IT DOESNT COST MUCH TO MARKETE SIZZLE

One phrase Ive heard a lot over the years is about Selling the sizzle, not the steak. It suggests that in the world of marketing or product design, there is a divergence between elements of substance and what I call bright shiny objects, and that sometimes its the bright shiny objects that really move the needle on customer adoption.

At Return Path, we have always been about the steak and NOT the sizzle. Were incredibly fact-based and solution-oriented as a culture. In fact, I can think of a lot of examples where we have turned our nose up at the sizzle over the years because it doesnt contribute to core product functionality or might be a little off-point in terms of messaging. How could we possibly spend money (or worse our precious development resources) on something that doesnt solve client problems?

Well, it turns out that if youre trying to actually sell your product to customers of all shapes and sizes, sizzle counts for a lot in the grand scheme of things. There are two different kinds of sizzle in my mind, product and marketing and we are thinking about them differently.

Investing in product sizzle (e.g., functionality that doesnt actually do much for clients but which sells well, or which they ask for in the sales process) is quite frustrating since (a) it by definition doesnt create a lot of value for clients, and (b) it comes at the expense of building functionality that DOES create a lot of value. The way were getting our heads around this seemingly irrational construct is to just think of these investments as marketing investments, even though theyre being made in the form of engineering time. I suppose we could even budget them as such.

Marketing sizzle is in some ways easier to wrap our heads around, and in some ways tougher. Its easier because, well, it doesnt cost much to message sizzle its just using marketing as a way of convincing customers to buy the whole solution, knowing the ROI may come from the steak even as the PO is coming from the sizzle. But its tough for us as well not to position the ROI front and center. As our Marketing Department gets bigger, better, and more seasoned, we are finding this easier to come by, and more rooted in rational thought or analysis.

In the last year or two, we have done a better job of learning to embrace sizzle, and I expect well continue to do that as we get larger and place a greater emphasis on sales and marketing part of my larger theme of how weve built the business backwards. Dont most companies start with ONLY sizzle (vaporware) and then add the steak?

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