In Reply to: With my marketing hat on.... posted by doodlebug on August 9, 2006 at 12:42:16:
Quoting Doug Hall (copied from IEEE Spectrum, Aug'06):
(notes are from me)
"
There are 3 laws of what i call marketing physics, 3 things that do matter.The first is "overt benefit", which, in consumer's words, is What's in it for me ?.
The second is "real reason to believe," which translate in consumerese to "Why should I believe you ?"
The third is "dramatic difference" which translate in consumerese to "Why should I care ?"
The classic mistake that engineers make is to talk about features, not benefits.
Engineers will talk about the technology, and assume that people will know why it's important and believe that it works note1.
But it doesn't work that way.
The job of marketing is to communicate the wonders of the products or service in a way that consumers can understand. note2
It's not very difficult, it's way trivial compared to the technology stuff !
But people need to have absolute clarity about what their message is:
- what's the benefit?
- what's the reason to believe?
- what's the dramatic difference?
And if you are not dramatically different, give it up. You have a commodity, and you're going to sell it for commpodity prices note3.
"note 1 read for example doodlebug's concern about using your gear in a pro venue where continuity of service is of uttermost importance, because pros earn money thanks to the combination of their skills and their gear, and field MTTF of the whole sound system has to be shorter than about 30 seconds (MTTF= Mean Time to Fix).
Other concerns maybe. Brown-out tolerance. Vibration/shocks. Ease of access to fuses/breaker in the middle of a venue, would a mains surge trigger them. EMI/RFI (dozens of customers are using their cellphones jut below the racks...). Able to work,even at reduced power in case of fan failure..... Many things this way. I won't do your homework ;-))note 2 About what people do believe and do understand, you should visit Propeller Head Plaza, the Cable Asylum, the Tweak Asylum.
You'll have to admit many people work on a completely different paradigm that we designers/engineers do. The wallet is theirs.note 3 The price you ask for is a commodity. But if you own a bunch of Third-World originated slaves in your basement, you're likely not to be able to make any profit with such low a price. Even with your slaves: you have to count for the compoents themselves, their machining, also the price of the 2 or 3 prototypes you built, the first to make your design work fine, the others for the certifications and long term field testingnote4.
Your price is way too low.
Obviously, with an higher price, the third question above is acuter.
Ask you the question whether you asked for such a low price because you knew that question 3 was a yet unsolved issue? So, my advice: solve the issue, and get higher price for a unique equipment.note 4 I would advise you to lent or give an equipment to a sound system owner (sound system in the Jamaican sense) and let it him for one year or so. It will be tried thoroughly by non-specialists, and will receive all the bad treatments you thought about and even those you didn't.
An example I lived: I had a voltage selector behind my Crossover, that I lent to a jamaican friend who brought it there as the core of his sound system.
In Jamaica, they have both 127 and 230V.
When they forgot the switch in 230V when fed in 127, sound was not that good.
When they forgot the swich in 127 while fed in 230, sound was good, but after a while the fuse blew.
They changed the fuses several times, until they set a too powerful fuse by error.
It seemed fine, they could let the selector in the 127 position, and always get good sound.
Until the transformer burnt...
I must admit that I didn't think of that one!
Only field testing can show you such pitfalls.
BTW, I replaced the power supply by an universal input PFC forward converter, and took off the voltage selector. Works fine without having to worry about the mains.You MUST have field testing. And not done by you.
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Follow Ups
- What differentiate them from commodities? .... - Jacques 04:28:41 08/11/06 (5)
- Tracy - darvocet 07:37:46 09/22/06 (0)
- Re: What differentiate[s] ... Jacques' 3 laws .... - FastEddy 19:11:25 08/15/06 (3)
- Ha! Good one... - doodlebug 19:34:30 08/15/06 (2)
- Re: Ha! Good one... - FastEddy 16:49:16 08/17/06 (1)
- Re: Ha! another Good one... - FastEddy 16:55:36 08/17/06 (0)