Change

I dropped my son off at school this morning like any other morning. However, instead of taking the same route back to my home office I decided to branch out and take a scenic route. Sure I went totally out of my way and burned more gas than usual, but it was refreshing. I was able to crank some music, chill, feel the road and enter a different but relaxed state of mind. It was a change and it was great.

If you are a software marketer or just a marketer in general and have taken the same path home with your prospects or customers each and every time, a change can sometimes be refreshing. It could backfire and people will get freaked out, but sometimes branching out and doing something different even if its minuscule can make a world of difference. So change your newsletter up a bit. Market that white paper using non traditional media. Make a vidcast or a podcast series to reinforce brand. Do something goofy to get the sales folks engaged with marketing.

Think about this….can you imagine the person over at ad agency that introduced the whopperfreakout? At first pass you would think that is stupid…pretend you are not having your biggest product anymore and secretly tape peoples reactions. How would that ever push brand and Burger King? Sometimes new ideas and change work and sometimes they don’t. I would rather try and fail than not try at all.

So go ahead….take a different road today…let me know how it goes.

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Social Networking for Animals/Pets

Yep, I have seen it all. Words cannot describe this site…you only have to experience it.

Welcome to Social Networking for your pets.

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The Official 2008 Web 2.0 Buzzword Forecast

Pete Blackshaw over at ClickZ has an interesting article title The Official 2008 Web 2.0 Buzzword Forecast. I love “shamsparency”. Pete offers up a bit of humor in this article and its well worth the read.

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Branding For a Software Company

John at Duct Tape Marketing has a great definition of branding that I would like to share:

“Branding is the art of becoming knowable, likable and trustable”

So with this definition in mind, how can something like this statement above apply to any software company of any size? Does Microsoft or Oracle need to brand their software anymore than they already have? Some people trust and like Microsoft and Oracle and some people don’t. I think more where this applies to is company’s who have a multitude of products or services and are well known in the marketplace for some piece of software.

Branding takes alot of patience, time, money and creativity. You cant just buy a Super Bowl Commercial and expect that it will instantly brand you. (ok..maybe GoDaddy is a bit of an exception) Buying the back cover of trade magazine is a good start but for some is expensive. I feel that in todays transparent world, a great way to brand yourself is to open up the doors, knock down the walls and show the IT community that you are all about collaborating and solving the pains of their world as well as being a thought leader in your respective marketplace. You can have the best products in the world, but if you play the secracy game with the public, branding will be difficult.

Here are a few (yes a few) ways to build a good brand in software

1. Start a blog. A good blog..not a chest pounding advertisement, but one which adds value to your expertise

2. Hire an evangelist.

3. Build a wiki or a community centered around pain and have that evangelist dedicated to fostering both

4. Educate educate educate through as many new mediums as you can (podcasts, video, white boarding sessions etc….)

5. Do a super bowl commercial (kidding)

6. Do things that are fun for your audience…show them that you are real

7. Monitor your reputation online and comment and acknowledge people that talk about you and your industry.

This is just a start, but if you manage to do the above you are well on your way to branding your organization

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Building an online community for software companies - Step 2

Once you answer the tough questions that I laid out in Step 1, then you are like 10% of the way there. Step 2 is easy….not. You will need to select a platform from which to build your community on. Some questions to ask your organization are.

What are your hardware needs?

What sort of software do you need to run it on? (sharepoint, jive, windows community) and do you have room of systematic growth?

In regards to the software being chosen you will need to ask a few things such as ease of use? Compatibility with existing systems in house? Development and integration time. Scalability? Long term commitment? ROI? Real vs. virtual costs.

Alot of things need to be considered on the technical end of the house before you proceed. While I am not the most technical person around, I can tell you that depending on your needs, there are several fine open source software solutions as well some commercial products as well.

All in all, the technical end might seem like a big hurdle for some, especially in certain organizations where resources are scarce. Part 3 coming soon.

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Building an online community for software companies - Step 1

Want to build an online community in your organization? Great….do you have a plan?

Many companies jump into building an online community but have no idea what they hope to accomplish with it. Some companies are so product focused that they feel that building a community centered around talking about their products will draw tens of thousands of people to it. Others want to build a community on the assumption that its what the customer wants. Others want to build a community cause its the “in” or “latest buzzword” and they must have one.

Step 1 - Define what you want with clear cut goals and expectations. Organizations need to answer some tough questions when building out a community

1. How will an online community further our companies mission?

2. Will there be an evangelist for this community? In other words, will there be one person or a team of people with the same goal in mind and that is to be nothing more than figure head for this thing?

3. How do you envision the community growing over a 10-18 month period? How will you keep the community vibrat and full of energy?

4. How will you empower the users of the community to feel they are the owners and not you the organization?

5. Are you wanting to start big and have a promotional strategy around it or are you wanting to start small and gradually build your base?

Once some of these questions are answered, companies then need to move into Step 2. (Step 2 tomorrow)

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Can an organization change?

Seth has a great posted entitled the “meatball mondae”

Here is my question..when you work in a organization which totally does not operate with transparency and believes that what you did 3 years ago will work today in technology marketing, how many people does it take to change the feeling of the organization?

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TechTarget Online ROI Summit

I am attending the TechTarget online ROI summit today and tomorrow in San Francisco and have been sitting through a number of sessions where alot of industry experts are talking about things from lead nurturing, new media, marketing to CIO’s and predictions for 2008 in online advertising.

After sitting through several sessions and talking with a few vendors today something has become abundantly clear to me.  It has occurred that the IT marketing landscape is in a state of change and either you as a marketer adapt to this change or be prepared to face some tough realities in the marketplace. I work in an organization which has 100+ people dedicated to marketing and while some of these folks have a decent vision of the current marketing landscape and what it will take going forward, I am becoming increasingly disturbed at the fact that some people are not aware, (nor do they care to be) that this IT marketing landscape is becoming more collaborative, transparent and nimble.  That marketing in IT is not about how many “leads” we can give sales. Its not about feeding the funnel and writing a white paper with substandard content and a huge product pitch.  Its not pitching the latest buzz coined thing of “aligning business to IT”.  Its not about giving things away to feed the sales beast with unqualified leads.  Its not about alot of things…….and yet IT marketing organizations still believe that what we did back in 2004 to get business will work today.

To me its so much more……its about identifying the customers pain points and offering a solution to solve that pain point. Its about subscribing to the new media platform such as videos and podcasts to produce relevant and meaningful content so that the audience can identify you as a thought leader.  Its not about quantity, its about quality.  Its giving things away such as knowledge so that organizations can leverage your expertise to their business and not a particular solution set.

I can go on and on and on, but one thing that has come about in my one of being here, that my philosophy of openness, transparency, collaboration, nurturing, new media and relevancy has never been stronger. It was strong before I came here, and I will leave with an even bigger mantra to transform how IT marketing departments approach the world of marketing to IT professionals.

Look out.

People are talking.

Bill at the Buzz Saw on Duct Tape Marketing has a great post on listening to social networks. To me this all ties in with monitoring your brand and understanding what people are saying about you and your competitors. Well said Bill!!

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