We now live in a "many-to-many" marketing universe. Everyone is screaming for attention. That noise level will only get louder and louder as more sites come online. Part of the way to differentiate your site from that of your competitor is by having good functionality. Good functionality often means good technology, or good content, or good utility. Therefore good functionality equals good branding. After all, it's a reflection of how well your company employs the medium. But it doesn't stop there.

The other critical factor to this equation is how well that functionality is marketed. More often than not, I see fantastic functionality at some site with no marketing support whatsoever. That marketing should be on the site itself, on other sites, and off-line as well. I often advise clients to spend less on the site and save for the marketing budget. This doesn't make me very popular with some Web developers. No matter, the point is, what's the use, if no one knows about it?

The tricky challenge is to balance the functionality with the marketing. If you take too much away from the site's budget, it could be under-powered in its mission to deliver value to the surfer, and thus make a good brand impression. On the other hand, you don't want to build the best mouse trap that nobody's ever heard of.

History is littered with good functionality that went under-marketed, or was the right solution in the wrong time. In the U.S., there were precursors to the dial telephone and automatic transmission. But the market, or the providers, or both, weren't ready for the change. The same is true of operating systems. Many techies I know much prefer Unix-based platforms to that of Microsoft NT, or a Macintosh to that of Windows 95. Microsoft wins not because it has the superior technology, but rather because of its sophisticated marketing and sales structure.

I've been in the business of marketing technologies for 15 years. My observation is that most technologists aren't tuned into the necessary marketing backbone required to ensure a product's health. The other side of that coin, most marketers I know don't really understand the finer points of one technology over another. Those people and companies who can navigate a course through the middle of these two camps have the best chance of winning their respective battles.