August 27, 2008
John Gallant, Network World, Inc. – Are you ready for your closeup?
Paul Gillin, Paul Gillin Communications – A Fast, Flexible and Cost-Efficient Approach to Developing Content
Jon Greer – Catching Flack: Five Ways to Make Pitching More Productive and Less Painful
Elyse Tager, Elymedia, LLC – Report from the Behavioral Targeting Conference, July 2008
Andrew Hanson, IDC – What's Happening in the Unified Threat Management Market?
Kristen Zhivago, Zhivago Marketing Partners – Incentives: 5 Cardinal Rules, 10 Great Ideas
Are you ready for your closeup? Maybe it really is the Year of Video
John Gallant, CEO, Network World, Inc.
Here are some things that have taken a hit from $4 a gallon gasoline.
- Teenagers cruising the strip downtown on a Saturday night
- Senior citizens taking a leisurely Sunday afternoon drive just to see the countryside
- Harried parents volunteering to drive all the members of the U-11 soccer team in that giant SUV you wish you hadn’t bought when gas was closer to two bucks a shot. (Did I really need six rows of seating and 19 cup holders?)
But there’s one thing that seems to be getting a big boost from expensive energy and the growing hassles of air travel: video.
I’ve been around this business long enough to remember a number of years that were labeled the Year of Videoconferencing — you know, the year that video was going to take the corporate world by storm. Never happened, for a variety of reasons. For one, videoconferencing systems were hard to use and, worse, unnatural. Watching a bunch of people gathered around a camera talking to a bunch of people gathered around a camera (on your end) was no fun. Also, the cost of WAN links forced many people to deploy less than full-motion video, making everyone look like Babe Ruth running the bases in an old newsreel.
But things are changing in the video world. In more and more of my conversations with IT executives, I hear about video deployments in the works. Case in point: My roundtable discussion with 15 top IT pros from the Seattle area at our recent IT Roadmap conference. (This was a who’s who of Seattle’s finest companies and I bet you can name many of them.) Three-quarters of these executives said their organizations are currently involved in video rollouts: Two companies are deploying room-based telepresence systems, while the remainder were supporting on-net video for collaboration and training applications.
In a recent edition of this newsletter, I discussed how awareness and action regarding ‘Green’ IT (you supply your own definition) was growing, driven largely by exploding energy costs. Over the past six months, I’ve witnessed the same phenomenon with video and energy is a key driving force there as well. Companies are trying to reduce travel costs and spare their employees the raw indignities of travel. (“That’ll be $50 for that extra bag, sir.”) I’ve spoken with three companies whose CEOs ordered a reduction in travel budgets as a way to force greater use of video. That’ll do it.
There’s also growing interest in fostering collaboration — giving end users the tools and technologies they need to work more effectively together and solve problems faster. What’s more, many companies have laid the groundwork for greater video usage because they’ve built powerful networks for unified communications.
But this groundswell of interest in video doesn’t come without concern. While network equipment companies may be drooling over the prospects of all that video eating up all that bandwidth, customers aren’t thrilled with the idea of having to upgrade their networks to support the video traffic hog. One customer I spoke with said that when a current video application is being widely used, bandwidth for other applications dwindles to practically nothing and the phones start ringing at the help desk. It’d be nice to think that the money companies are saving on travel costs will get shuttled over to IT budgets to help pay for greater network capacity, but most folks aren’t counting on that.
What that means is that IT buyers will be looking for solutions on how to intelligently accommodate video on existing networks and manage the traffic. They’ll also be keenly interested in application delivery solutions that let them control the impact of video across the WAN.
What’s more, they will be highly motivated to explore new collaboration tools that help them foster the use of video.
Is this finally the Year of Video? I’m not sure how we’d really define that.
But what I am sure of is that video is beginning to take its place as a key application on our integrated networks and that’s going to create a lot of opportunity. Smart marketers will be thinking about how to capitalize on the new video-driven world that’s taking shape.
JG
A Fast, Flexible and Cost-Efficient Approach to Developing Content
Paul Gillin, Social Media Consultant and Author of The New Influencers
One of my clients has been experimenting with an innovative and efficient approach to content development and I want you to know about it.
The company is in a highly specialized and big-ticket b-to-b industry. Its executives are very busy and very well paid. The VP of marketing wanted to develop some thought leadership white papers, but the prospect of pinning down these executives for hours to develop the content wasn't practical. Instead, the marketing department is using podcasts to construct white papers from the ground up.
Here's how it works: We schedule a 30- to 45- minute phone call with these busy executives to capture background information and hot topics in their areas of expertise. I then create a list of questions that are intended to draw out the executives' thinking (journalists are pretty good at this!).
We record an interview of approximately 30 minutes' duration. An edited version is posted as a podcast on the company's website, but the marketing group also has the full interview transcribed via a low-cost outside service. Marketing cleans up and reorganizes the transcript and posts the document as a position paper.
Over a series of interviews, an executive's observations and experiences can be rolled up in interesting ways. Multiple interviews with one executive can yield an in-depth white paper. Or point interviews with several executives can be combined into a corporate backgrounder. Customers and prospects can also subscribe to the podcast series. For the small transcription fee (services can be had for as little as a dollar a minute) and some inexpensive editing, the VP has a series of byline articles from the most visible people in his company.
Rethinking Research
I've recommended this approach to more and more clients lately. New online tools enable us to rethink our approach to assembling complex documents. It used to be the process demanded hours or days of research. Now we can take notes in real-time and assemble them later.
Blogs are ideally structured as collections of thoughts, observations and insights expressed in short bursts. It's fast and easy to capture these brainstorms online. Got an idea? Twitter it for prosperity. When you go back and look at information assembled in this way, you often see relationships that weren't obvious at the time. Between search, tags and bookmarks, it's possible to assemble these building blocks in different ways.
Some thought leaders take this to the limit. Marketing guru Seth Godin, for example, is known for writing entire books based on collections of interesting blog posts. The blog is his notepad for ideas that can be combined into coherent themes.
In some (though certainly not all) cases, this is a more efficient way to research a topic than spending hours mining the Web or library stacks. For my client, it's also a way to repurpose content across multiple media. Maybe it will work for you. What do you think? Twitter me @paulgillin.
Author Profile
Paul Gillin is a writer, speaker and content marketing consultant specializing in technology and new media. He has been a technology journalist for 25 years. His next book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing, will be published in the fall of 2008.
Catching Flack: Five Ways to Make Pitching More Productive and Less Painful
Jon Greer
Original Blog Post
Most PR people I know don’t like to pitch stories to the media. A big part of the problem is that the people doing the pitching are at a big disadvantage: they are essentially ill-prepared to be successful, and that drives the fear and anxiety.
So what can you do to prepare yourself better? Here are five keys to more successful pitching:
- Do your homework: It’s just not that hard to do a little homework about your target before you pitch. Google their name, look them up in an online or printed directory, do a quick search of their media outlet’s web site. Then tailor your pitch to reflect the information you found.
- Treat it like a sale: Do you think a salesperson, other than a dreaded cold-caller, tries to make a sale without a shred of preparation? Of course not! You are essentially trying to sell a story idea involving your company or client, with your payment coming in the form of a mention, quote or picture. For some great tips on selling, most of which also apply to PR and pitching, visit the Sales Machine blog by Geoffrey James here on BNET.
- Pitch usable information: The media deals in facts. Are you pitching facts they can use? All too often, I’m seeing pitches full of adjectives like “leading” and “most” rather than facts that substantiate these claims. One of the most important saying in journalism is “show the story, don’t tell the story.” That means facts and anecdotes, not adjectives.
- Make the follow-up call: Yes, yes, most media will say “email me, don’t call,” but then your pitch gets lost in the haze of their inbox and they never even consider it. I can’t tell you how many times I have made the follow-up call, only to be told that the journalist barely remembers the email pitch but is, in fact, interested in the story once I explain it over the phone. Just be prepared to be dealt with brusquely and perhaps rudely as you try to get a few seconds of quality time to determine their interest in the story.
- Don’t get down on yourself: Pitching the media is hard, not least of which because a lot of journalists can be, let’s face it, jerks when it comes to inbound pitches. But if you’ve done your homework and you’re pitching usable information, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Make the pitch, find out if they are interested and if not, move on to find someone who is.
Author Profile
Jon Greer has been analyzing media and PR for more than 25 years. He's been a journalist and a PR executive, and has been a featured speaker for many years at the Bulldog Reporter Media Relations Summit, and served as Bulldog's Editorial Director for their PR University series of weekly how-to audio conferences.
Jon provides PR services including media relations and freelance writing to clients including start-ups, law firms, corporations, investment banks and venture capital firms. In addition, Jon provides spokesperson training. Learn more about Jon's training programs at The Media Bridge.
Report from the Behavioral Targeting Conference, July 2008
Elyse Tager, Founder and Principal, Elymedia, LLC
I attended a one day conference on the topic of Behavioral Targeting in San Francisco a few weeks ago which really was excellent. The attendance was surprisingly large. I don’t have an actual count, but I’m sure there were 250-300 attendees, which is huge for such a narrow topic. The major themes were privacy, Web 2.0, privacy, predictive modeling and did I mention privacy?
I’m actually a huge fan of Behavioral Targeting especially as it is becoming more and more sophisticated. We have written previously about the predictive modeling techniques being used by ValueClick, ACerno and Epic Advertising — three companies using very different methodologies to serve up highly targeted ads to the right audiences. AdBrite, another ad network, has now just announced that they are throwing their hat in the BT ring.
Some of the interesting discussion topics, both on the panels and in the halls, were:
BT for TV ads? The internet will morph with the TV to create one large media delivery vehicle in the next 15 years as standards and technology evolves. Will there be the option of doing behavioral targeting with TV placements and will the public allow it?
“Things are only going to get creepier” Creepy was one of the buzzwords of the conference. Many vendors struggled with increasing the sophistication of their applications and technology vs. “creeping people out” with the implication of additional perceived intrusion into their privacy. If the objective of BT is to serve up only the kinds of ads that the consumer would be interested, then we need to know more about, if not the consumer than the cookie that represents that view. The two concepts seem to be counter productive, but the balance will be achieved with better education of the consumer, and more refined technology.
Data Portability (2 words) vs Dataportability (one word – which is actually http://www.dataportability.org/). The first by definition: Data Portability is the option to use your personal data between trusted applications and vendors. The latter is a fairly new organization. The DataPortability Project is a group created to promote the idea that individuals have control over their data by determining how they can use it and who can use it. This includes access to data that is under the control of another entity. Their stated mission is to consult, design, educate and advocate interoperable data portability to users, developers and vendors. Definition: Data Portability is the option to use your personal data between trusted applications and vendors. The intent is to attempt some definitions of a consumer right to privacy. Do check this group out and their website — lots of valuable content. I know I’ll be following them.
But the panel that was the most interesting, and contentious, was the one on privacy. The panel consisted of several lawyers, a VP from AlmondNet, a fellow from TrustE. The lawyers for the most part, sided with the consumer to the extreme — any possible invasion of privacy — even if just perceived, was unacceptable. The industry is clearly not doing an adequate job of policing itself, and needs 3rd party regulation. The conversation was quite heated. I found it exciting actually to have participants from outside the industry throwing cold water on those of us within it. I think we get so wrapped up in the nuances of what we are doing that a view from an outsider is sometimes a shock.
I have to say that I was very impressed with the overall concern around the privacy issue that all of the major BT vendors exhibited (Acxiom, Revenue Science, Tacoda, Tribal Fusion, ValueClick among others). Their excellent contribution on panels around this issue, coupled with their participation or leadership on privacy committees or organizations (The IAB and others) may be prompted by self-preservation but is certainly well intentioned and very well informed.
My bet is still with the predictive modeling vendors. Having grown up in the direct response industry, where predictive modeling was born and still rules many prospecting efforts, I can’t wait to see how that level of expertise translated to online and how the consumer will continue to respond to this.
Author Profile
Elyse Tager is founder and principal of Elymedia, an online and traditional media agency that has worked with many of the world's most recognizable brands, from Microsoft to PowerBar. With 20 years of executive marketing experience in direct response and 10 years of Internet marketing experience, Elyse has gained a thorough understanding of both types of media and how they interact. This depth of experience and knowledge has benefited her clients as they strategize marketing objectives in both on- and offline worlds. Contact her at info@elymedia.com.
What's Happening in the Unified Threat Management Market?
Andrew Hanson, Associate Research Analyst, IDC
To the dismay of some vendors and the pleasure of others, IDC has highlighted a growing trend that sees unified threat management (UTM) security appliances replacing traditional network routers in the lower price bands. The UTM category showed that it has become a mainstream network threat management component. Although the market didn't hit triple digits in growth like it did in 2004 and 2005, it still grew 36% with $1.3 billion in vendor revenue during 2007 and IDC expects that it will be the highest selling category of security appliances in the future. UTM remains popular because it is a single piece of hardware that can perform multiple applications.
While the total router market blew the UTM market out of the water at approximately $12 billion in total revenue, it is very important to compare sales of router and UTM appliances that are priced under $1,500. In this area, UTM routers out-sold network routers by just under 10%. Although router shipments still outpaced UTM, it is important to recognize the explosive growth of UTM appliances over the past 3 years. IDC projections indicate that over the next 4 years UTM appliances under $1,500 will have revenues of over $1 billion, representing over 25% CAGR, while routers in the same price band will decrease by 8% CAGR to approximately $250 million total worldwide revenue.
IDC's essential information for router and UTM vendors maneuvering in this increasingly competitive market includes the following:
- Given the potential size of the SMB market opportunity, the push into the SMB space should only create more opportunities for all vendors over the next 12 to 18 months.
- The proliferation of UTM appliances has had a significant and measurable impact on the SOHO router market, but it's unknown how it will affect other markets. As router functionality improves, UTM appliances may creep into the low-end router market creating a much more competitive environment.
- Router and UTM vendors alike will have to employ the right differentiation strategy while at the same time maintaining touch with competitors in the converged UTM and router market. This will make for a more complete understanding of the competitive landscape and mitigate the possibility of smaller organizations in this space or new entrants from gaining momentum.
- UTM appliances will continue to be popular with small and medium-sized enterprises; however, IDC believes they will demand more networking capabilities and improved performance to go along with strong security.
- It's unlikely that router vendors will idly watch as UTM devices compete for their low-end router segment. The router market has already taken notice, accelerating emphasis on security which has generated an increased number of router-based firewall and VPN features to be sold. and is a major influence in the next generation of high-end enterprise routers.
Author Profile
Andrew J. Hanson is an Associate Research Analyst for IDC's Secure Content and Threat Management service. In this position, he executes primary research projects, and analyzes markets for both vendors and user customers. His primary focus is on hardware and software networks, as well as endpoint security products. Specific areas of concentration include threat management appliances, UTM appliances, intrusion prevention, and security virtualization.
Incentives: 5 Cardinal Rules, 10 Great Ideas
Kristin Zhivago, President, Zhivago Marketing Partners
When the economy gets tight, customers can take forever to make a buying decision. So, managers start spending conference room time trying to think up incentives that will encourage the customer to buy.
Any incentive will cost the company something, so make sure that whatever incentive you use actually causes prospective customers to take the next step in their buying process.
I interviewed Mac McIntosh for this article, because I knew he'd have some great ideas on this subject. As we talked, it was obvious that we agreed on the “cardinal rules,” and he also had some great incentive ideas.
Note also that very few of these ideas incorporate an actual discount — a slippery slope you'll want to leave for your less-imaginative competitors.
The 5 Cardinal Rules of Incentives
- Offer incentives that relate to your product or service
Any clueless executive can order a bunch of iPods and instruct salespeople to give them away in an attempt to get the customer to buy. What happens most of the time in those situations is that a lot of teenagers whose parents were given the iPods will end up with an iPod, and the parents' buying decisions won't be affected.
It takes hard work and a lot of thinking to come up with an incentive that somehow relates to your product or service. Map out the customer's buying process, and identify all of the barriers to the sale. Think about what you can do at each stage to make it easier for the customer to get to the next step.
Besides, imagine the buyer talking to his boss about the incentive. "If we buy this, I get an iPod!" will not go over as well as "If we buy this, we'll get three months of free maintenance." - Offer incentives that make it easier for the buyer to sell the purchase to his managers
It's quite common for one "champion" to be excited about a product or service, but he has trouble convincing others. He may hear: "It looks great, but it's not in the budget." Incentives that may work in this situation include the following:
"The vendor will finance the deal."
"The vendor will throw in the education for free."
"The vendor will cover all travel expenses for the team getting trained." - The incentive needs to be appropriate for the stage of the buying cycle
A buyer who is still at the early stages of his buying cycle — just gathering information about solutions, for example — will pay no attention to any incentives trying to get him to "buy now." What he wants at the early stages is proof that you understand his situation and concerns and are able to educate him in a helpful way. When he's closer to making his buying decision, he'll be more likely to be motivated by an incentive to "buy it now, get this stuff free." - The incentive needs to be really simple to articulate and understand
It's easy to get too clever with an incentive so that only a lawyer could figure out how it really works. Customers will completely ignore a too-complex incentive, and your resellers or business partners will, as well.
The most successful incentives can be explained in one simple sentence: "Buy one, get one free," "Buy now, pay later." "Buy now, get X." "Buy 50, get this." If there is a time limit, make it part of the short description.
Your business partners and customers, especially in a tight economy, are being bombarded with dozens of offers. The one they are most likely to remember — and act on — is the one that can be described in one short sentence. - Offer an incentive that gets to the heart of their biggest concern
People who buy software — especially large, complex software systems — have been burned repeatedly by companies who promise the stars... and then deliver defective flashlights. Consider creating an incentive that faces this reality head on: "If we can't get this running by July 15, your first year of maintenance is free."
Obviously, don't make the promise if you aren't sure you can keep it, but realize that this type of promise removes the biggest barrier of all — "can they be trusted to deliver?"
People hesitate when they are buying something because every purchase is a risk. In each case, you're giving up something that you know is valuable (money/budget) for something that may turn out to be valuable — or a liability. Anything you can do to reduce the risk will increase the chances of making the sale.
And isn't that what incentives are really all about? You're not in the business of giving away your product or service... or iPods, for that matter. You're in the business of selling your product or service for a profit. Incentives should support that activity, not detract from it.
10 Great Incentive Ideas
- Offer financing or leasing
Finance the purchase, with low interest. This changes the budget impact, and helps make it possible for the champion to justify the expenditure to Finance and management. - Throw in additional services or products if they buy by a certain date
This type of incentive is working well right now. Additional services or products are anything they would normally pay for that "goes with" your product or service. - Make a promise related to after-the-sale activity
As I mentioned before, you can guarantee that the company will be "up and running" by a certain date, or they will get a special deal as compensation. Make sure that you and the customer agree on what "up and running" really means. Or, offer VIP, 24/7 service, and priority support. - Use free trials or pilots to help them absorb the product or service in small bites
If the "whole thing at once" is too much for them to bite off, break it down into smaller pieces. This is another incentive that eases the budget burden. - Offer services for a reduced price or for free, during the times when your people aren't fully utilized
If your sales tend to drop off during a particular time of year, rather than having your service people trying to look busy, encourage the customer to buy during the slower period — and give him a nice discount on those services. - Pre-stock the "supply cabinet" when they buy the first time, but only charge them for your products when they use them
You sell 100 laser printers to a company. They will also need cartridges. Offer to sell them a year's supply, at a set discount price, but don't actually bill them for each new cartridge until it is taken from your "supply cabinet."
It doesn't matter if you have a real supply cabinet on site, if your rep refills a supply cabinet each week at their site, or if you get them dropped shipped from another vendor — the point is, they are going to get cartridges from you for the next year, and you won't charge them until they actually place an order for a new cartridge. This helps them get the volume discount without paying in advance for inventory and ensures that you will get their cartridge business for the next year. - Quantity discounts
This seems obvious if you're selling a product, but you might want to consider it when selling services as well. - Lock the price
Let's say you're selling something that is prone to price increases, because the costs you have to pay keeps going up (such as fuel costs, material costs, etc.). Offer to lock in the price for a given period of time if they make the initial purchase now. - Offer to pay for an associated product
"Buy this car now, we'll pay for the next three years of your gas." - Create a rewards or points program
Keep it as simple as possible, with as few conditions as possible. "Fly 16 times, get one flight free," is more compelling than "Earn a certain number of miles with each trip, apply those miles to other trips, depending on where those trips are going to or from, and except during blackout dates."
Figure out how to get your resellers involved, too. They could get points for all the products they've sold for you, and apply those points to other products and services you sell — effectively earning more profit on subsequent sales. This encourages them to sell your products and services in the first place, and to sell more of them as they earn points. They could also exchange their points for marketing or telemarketing services that you provide.
One more thing. The best source of incentive ideas will come from the minds of your customers and business partners. Ask them what would make it easier for them to say yes. Ask them what others have done to encourage them to take the next step — in related or even non-related businesses.
Not only will you get great ideas, but they will be ideas that are a good match for your situation. You won't be wasting money on ideas that simply won't work. Instead, you'll know exactly what you should do.
The customers and partners who gave you those ideas — and everyone else you sell to, or who sells for you — will think, "Great, they understand what I really want, and they've figured out how to give it to me."
That alone is a very compelling incentive to do business with your company.
Author Profile
Kristin Zhivago is president of Zhivago Marketing Partners and author of the book Rivers of Revenue and the blog the Revenue Journal.