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Inside "marketing at Microsoft"

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Article here. I've been here for six years and have seen some big changes in how we "do marketing". This is the first article I've seen that really sums up those changes. Flash back to 1999 and everything was about "customer satisfaction". Six years later, it's not a so-called buzzword anymore now that our focus as a company has shifted from being purely about the technology (build the features because we can) to being about customers (build the features because customers want them).

As someone who recruits for the marketing space, seeing marketing being clearly defined as a discipline makes my job easier. I think of the marketing career path as my product. It's much easier to sell when I can describe it, point to it, etc. It makes any employment branding work that I do more real because the customer value proposition is defined...it gives us an employment brand promise to live up to. Wow..I am totally geeking out. There's more to blog about here...another time.

Anyhoo, good reading for anyone thinking about a marketing career at Microsoft or who is just curious about who these marketing folks are and what exactly they are doing.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 14, 2005
    I like the article.... coming from an industrial engineering background and plenty of marketing communications experience, it's a little scary to think that Microsoft has not understood the marketing landscape till now. Bravo! I remember one of the mantras that my first boss told me about was you "own the customer experience'... whether through the product design, the communications medium, or through the marketing message. Your product and how it serves your customer is the ultimate judge of your longevity.

    As Rob mentions in his article, being the big guy on the block definitely allows Microsoft to throw its weight around... however, it leaves definite holes that competitors can exploit and possibly gain dominance... like with CRM applications, Search, and databases applications.

    Thanks for sharing!
  • Anonymous
    July 21, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2005
    Paul, I need to learn how to take a compliment better (I've always had that problem, I used to try and convince people they were wrong when they complimented me). Anyway, your nice words are the kind of encouragement I need to keep doing this. Sometimes it feels like I am doing all this work to share when a couple people come by and rip to to shreds. So knowing how it's perceived and hearing things like you said ("cute" works for me...I think of it as a combo of snarky/fun/informative) makes me want to keep on doing it. Thanks for that!
  • Anonymous
    September 12, 2005
    After hearing from you recently re: my resume, I did a little surfing and found your blog. What made my day was coming across the article, “The Ultimate Bug Fix.” The changes that have taken place and continue to occur in the Microsoft marketing area make my little customer-focused heart very happy. I like how marketing and product development are sitting down together at the start of their process. After having worked with manufacturing firms and pushing to get the marketing team a seat at the table, I can tell you that it does make a big difference in success of the final product.

    If you didn’t already have my paperwork, I’d be forwarding it ASAP.

    Thanks for providing so much great information.