It's amazing that some companies still insist on serving PDF-based press releases from their Web sites. While the file format has great advantages in many document use cases, it makes no sense for online press releases. It hinders SEO optimization, delivers an inconsistent browsing experience, and can cause issues for increasingly popular mobile devices, such as the iPhone.
Tom Rhinelander: April 2008 Archives
One of the keys in any marketing effort, such as naming a product or choosing a Web site URL, is to make a decision that will at the very least be neutral and at best be positive. Pragmatism, particularly in business-to-business technology marketing, should be a core philosophy. It is better for companies to cap discussions and get on with the dirty but necessary work of lead generation, scheduling prospect meetings, influencing the press, and improving the product to meet current and expected client demands.
Almost everyone in high-tech marketing at some point in his or her career has grimaced trying to sell an under-powered, feature-starved, or buggy solution. For many, helping sell weak products defines a technology marketing career. But by getting a marketing liaison -- armed with customer data -- into the product development trenches early, marketing can work with developers to deliver a product that can both be built and that will appeal to prospects.
