HOW TO TALK TO MARKETING

PEOPLE

HOW TO TALKTO MARKETING PEOPLE

rui.carmo@co.sapo.pt

@rcarmo on Twitter

I HAVE A CONFESSIONTO MAKE

I USED TO BE ONE OF THEM

BUT I SAW THE LIGHT

SO WHY ARE WE HERE TODAY?

THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE

• Throughout the ages, technical and Marketing people have been at odds with one another

• Some say it goes back a long, long way, to the beginning of Time itself...

ENGINEER MARKETEER

DRESS CODE

HOW WE LOOK TO THEM

HOW THEY LOOK TO US

BUT ARE THEY EVEN HUMAN?

• They’re just, huh... Different

• They have different goals, priorities and ideas

• For instance, they honestly believe stuff like this works to sell products

BUT IS IT REALLY A CONFLICT?

• Some say it is worse than trench warfare

•Others deny ever being involved

•Most just wish Marketing was outsourced to India instead

IN THE END, IT’S JUST A MATTER OF BALANCE

They’re just people likeyou and me

BUT CAN WE EVEN COMMUNICATE?

• Yes!

• But we approach things from different angles

• Marketing wants features, and doesn’t know how much it takes to implement them

• Engineering wants robustness and common sense

BUT THEY WANT US TO DO THIS!

Yeah, I know it’s impossible.It usually is.

IT’S ALL ABOUT PERSPECTIVE

You say: They want to hear :

FAST NOW

GOOD PRETTY

CHEAP PROFITABLE

AND THEY WANT ALL THREE

AND YOU KNOW WHAT?

IN THE END, IT’S

OUR FAULTBecause only geeks would

create a t-shirt like this

GEEKS CAN’T INTERACT WITH NORMAL PEOPLE

• Geeks think of meetings as a waste of time

• And they’re mostly right

• But that’s largely because they don’t parse non-verbal communication

•Normal people use meetings not as a way to decide things, but as a way to reassure themselves they’re doing the right thing

• And to make sure everyone is in sync

SO IF THINGS GO

WRONG... It’s our fault for not taking the time and patience to explain

BUT EVEN WHEN WE DO EXPLAIN...

WE GO IN TOO HARD

There’s no need to treat people like idiots

OR WE GO IN TOO DEEPThere’s really no need to

discuss things at the bit level

GEEKS CAN’T LIE

SINCE WE CAN’T LIE, WE ALWAYS SAY TOO MUCH

• We deluge people in too much detail

• We make a point of showing off what we know

• And what they don’t

• We treat meetings as a waste of time and group therapy

• And we often let them know too much about what we think

• Because we’re tactless

• So we end up losing their respect

• And, ultimately, their trust

• So no wonder they think techies are hot-swappable

WE DON’T ABSTRACT IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS

• To Marketing, you needing Python 3000 is a detail

• To you, it’s a religious issue

• To Marketing, IE is just a browser

•Okay, they have that one wrong...

• To Marketing, how you get things done doesn’t matter

• It only matters that it’s done on time

• To you, it’s almost the only thing that matters

AND THIS IS WHAT WE SOUND LIKE

• “Yes, we can do that, but we need to rebuild the frobiscle and compile it with the goosnargh so we can do it in sequel.”

• “No way the scrabel is going to work with our partner’s ancient vorsiple backbone.”

BECAUSE WE DON’T READ

EXPRESSIONS...or even bother to figure out

if people want to hear that

SO HOW DO WE ACTUALLY TALK TO THEM?

THE ANSWER MAY SURPRISE YOU...

BY LISTENING

SURE, IT HELPS WHEN THEY’RE

CUTE...and smart.

And I mean real smart...

BUT WHAT ARE THEY ACTUALLY SAYING?

Customer Penetration It’s not about sex

Customer Retention Stop scaring the customers away

Campaigns We need to put some ads up

BillingWe all need to

make money here

Focus GroupSomeone else that hasn’t

seen this stuff, ever

Churn The ones we already scared off

YES, THEY TOO HAVE JARGON, BUT IT’S EASIER

CommissioningWhat we award the peoplewho actually make the sale

SegmentationWe want all customers

with shoe size 38

User Generated ContentWe don’t want to pay for content

Feature ParityWhat we need you to steal

from the competition

Differentiation What they’ll steal from us next

Social MediaThat new stuff we

haven’t figured out yet

OF COURSE, WE ALSO NEED TO KNOW HOW TO TALK BACK

...POLITELY

OR ELSE...

BUT WE CAN STILL FIX THINGS

THANK YOU

QUESTIONS?

I FIND YOUR LACK OF QUESTIONS DISTURBING