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Do free software projects need marketing teams?Do free software projects need marketing teams?Posted Apr 26, 2007 3:51 UTC (Thu) by dberkholz (subscriber, #23346)Parent article: Do free software projects need marketing teams?
The last half of this article talks about marketing to the developers, but what volunteer projects need to do is market to the users. Not to decide where they're going next, but to showcase what they already have! It's really more of a PR team than a team making active decisions about where the project will go next, although doing user studies can help to inform the developers of areas they might want to work on.
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Do free software projects need marketing teams? Posted Apr 26, 2007 5:19 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] You are confused. Showcasing what you already have, and trying to get people to buy it or adopt it, and without having influence on what comes next, is not marketing. It's sales, which is a completely different function in most businesses.Marketing is future-directed, and is about getting both the developers and the customers/users to buy in to future plans. Marketing, in a company, is about setting that company's future direction.
Do free software projects need marketing teams? Posted Apr 26, 2007 5:41 UTC (Thu) by dberkholz (subscriber, #23346) [Link] Probably. I wasn't a business major. But it seems to me that we need to redefine terms to fit the reality of a volunteer-based project, where we don't have any control and we're limited to persuasion.
Do free software projects need marketing teams? Posted Apr 26, 2007 9:49 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] This is a very narrow view of marketing. And written with such assurance, even though many business folks can't agree on the meaning of that term. (I'm the CEO of a successful mid-sized company; and speak here from personal experience.)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing for a non-scientific overview. You refered only to the first third of the core objectives: creating value for customers. But communicating and delivering a project's value is also part of marketing; and you seem to neglect that, or to dismiss it as PR or advertisement.
Do free software projects need marketing teams? Posted Apr 26, 2007 17:14 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] The comment I was replying to contained the quote "Not to decide where they're going next, but to showcase what they already have!" I contend that such a narrow role belongs to sales, not marketing. Of course marketing involves advocacy of the company's current position, and not just the future. But to explicitly advocate not focusing on what's next seems like strictly-sales to me.
Do free software projects need marketing teams? Posted Apr 29, 2007 14:28 UTC (Sun) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] The problem is that calling it "sales" makes no sense when it's something you're trying to give away for free. Do we need a new word here?
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