
Ask HN: Is marketing really necessary? - aerialcombat
Do you think it&#x27;s possible for a product to take off without putting in any efforts for marketing&#x2F;advertising the product?<p>It seems that everyone is marketing their stuff somehow and it almost seems cooler not to do so these days. People are bombarded with apps and services and I was wondering what would happen if I took an opposite approach.<p>I&#x27;m only giving word-of-mouth strategy a try. Could it work if the product is good?
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therealwill
There are a few products I made just to solve a problem for myself that I was
too shy to share. I was very surprised how many people found my product and
used it when I did 0 advertising and told 0 people about it. But to answer
your question, no I do not think it is probable for a product to take off with
0 marketing/advertising. The only way a product takes off with 0 marketing is
when an end-user finds your product and loves it so much that they share it
with the world (free marketing.) This is very rare but a few developers found
success with this model such as Larry Page and Sergey Brin but they are more
of an exception than the rule.

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Gustomaximus
Do I think it's possible? Absolutely. Do I think it you're reducing your
chance of success without trying? Absolutely.

Coming from a marketing side I may be biased hence the upfront disclosure,
though here are my thoughts from the many times I've encountered this debate.
I've come across many of the more technical managers/execs who believe if you
build good product customers will come and treat marketing as an expense, not
an investment. I agree here to an extent for differentiated technical products
being sold to technical people. Engineers like to evaluate and consider
products closely. More information is better (to a point) when selling to
technical people and sales department is likely a better area of investment.
And while technical people may take this approach to everyday products, the
mass don't.

Most people are not technical. If you are trying to sell product/service to
the mass markets they typically buy what is 1) Placed in front of them , 2) At
a perceived value price point 3) With brief & easy to understand core product
messaging.

Form this, for the masses, good marketing can make or break a business. And
remember marketing is more than a pretty website or some blinking banner ads.
Marketing is many fields, one of the most important and least discussed being
distribution. This is often given little attention and IMO a key component to
get right. I would say typically a weaker product with great distribution has
a better chance of success than a great product with weaker distribution.
Think ASUS vs Dell, VHS vs Beta Max, HD DVD vs Blue ray, IE vs Opera Browser
etc.

All this aside, people simply need to track ROI and be open minded with
marketing. I've been in the position of showing a shrinking department a
marketing test that a $1.00 spent on tested activities will return $1.30 in
profit. Some technical execs stopped further spend going forward being stern
holders to the build a better product and people will come thinking, and
marketing is some cheap trick they are better than. It is just stupid rigid
thinking. End of the day do some testing with various marketing channels. If
your marketing efforts whatever they be can produce more profit than spend, do
it. If the tests cannot show any results, then close down this as any bad
investment. Overall, given the plethora of success you see with advertising,
anyone would be a fool for not actually trying and basing their decision on
philosophy vs fact.

~~~
vgeek
I've always thought of marketing as an expense you pay for having a boring
product. CPG companies have boring products, so in turn marketing expenses
outpace COGS.

That being said, there is so much noise in the marketplace that the best piece
of software may not ever be discovered if it cannot convey why it is better
than the alternatives. Engineers may be looking for a technical specification
checklist, while a manager may be looking for a case study tailored to their
own needs. A great product that no one knows about is pointless.

Marketing is creating a wedge between perceived value and intrinsic value. If
your product saves $X per quarter, your price should be as close to $X as
possible. If it will increase sales $Y, the same strategy applies. If it does
neither, then tell the consumer it will improve the opposite sex's opinion of
them, and charge as much as possible.

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damm
Word-of-mouth strategy only works when your intended target is more than
willing to share his opinion with his friends and tell everyone about you.

The problem is (according to most companies i've worked for) most good
customers will just buy your product and shut up. They don't brag about how
good your product is; and it's likely their friends will never know about the
purchase.

Bad customers however will tell 10 friends; and those 10 friends tell another
10 friends (and so on and so on). Semi-Myth / Semi-Fact; they are basically
right. You can game this and try and win more customers from negative
attention but it can backfire.

Lastly, not everyone looks for new products to buy. Some people don't know
they need to buy something until you market them a problem; and the solution.
If your expecting customers to magically just find you; maybe you will find
money magically appear in your bank account.

~~~
carrotleads
Hence you need to provide your good customers/fans etc. the tools & incentive
to do the marketing for you.

This I believe is the idea behind Trello Gold etc and the solution we came up
for a similar problem[1]

Lots of business try to build a referral rewards program and hope it catches
fire. But even there it is quite surprising to find the low visibility of such
programs. Came across AirBnB users claiming they had no idea AirBnB had one[2]

[1] The startup we founded, [http://carrotleads.com](http://carrotleads.com)

[2] [https://www.airbnb.com/invite](https://www.airbnb.com/invite)

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api
It happens, but it's rare. The really huge success stories typically involve
both a product that tends to sell itself and a good and clever marketing
apparatus that helps to prime the pump and widen the funnel. Problem is that
the world is big and noisy. Even if your product kicks serious butt, nobody
will hear about it if you don't tell them. Such products also typically don't
materialize out of nothing. Typically they get early customers who provide
feedback to make them better until they hit some threshold of product/market
fit and take off like crazy.

Product is primary. All the marketing in the world can't help a product that
nobody wants... At least not for very long. Sometimes gimmicky marketing can
create a flash in the pan.

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PaulHoule
Marketing and Advertising are different things.

Marketing is the interface between the consumer and the product or service and
it includes advertising but also customer support, the design of the box, what
channels you distribute through, etc.

Word-of-mouth is a marketing strategy as much as anything else is, but if the
success of the product mattered to me I would think that "If you build it they
will come" is an antipattern.

Certainly some brands have strong relationships with advertising. Warren
Buffet makes sure to be the #1 advertiser in all media with those GEICO ads
(which now even mock themselves) to keep the media sweet. Years back, Pabst
Blue Ribbon got bought by a corporate raider who was too cheap to spend money
on ads, but now a lot of people think PBR is cool because it does not run ads.

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wpietri
Marketing in the sense of "preparing your product for market" is indeed
necessary. You should have a deep understanding of who specifically needs your
product and how they benefit. And you should make it very easy for them to
understand that. The whole point of business is to serve other people, after
all, and that applies just as much before the sale as after.

Advertising may or may not be necessary; it depends on what your product is,
who uses it, how much it benefits them, how your audience talks to one
another, and how much advertising your competitors employ. Note that
advertising is an arms race. The kinds of weapons a country needs depends a
great deal on what its neighbors have. The same applies to businesses and
advertising.

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anonfunction
If the product is really great people will use it but good marketing takes
that effect and amplifies it. Marketing is about telling a story and creating
a sense of values, benefits and identity around the product. If people don't
_try_ your product it doesn't matter how good it is. If people don't _care_
about your product they might well use it all the time but never tell anyone.

I'll leave you with two quotes, the first is uplifting and the second a bit of
an eye-opener:

"Product is the value, marketing is a multiplier."

"Nothing Kills A Bad Product Faster Than Good Advertising"

~~~
aerialcombat
I agree with you that good advertising will go long ways. But what about bad
marketing? Isn't it so easy to market badly and end up losing any originality?

I've seen so many cases where marketing turned me off leaving no chance for
considering the product.

And it's so hard to advertise well.

~~~
anonfunction
This is true as well, I think the most common mistake I see marketers make is
_over_ marketing. You shouldn't have to fabricate a clear message, the product
really should speak for itself. Just present an idea and solution in a unique
way.

Here's another saying, "The number of ideas to use in an ad should be odd -
and three's too many."

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shahocean
The truth is, you need marketing to take off any product. Its just that the
way of putting products into the market has changed. Take ProductHunt for
example. They never did paid marketing, but they did some cool email marketing
stuff.

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MichaelCrawford
It's more important to sell the product than it is to write it.

However there are many ways to sell it; you need not spend a lot of money on
marketing if you learn how to SEO your own website. It's a lot of time and
effort, and somewhat slow to pay off, but it does pay off big if you do your
SEO well.

I don't mean keyword stuffing; put content on your website that other people
will recommend to others by giving you links.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Keyword stuffing might actually penalize your site. Google's Panda updates
penalize attempts at keyword stuffing.

