Converged Thinking for the CyberConsumer

Article from The FT press summarizing the main takeaways from the book Convergence Marketing: Strategies for Reaching the New Hybrid Consumer. Basiaclly - it's the 5 "C"s

• Customerization—Convergence of customized and standardized offerings and messages

• Community—Convergence of virtual and physical communities

• Channels—Seamless convergence of call, click, and visit

• Competitive value—Convergence of new and traditional competitive value equations and pricing models

• Choice tools—Convergence of new search engines and decision tools for consumers and company-provided advice

Technical Product Marketing Resources

Some useful resources for Technical product Marketing exist out there - the IT Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) is a paid membership organization (if you want to access all the really good stuff), but also have some free downloads and an insightful Blog on Technology sales and Marketing Strategy maintained by one Chris Koch.

Approaches to product marketing for products in the converging space

There are several approaches that may be beneficial when attempting to market a converged product to market spaces that may not have yet "converged" themselves:-

1. If you are selling B2B, seek out the more specialized tradeshows and conferences, rather than the big ones where you may get lost in the crowds. If you are selling equipment targeted at TV and broadcast, attend TelcoTV rather than Interop. Alternativelty, the Interop shows themselves are now fragmented across several different geographic markets, so it may be worthwhile to attend just the ones where you need more presence in that geographic area.