Re: A cohesive sales message

Folks,

IF we could get back on topic for a minute ... not that the discussion of
copyright infringement isn't interesting, but in the meantime Rob has been
left hanging.

To quote Peter:
> Marketing material needs to be made with a specific purpose in mind. So
> before you create something, you need to ask yourself who the audience
> is and who will carry it to that audience.
>
> Likely audiences in the near term are guest at expositions and
> conferences. Flyers (to pass out) and posters (to decorate) are the
> obvious types of material for these occasions. So talk to t

Absolutely. The posters are easy from a *content* perspective; all it
requires is a logo & name and our motto ("The world's most advanced Open
Source database"). Aside from the design, our main challenge is deciding
how many languages to do posters in.

For flyers & brochures, I see three audiences. At conventions like OSCON and
PHPCon, we will be talking pretty much exculsively to fellow geeks, and our
materials should focus on the technical and community benefits of PostgreSQL
in a buzzword-free way. They should answer the questions "What can I do with
PostgreSQL that I couldn't do otherwise? What resources exist to help me
work with PostgreSQL?"

The second audience shows up at conventions like Linuxworld and Macworld ...
the suits. These people, in my experience, are mostly interested in being
reassured that they won't be fired for choosing PostgreSQL over MSSQL or
Oracle. For them, we'd mostly want testimonials, and buzzword-compliant
lists of features and comparisons. These materials should answer the
question "Is PostgreSQL equal to major proprietary databases?"

The third audience is the press. Depending on the reporter and the story,
most of what they want to know can be answered with the materials for either
of the two groups above (more the "suits" than the "geeks"). However, they
will also want the answer to the question "What is PostgreSQL? Where did it
come from?" which would include a brief history and an explanation of
ORDBMS.

Ideally, I'd like to find a way to condense things down to two "packages" -- a
"geek" and a "non-geek" package.

Opinions? Thoughts? Rude noises?

--
-Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco