Blog Yes & Know

We think we know… but we don’t

Product Managers and Marketing people often think we know our customers and what they want from us. But let me challenge that thinking. If we knew more about our customers …

We think we know… but we don't

Product Managers and Marketing people often think we know our customers and what they want from us. But let me challenge that thinking. If we knew more about our customers …

Porter Model is Dead

I’m at the O’Reilly conference of Emerging Technology and it’s giving me just the right setting (and time away from the day job of leading Rubicon) to capture an idea …

Execute revenue growth, or not

I was just reading Double Digit Growth by Michael Treacy. Yes, during work hours. Call it my version of eating bon-bons. I needed a break. And his book is one …

Reaching Good Decisions

I spent a walk last week with a friend who is struggling to make a good decision. It’s more a personal decision rather than a professional one. And yet I …

Spotlight on HP’s Campaign

Great marketing is about demand creation. It’s about filling an unfulfilled need, or creating a need and then filling it. When done right, it’s magical to experience. Marketing has many …

Spotlight on HP's Campaign

Great marketing is about demand creation. It’s about filling an unfulfilled need, or creating a need and then filling it. When done right, it’s magical to experience. Marketing has many …

Oracle Simplifies Licensing, Again

What do you do if you have a mature product and the market gives you grief over your complex pricing? You have to do something, but what you do depends on your level of market power and your view of pricing. With Oracle’s latest pricing announcement, one gets the sense that Oracle is still being Oracle. That is, this is the latest installment in Oracle’s attempt to update pricing without actually changing their pricing much. As the category leader, they get pressure to lower prices but know that they don’t have to do so. So while the headline suggests Oracle is simplifying, they are not. They remain, as ever, optimized for revenue capture.

When the Best Defense Is Growth

If your business is targeted by a larger competitor, the natural response is to want to play defense–to squeeze pricing, take special care of the channel, maybe do some promotions and guerrilla marketing. We’d never advise you to take your eye off a competitor, but the defensive reaction isn’t always the best way to fight. A larger competitor will expect you to do these things, and will usually be well prepared for siege warfare. They’ll be ready to match your pricing and outspend you in the channel in order to drive you out of the market.
Sometimes the best defense isn’t defending at all, it’s finding ways to grow the market. If your customers are still early in the adoption curve, and especially if there are new segments you can open up, it’s usually more cost-effective for you to bring in new users than it is to defend every inch of the turf you hold today.