Day 3: Client meeting
Yesterday was spent out on site as we met with a customer to discuss their PR/marketing strategy.
Whilst marketing isn't the first discipline that springs to mind when thinking about development, I saw yesterday how much of a integral part it can play in the success of a company/product/service.
The process we went through involved getting the clients to really think about their company/product/service, what do they provide (and for who), and what was the message they wanted to send out to world. Then we established who their target audiences were and created personas for these audiences. Finally we decided how to tailor the message the client wished to send out to each of these personas and discussed the mediums with which they were likely to interact for maximum exposure and efficiency.
Matthew explained to to me that this process was similar for all stages of projects that endjin oversee and not just marketing - pushing the client to go back to basics and think about what they are offering. It hammered down for me the importance of marrying technology with customer/business needs and that just because something may be better "technically", does not automatically make it a success.
On a related note here is an interesting talk by David Heinemeier Hansson (creator of Ruby on Rails) about how to create a successful, profitable technology company by knowing who to target and how to operate.
