Techno-marketing refers to the set of practices that enable B2B/B2G high-tech companies to succeed in their markets with technology-intensive products, services, systems or solutions.
“Techno-marketing” ou “marketing” ?
In the world of technology, the term “techno-marketing” (one could also use “technology marketing”) seems preferable to the sole term “marketing” for several reasons:
- The exact nature of marketing activities is not well known in the technical world, especially the distinction between strategic and operational marketing.
- The word marketing often has a pejorative connotation in the technical world. It is often equated with advertising communication alone, with its excesses and even with lies that are contrary to the technical truth.
- The word marketing most often refers to consumer marketing tools and techniques which are far from being all adapted to the problems of technology companies: markets of millions of consumers with no individual bargaining power to whom relatively simple technical products are offered are very different from markets made up of customers of different sizes, some of whom have extremely strong bargaining power, to whom technically sophisticated products, services, systems or solutions are offered.
- The omnipresence of innovation and technology in the high-tech B2B/B2G company means that the question of the success of products and markets poses specific problems: a strong link between global strategy, R&D and product policy, the importance, risks and cost of developing products or services, the co-development of products with customers, the particular role of business development, etc.
What is the scope of techno-marketing?
To avoid the above pitfalls, we tend to prefer the term “techno-marketing” to “marketing” alone.
This allows the technical dimension of product/market success to be better taken into account and several points to be emphasised:
Use strategy and marketing concepts and tools at the right level
It is a question of succeeding in the markets by using the concepts and tools of strategy and marketing but with a finer “granularity” (market segments and customers) than that of global strategy (strategic areas of activity).
In this sense, it is a question of marketing strategy, i.e. analysing the markets and the competition, selecting the target market segments, defining the strategy for the market as a whole and for each of the target segments, defining the product and service offer, and supporting the offers with operational marketing.
All the classic marketing concepts and tools will be used, even if their implementation will be specific to the technology: concepts and practices related to segmentation, market share and competitive position analysis, targeting, positioning, value proposition, marketing mix, etc.
It should be noted that techno-marketing will have more proximity than B2C marketing between overall strategy-level analysis and actions and strategic marketing-level analysis and actions, because of the importance of all product and offer-related decisions in the overall strategy and in investments. In contrast to traditional B2C patterns, the product will not be a simple part of the mix for techno-marketing.
Adapting concepts and tools to the technological world
It is also a question of using the concepts and tools of marketing but in a selective and very specific way to the technological universe, by taking into account the specificities of the companies, their “engineering culture”, their markets and the technicality of their offers.
It will therefore be a question of closely associating the technical aspects with the market/customer aspects in all analyses and decisions on market and product strategy. In this sense, we are moving away from the approach commonly used by the general public.
In addition, in terms of operational marketing, it will of course be a question of promotion and communication, which are indispensable in technology as elsewhere:
- The stakes here will be more balanced between technical and image value.
- Promotional and communication tools and techniques will be specifically adapted to the technical world and will rely much less on pure advertising communication.
Two common questions
Let us conclude this definition of “techno-marketing” with two questions sometimes encountered in the technological world.
The place of product development
Does product development belong to strategy, R&D (or R&T) or marketing?
- The answer is much less simple than in B2C where powerful marketing clearly drives products whose technical dimension is, with some exceptions, less important.
- Product development, like product lifecycle management, is indeed a question of product market success and therefore a question of marketing in the broadest sense.
- But because of the high technological content of products and their essential role in strategic success or failure, it is more a question of ‘cooperative co-piloting’ between strategy, technology and marketing.
- It is therefore cooperation that is essential rather than hierarchical attachment.
- Different organisational solutions can work provided that cooperation is satisfactory. They are sometimes tested successively in technology companies, in particular the attachment of products to strategy, R&T or marketing
Product management and product marketing
Should product management be separated from product marketing in technology?
- We are not in favour of this approach, which implies that on the one hand there is a technical activity of developing products and managing their evolution over time, and on the other hand a market/customer activity consisting essentially of launching products on the market and promoting them through operational marketing.
- However, customer market concerns must be integrated from the very first phases of product thinking, from the “ideation” stage, in parallel with concerns about technical feasibility, competitiveness and business profitability.
- As a result, whether in the analysis stages, the decision stages or the execution and adaptation stages over time, “product management” and “product marketing” must always be closely linked.
- It is therefore possible to separate the two concepts, but there is a risk of dissociating them too much in the organisation without putting in place sufficient safeguards to ensure close cooperation. There is then a risk that “product management” will become disconnected from customer market concerns, particularly in terms of understanding customer value, value/price competitiveness, price acceptability, overall comparison of product/service offers with the competition, etc. All these phenomena are still observed in the field of product management.
- All these phenomena are still too often seen in technology and are often paid for dearly by lost investments and bitter product failures on the market.
