Yesterday I posted on how I get annoyed by marketeers making groundless claims for their tools (or at least claims for which they provide no supporting data). Here’s another thing tool vendors do that irritates the hell out of me… answering a question with ‘buy my tool’ or ‘my tool solves this problem’ type posts.
Gargh!
Okay. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against you telling me how your tool addresses the problem at hand. In fact I really want to know how your tool address the specific problem being posed. If it takes too long for a short post, link to a white paper or an article or post on your website/blog. But please, please, please, make sure that whatever you point to really does address the problem being asked about. Don’t just link to some random marketing bullshit about your product. The person asking the question wants to know how to solve a specific problem, at least do them the curtesy of answering with something more enlightening than ‘buy our product’.
What if the question is more general? Well, again, add to the conversation. Answering with ‘take a look at my tool’ just makes you look like one. The only question that should be answered ‘take a look at my tool’ (unless you’re in a dodgy ’70s porno) is ‘can you please list tools in the X category’, and only then if your tool is firmly in the X category (not in the ‘could be used in the X category, if you have a really good imagination or are willing to invest an additional one billion dollars in customising our tool’).
Vendor input on forums is, at its best, very useful and helpful. Sadly it is too often lazy, irritating, and unhelpful.
#1 by Dan on February 7, 2012 - 3:49 am
Much like your last post, I can relate to this regularly. You can also apply this to vendor webinars where the title of the presentation is never answered.