I have been holding off commenting here for precisely this reason. When we get closer to that point, we’ll be in a much better position to work out how to market it.
But I do feel the need to point out a few misconceptions. First, it isn’t true to say that successful marketing taglines are all about what a product does. In the US, for example, Mercedes has for years been using the tag line: “The best or nothing.” That tells you neither about what it is nor what it does. Incredibly successful marketing campaigns in the UK have included: “Keep them by the bread bin”, “P-p-p-pick up a Penguin”, and “Beanz Meanz Heinz.” None of them said what the product did.
Indeed, a very great deal of marketing is clearly targeted at a specific group of potential users. Kay, the jewelers, clearly targets men buying for women. Reverse mortgage companies target those over a certain age … The list goes on…
The point I am making is that good marketing is hard to do. We can’t rely on sweeping assertions about how marketing works; we need to tailor our message carefully.
And here’s the other problem. No matter who comments on this, and on other, ClassicPress thread(s), and no matter whether they are pro or against a particular marketing idea, they aren’t really a good barometer of how our messaging might be perceived. That’s because they are already here!
The real issue lies in identifying what is the reason that more people aren’t here too. If it’s a marketing thing, then, sure, we need to consider how to do it better. But if the barrier is something other than marketing, re-formulating taglines won’t make any difference and will just take up time that most of us don’t have anyway.
Finally, another problem I’ve seen is that we adopted the “business-focused” after quite a bit of discussion. But as soon as someone said they were put off, we got a bit squeamish about it, even though the reason for the tagline was to target a specific group and that person wasn’t in that group. We can’t keep doing that.
If we choose to target a group, then it’s inevitable that those outside that group might be deterred. That’s OK! If, on the other hand, we choose to highlight what ClassicPress does, we can’t get upset when someone is put off who wants to do something else (even if ClassicPress could do that too). If we keep reacting like that, we’ll be forever changing taglines.
What this highlights, of course, is just how hard marketing is to do well. And, as I said at the outset, I don’t think we should consider changing anything before version 2 is due out. But I would like to see some broader discussion between now and then of what our marketing should look like. I don’t think that limiting things to a re-phrasing of the tagline is likely to prove terribly helpful.
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