I spent last week in Silicon Valley, as I do about once each month, meeting with clients. I spent time with some of the best-known brands in the world, as well as startups. Some observations:

• Most products and services are much better than the marketing that promotes them.
• Most marketing language is too technical, too complicated, and not compelling enough to your target market.
• Most companies are not qualitatively interviewing customers and prospects to understand what’s interesting, important, emotional and understandable to them. If you’re not talking to your customers, you’re just guessing from a conference room.
• Most companies — including, probably, yours — are leaving (at least) millions of dollars on the table by not innovating their marketing as aggressively as their products and services.

I help clients increase revenue and create customer evangelists and influencers through powerful marketing. My clients include Logitech, TiVo, Sony, and ZAGG. See my Web site for details about my work.

The Evangelist Marketing Minute is a weekly thinking launch point that is always short enough to read in about 60 seconds. It covers marketing, branding, positioning, language, and public relations. Your email address is never shared, with anybody, for any reason.

Next Teleconference: Free for Readers

The next Evangelist Marketing Teleconference is Wednesday June 13, at Noon EST. It covers the pitfalls of selling to early adopters and my unique and powerful approach of avoiding early adopters and beginning with mainstream customers. If you’re reading this, you may participate for free. Just send me an email and tell me you want in. If you can’t make the live call, a recording is distributed by the end of that day. More details here.