The marketing of technology must be a very difficult task given the seemingly ever accelerating rate of change in both the soft and hardware elements of such technology. This book sets out to show how non-marketers with technological products to sell can quickly grasp the basic elements of marketing to assist them in their endeavours. For that reason it is probably worth taking a few hours to read if you have a really good new idea but have no idea how to go about marketing it.
On reflection, and reading the book twice, it was not absolutely clear who the book is targeted at. Initially it seemed as if it was actually a guide for marketers on how to use technology in marketing. That in itself might be useful to a wider target audience of marketers. The title Taking Technology to the Market seems clear enough but its sub-heading “A Guide to the Critical Success Factor in Marketing Technology” confused this reader a little. Is it a book about the marketing of technology or the technology of marketing? Certainly we should not judge a book by its cover but without clarity at point of sale this book's sales potential might be limited.
In thirteen chapters this book seems to cover every element of the marketing mix. At the outset a reader is advised to think about where the company is positioned in the marketplace. It is hard to believe that a company will have developed far without thinking about this! But advice is given that could be useful in terms of making “mid-course” corrections. In the second chapter advice is given on the importance of identifying who target customers might be. Ironically it was still not clear who, exactly, this book is aimed at. The advice given throughout the book seems to be at quite a basic level such as a backyard inventor might find useful. Yet, in some places, advice given seems to be aimed at readers in large established organisations with sizeable sales, marketing and support teams. It seems unlikely that organisations could have got to such a size without understanding what this book is talking about.
However, for someone with some leading edge technology to market and who knows little about marketing, this book could be very useful. Chapter 3 emphasises the importance of developing a long term product plan and gives hints on how to do it. The next chapter then builds on this by discussing the importance of giving good customer service and develops several aspects of how this might be done. Other chapters give guidance on pricing, and distribution issues that might not occur to a non-marketer. Interesting insights to issues that might concern somebody marketing technology include the need to be different and have a competitive edge, while also suggesting that collaboration rather than conflict with others in the market place might be a good idea.
The confusion as to who the “target reader” is emerges again in Chapter 8 where some very good advice is given on how marketers can use technology to contact and manage customers and prospective customers. This would be very useful to older, non-technical marketers but basic knowledge to people in the technology field, would not it?
Whoever the reader is the advice on “Maintaining a culture of innovation”, in Chapter 10, will be a useful insight for marketers of technology. If not new to them it will at least be a timely reminder. This is a field in which new ideas can be out of date overnight. Readers are advised not to confuse “Invention” with “Innovation”(p. 119) and the point is made that, to keep ahead, everybody in a business can contribute to new ways of looking at and doing things, not just specialist product development people.
Chapters 11 and 12 give advice on making it easier for the customer to deal with the marketer. In Chapter 12 the author seems to be promoting a new marketing term: “Marketing Waves”. A search of several academic and practitioner databases could not locate it, apart to a reference to surfing in Hawaii. The term as newly coined means that marketing is not just one action, or a series of disconnected actions, but a series of coordinated events, similar to Integrated Marketing Communications but broadened to take in to account all elements of the marketing mix. Good to see new terms being added to our vocabulary but repetition of the term got to grind a bit (Nine mentions on p. 147 alone!)
Chapter 13 suggests that a marketing person – a CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) – should be appointed at Board level, seemingly confirming that this is a book aimed at major corporates, to ensure that marketing plays a pivotal role in taking technology to market. But, the advice it gives is most likely to be of use to an individual or small business starting up with little knowledge of marketing and without the assistance of a board and large support team.
From an academic reader's perspective the book can criticised for barely mentioning any other marketer's thoughts on the topics covered. There are far too many vague references to the experience of other people who have tackled similar problems to those addressed in this book. An “IT services organisation” is mentioned on p. 68. Why was it not identified to add credence? On p. 116 a statement is made “according to IBM”. It would have been useful to know who made that statement and when, after all we are talking about a fast changing marketplace. On p. 119 we are told that a security company recognised a problem, but not which security company it was. It may be that these comments were made in confidence to the author but too many unattributed examples seem to reduce the credibility of what is said.
In conclusion: This book is rather like the curate's egg (good in parts). Some parts will be useful to start up entrepreneurs, some parts to mature corporates, perhaps all of it to “general” marketers. It is realised that this placed a lot of pressure on the author to use terminology that readers would be very familiar with but ensure that novices are not left wondering what some things meant. On p. 86, when talking about the production of promotional materials, the comment is made that “it's important to write at the correct technical level. You should not assume that your readers will be familiar with technology, particularly with new technology”. This advice was not adhered to in several places in this book. What is a “Cloud”?
