Not exactly,
There was nothing to market, the N900 is more of a devkit and not suited for the masses.
Texrat said "high return rate", no wonder.
So it was lack of marketing and a complicated device. People get angry when some shortcut gets deleted and they don't know how to bring it back.
Or some package that fills the rootfs.

But if it had the dumbed down UI - like that of the N9, then comes marketing.
Where to market ? I don't know, I'm no expert.
I'd say wherever an iphone can be found the N9 has a place. Just a guess.
You must have marketing, people won't chase you to buy your stuff.

edit:
When I say marketing I mean mostly adverts on media. Of course you employ proper strategy here and react to competitors and surely you don't announce that a more lucrative product is coming soon after the one you are trying to sell...