[drupal-docs] Marketing subset of Team Documentation

[Andre Molnar]

Charlie Lowe wrote:
> Boris Mann wrote:
> 
>>I was just reading through some recent edits to the "features"  
>>section and came to the realization that the writing for that  
>>particular section needs to be completely different than documentation.

> These key terms probably target web designers and developers only. For 
> other audiences--an IT administrator interested in implementing Drupal 
> for his infrastructure but not sure what it does, an individual user on 
> the web looking for a personal weblog or community blog who may know a 
> little about blogging and wants to find out how Drupal is similar to 
> what she knows, a casual visitor who keeps hearing of Drupal but doesn't 
> know anything about it--these are probably not their mostly like main 
> interests first. That doesn't mean they aren't important, but I think 
> there's a better pitch.
<snip>

Here is one major point to keep in mind.  You have a market - and within 
that market you have segments.  No single message is going to 
effectively target all of your market segments.

All marketing is about the providing unique value proposition to 
potential customers.  What are the needs of your customers?  What is the 
  benefit of your product that meets those needs?  NOTE THAT BENEFIT IS 
VERY DIFFERENT FROM FEATURES.

The needs and corresponding benefits are different for each of your 
market segments.

What a web-designer is looking for is different from what a web 
application developer is looking for.  What a forum admin is looking for 
is different from what a blog admin is looking for.  And so on.

The great thing about the web of course is that it doesn't cost more to 
add more copy to a web site that covers each and every one of your 
target market segments.  In fact there is nothing stopping you from not 
only providing a pitch to each segment, but a pitch to different 
personality types within each segment.

The personae being developed as a guide on how to write documentation 
are even more useful in developing marketing strategies.  Each persona 
is a different market segment with different core needs.  There are 
unique benefits of Drupal that resonate with ALL of these segments, but 
there are other unique benefits that will only resonate with each of the 
individual personae.

Stable
Supported
Here to Stay

These are the three primary factors for CONSIDERING Drupal (or any other 
open source project) as a solution.  If these three points are not 
communicated, then people won't bother to read on.  All three offer the 
same 'benefit' to people i.e. "Reliability"

Open Source

This point is important but is not a deal maker.  The connotations of 
Open Source appeal more to some people than others.  More importantly 
"Open Source" is not a benefit - its a feature.  What are the benefits 
of Open Source?  That is what needs to be communicated!  Luckily there 
is more than one benefit of open source - so you can target the 
different benefits to the different segments.

Standards Compliant

Once again this is a feature and not a benefit.  What is the benefit of 
a standards compliant product?  Which segments of your market does that 
benefit appeal to the most?  If your are doing this exercise in your 
head right now it should be obvious that this particular feature and its 
associated benefits are not globally applicable to all segments - and 
therefore it might not be the kind of thing you go on about in your 
primary pitch.  (yes use it, but don't make it front and center).

***

Off the top of my head I could likely rattle off 50 different Drupal 
features.  Which likely means that there are 200 or more individual 
features of Drupal if I sat down and really thought about it.  These all 
need to be boiled down to benefits - and those are what need to be 
communicated in the marketing material.

Sorry for the rant - I think that this is important.

I'm sure the bryte guys and the civic space folk have already done many 
of these exercises (determining benefits and developing their own 
marketing strategies based on that).  I've done a few myself.  Its 
certainly in all our mutual benefit to contribute our work to market 
Drupal in general.  More Drupal users = more paid work for Bryte, 
Civicspace, Be Circle and everyone else that has Drupal in part (or all) 
of their business model.

So, I'm willing to make a contribution by helping identify the benefits. 
  I'm not the best copy writer in the world - so I can't provide pages 
and pages of polished pitches - but those that are talented copy writers 
will have a much easier time if they know what they should be writing 
about :-)

andre