish to judge programming by DJB's code. They're one in a million. And the rest will work great together - one side will create millions of lines of crappy code and the other will sell it like it was the best thing since sliced bread.
The author may be describing correctly her own environment and her workplace, but... please, stop fooling yourself about marketing ;)
My book is an ebook, not a physical object. I offer a very strong refund policy and getting a refund is as easy & instant as emailing the address listed on the site & book. Typical return rates for other ebooks range fro 3-5%, based on my convos with other people selling info products.
Also, when I say "support," I mean it in the traditional sense. I don't mean "customer support" as in "answering emails." Remember that that term predates that particular meaning.
Support, as I explain in my article, means helping people. I create products, first, with a goal of helping my customer make themselves/their lives better. That is my guiding purpose.
Then, with my marketing, I help them decide - really - if the product is for them or isn't for them. I make it extremely clear who the product will help, I don't cast as wide a net as possible.
Helping people realize "this product is NOT for me" is respectful of them & their time.