“Why does every tech company suck at marketing?”

Good question!

I wouldn’t say that every tech company sucks at marketing. Many do, even if they aren’t in tech.

When it comes to tech companies though, most suffer from terrible marketing because they are in love with their own technology or product, which sometimes represents an investor-funded speculative solution looking for a problem, and too busy navel-gazing instead of deeply understanding their target audience, and how their product competes in their customers’ minds with a million things more acutely important.

That’s why they often can’t see past their nose to realize that if others will value it to some degree, it will be for other, more pragmatic reasons, and not for the technology or product itself.

And that’s how you end up with self-absorbed marketing full of technobabble such as “the most innovative X”, “637 spurving bearings per turboencabulator gram-meter”, with lazy marketing such as “the world’s first digital X”, “best-in-class solution” or other meaningless, tone-deaf and buzzword-laden drivel; or with hollow mission-statement-based marketing that ends up being condescending in its attempt to narcissistically cast the company into the role of a world savior 🙄

Honest and empathetic marketing that deeply groks customers and respects their attention span is the best marketing. Bonus points if it is authentic, has character and humor, and doesn’t take itself too seriously.

How are you enabling your product managers to do so?