I recently read Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore. It's been advertised as one of those definitive books on marketing in the modern world, essential reading for those of us in the high-tech world. The basic premise is that there is a divide in marketing strategies between sales to innovators and early adopters of tech products versus sales to more mainstream customers, referred to as the early and late majority. Marketing and sales techniques that work for the initial group will not necessarily work for the later, much larger, market because the different groups have different needs and interests. Companies that cannot adjust their sales pitch to the later group will fail.I am uncertain about this book – on the one hand it presents a great story about how difficult it can be to market and sell to early adopters as compared to mainstream customers. On the other hand, beyond a few examples, he gives little solid data that such a chasm exists between the two groups, and without that data, is it more than just anecdotal evidence? Also, much of his direct sales advice was strictly for hardware (retail stores as outlets), thus not useful for software and similar digital content. I gave up on the book late in the process (page 183) where he flat-out states that the internet can be ignored for direct sales in chasm-crossing sales offers. That can't possibly be true for sales of digital content, which is sold entirely on the internet. This leads me to think that either the book is too old to be useful (1991 original publishing date, updated 2006) or is just mistaken. Certainly, Crossing The Chasm may be useful for marketing certain kinds of products, but perhaps less relevant for the kind of digital goods that I am interested in.
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