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The IT industry, including the storage sector, sees more than its fair share of confusion on the topic of branding, logos, and brand image. It’s probably because these issues need attention when the business is formed – precisely the time when entrepreneurs (who are probably not marketers) are focused on more urgent matters like product development and funding.
A brand, simply put, is a promise. It is the promise of how the company will fill a particular need relative to alternative suppliers. As such it represents the company’s position and underpins its reputation. So, although a company may add products and expand markets, the fundamental values and promises of the brand should be constant.
Extreme brand positions include being the least expensive (think Wal-Mart) or the best solution (think Rolls Royce) relative to the other offerings. Least expensive means cheapest. The “best” can mean the fastest, the biggest, the smallest…whatever is most important to your type of customer. Most firms have a value-based position between the extremes.
Cheap storage is as easy to sell as cheap brain surgery – reliability and feature requirements typically trump the desire for the lowest price. The “best” is easy to promote, but it can be hard to sell if the price is too extreme. Selling value is Marketingsage’s forte.
Building is the proactive task of staking a position and building trust among those who influence the success of a business. Branding success depends on 4 factors:
(1) Promising something that your target customers value highly.
(2) Differentiating your value proposition from that of your competitors.
(3) Having enough credible proof-points (testimonials, research, awards etc.) to defend your position.
(4) Consistently and regularly communicating (advertising, PR, trade shows etc.) with enough people so those with an interest consider you. Of course, budget plays a big role in your strategy here.
Ultimately, brand success depends on intrinsic value, strong identity, widespread awareness, accessibility, and emotional connection in the market.
Image is important in the communication of the brand, or promise. Brand image is all about the perception of the brand and is built and communicated over time. Consistency is vital in creating and maintaining an emotional connection for the brand in the market.
A logo is the picture (words and/or icon) that identifies your firm. It becomes associated with your brand because it appears everywhere, especially in your promotions. When people see your logo they recall how they personally feel about your brand. Your logo and overall corporate identity can help or hinder your branding efforts because people associate certain styles with their perceptions (e.g. Red = hot, fast, danger. Green = efficient, go, rookie). Frankly, most marketers over-think the perception issues and under-think the practicalities that matter more. Let’s not be confused into thinking that the swoosh was all it took to make Nike successful!
Helpful guidelines for logo design available in the Marketingsage Words To The Wise series of how-to articles.
About the Author
Agnes Lamont is an accomplished marketer of IT products and a partner at Marketingsage, a PR and lead generation firm that specializes in marketing data storage, data management and enterprise software products. She can be reached by email at blog [at] marketingsage.net. Fellow marketers and IT professionals are invited to join her network on LinkedIn and to subscribe to this blog (see sidebar).
Here’s a 2011 update to a popular chart published by Marketingsage in 2008. The chart shows the most effective ways to generate B2B sales leads for data storage and enterprise software products. The principal change is to bring some social media closer to the center (the most effective place). We’ve also added some additional notes and animated the chart (the animation works on the Marketingsage website).
The methods towards the center of the chart work best. The original chart had blogging and other “social media” on the less effective edge. Much of it still belongs there. However like positive editorial coverage (PR), third-party blogs and tweets can be effective lead generation methods if they are about your product.
What’s changed? There is more information published on blogs, Twitter and YouTube. There’s better information as well, because unlike traditional revenue-driven publications, posts can be more specific to a single topic. Relevancy is the key to lead generation results. Additionally more people have Smart phones, RSS feeds and personal social media accounts that give them more timely access to this information.
Key Takeaways from the Promotion Effectiveness Radar Chart:
Updated Promotion Effectiveness Radar. Source: Marketingsage
Is there a “magic well” for sales leads?
No, but the closest thing to a “magic well” is an emailed sales letter to your house list. The people on your house list are already fans, prospects, or customers. Emails are highly targeted, very low-cost and very fast. They can be personalized and can deliver a lot of information (in the email or with a link). Of course, building this house list starts with other promotions.
There are some easy advertising opportunities as well. Highly productive online promotions usually come from relevant solution-orientated web sites. However, these highly focused niche sites typically generate only a few leads. Rarely enough to satisfy.
For many, data storage and enterprise software are narrow topics. But those of us in the industry know that each category can be narrowed down even further. The narrower you go, the better the leads.
About the Author
David X. Lamont is an accomplished marketer of IT products and a partner at Marketingsage, a PR and lead generation firm that specializes in marketing data storage, data management and enterprise software products. He can be reached by email at blog [at] marketingsage.net. Fellow marketers and IT professionals are invited to join his network on LinkedIn and to subscribe to this blog (see sidebar).
The difference between a hoarder and a collector is organization. The same holds true for the distinction between collateral creation and content marketing. Creating and posting piles of “stuff” online is not the same thing as cultivating and engaging an audience as a trusted expert and thought leader.
Having a strong content marketing strategy can improve the effectiveness of inbound marketing through all buying phases, from awareness through purchase, and increase overall brand equity. Answering the following questions should help guide your strategy successfully:
1. Who is my audience?
2. What can I offer that will interest my audience?
3. Does my offering tie back to the products/services I sell?
4. What is my brand voice/personality?
5. How will I distribute the content I create?
Having the answers helps bound what you should be creating, align content with your overall marketing and business objectives, and helps you manage a realistic delivery plan.
Sure, you may know a great deal about a range of subjects, but by focusing on a specific area, you can build credibility and provide meaningful value to an audience that is truly interested. Research what is of interest to the folks in your target audience. Do you have expertise to fill in knowledge gaps, answer questions, and offer guidance? Do you have controversial thoughts and ideas? Whether your content creation takes the form of videos, blogs, white papers, guides or whatnot, you should aim to create content that provides valuable insight and useful tools for your audience around your chosen topic. Every piece of content you produce should be of high quality and very relevant to your audience. That is what helps credential you as a trusted source and builds equity in your brand.
About the Author
Agnes Lamont is an accomplished marketer of IT products and a partner at Marketingsage, a PR and lead generation firm that specializes in marketing data storage, data management and enterprise software products. She can be reached by email at blog [at] marketingsage.net. Fellow marketers and IT professionals are invited to join her network on LinkedIn and to subscribe to this blog (see sidebar).
It’s easy to understand the value of time when it is applied to wages or a consultant’s time – you pay or earn a fixed price per hour, day, week, month or year. In this case, the value of time remains relatively constant. But when it comes to marketing a product the value of time is not constant. There are certain “windows of opportunity” which can significantly improve profitability and, if missed, can doom an otherwise good product to financial failure. Learn how to work with time by reading The Greatest Cost, Namely Time! on the Marketingsage web site.
The more prospects who choose to register their contact information with you the better. Someone who opts-in to your house list is demonstrating an interest in your message. Some may represent immediate sales opportunities. Others can be inexpensively nurtured over time using email until they purchase, opt-out or are disqualified as a prospect.
To build your house list you need to give your prospects a reason to share their contact information with you. Having a great product or special offer may not be a good enough incentive because many visitors will not be in purchasing mode when they first get to your web page. Most will be in learning mode. Keep that in mind when deciding what incentive to offer.
Here are the most common motivators that entice people to register their contact details on a web site:
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Best practices doe choosing the right opt-in motivators
The best incentive for your business will depend on your unique situation. However, in general the following best practice rules apply:
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About the Author
David X. Lamont is an accomplished marketer of IT products and a partner at Marketingsage, a PR and lead generation firm that specializes in marketing data storage, data management, and enterprise software products. He can be reached by email at blog [at] marketingsage.net. Fellow marketers and IT professionals are invited to join his network on LinkedIn and to subscribe to this blog (see sidebar).
Like kids squabbling over a bag of candy, disagreement over resource and budget control seems inevitable between sales and marketing. Sure, there are instances where politics, greed, and ambition fuel the tension between these groups, but I think that’s the exception rather than the rule. In my experience, both groups typically share the same goals and aspirations and genuinely want to work together amicably, albeit on their terms.
After many years working with sales and marketing across sectors including storage, data management, and security, I’ve come to the conclusion that, fundamentally, sales and marketing executives are wired differently. In a pre-technology era, I reckon they would have been hunters and farmers respectively. Sales executives tend to be high-energy optimists with a temporal focus on the short-term: this year; this quarter; even this deal. Like hunters, they can hyper-focus on their target, track it, and set up the perfectly-timed kill-shot. They can net a lot of protein and feed the corporate family as long as they have a ready supply of potential prey.
Marketing executives, like farmers, play a long game with planned diversity. They are the analytical planners, the visionaries who work diligently day after day to grow their crops. Good farmers know their soil and seasons, read the weather, prepare the ground, plant the seeds when conditions are right and nurture them daily. They stagger the plantings, thin the seedlings and cultivate them until they are ripe for harvest. They rotate the crops and make the soil richer year after year.
The hunters and the farmers are equally valuable and effective in feeding their community, but their methods and philosophies are fundamentally different. The same is true of sales and marketing in our modern, technologically-enabled corporate world. It’s understandable that sales typically favor events, turnkey sales appointment setting services, and blitz campaigns to drive leads. Marketers are more likely to analyze costs and likely outcomes and favor continuous, evolutionary campaigns that generate leads from multiple sources, based on multiple value propositions, and nurture them throughout a cycle that allows for education, evaluation and the vagaries of budgetary discretion until the qualified leads are ready to be harvested. Communications are consistent and sustainable.
Next time you’re caught in the crossfire between sales and marketing vying for budget dollars and competing demand generation plans, I hope this little analogy will help you value both approaches and clarify the results you need and how to prioritize and support the activities that are most beneficial for your organization. Like the kids with the candy, the outcome ought not be decided based on who screams loudest!
About the Author
Agnes Lamont is an accomplished marketer of IT products and a partner at Marketingsage, a PR and lead generation firm that specializes in marketing data storage, data management, security, and enterprise software products. She can be reached by email at blog [at] marketingsage.net. Fellow marketers and IT professionals are invited to join her network on LinkedIn and to subscribe to this blog (see sidebar).
FIDO – making fast work of secure online data access.
Have you ever given up on reading an article or buying something online because you forgot one of your many passwords? If password management stymies you, then join me in the small joyful anticipation that comes with the news that BlackBerry has joined the FIDO Alliance.
Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) looks like the best hope on the horizon for securing online access to data. Mind you, it’s looking like a pretty far horizon. The FIDO Alliance was formed over a year ago by Agnitio, Infineon Technologies, Lenovo, Nok Nok Labs, PayPal, and Validity. FIDO’s noble aim is to change the nature of authentication by developing specifications that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that supplant reliance on passwords to securely authenticate users of online services. This new standard for security devices and browser plugins will allow any website or cloud application to interface with a broad variety of existing and future FIDO-enabled devices that the user has for online security. I, for one, can’t wait!
FIDO is expanding membership and, in addition to BlackBerry, has added Allweb Technologies, Check2Protect, Crocus Technology, CrucialTec, Diamond Fortress Technologies, Entersekt, Fingerprint Cards (FPC), Google, Insyndia Global and NXP Semiconductors.
As data security becomes an ever more pressing concern for users and IT pros alike, storage vendors would do well to delve deeper than encryption when adding security innovation. Consider how a tight coupling of authenticated users and access devices with underlying storage could transform the cloud market. A while back, SNIA had a storage security tutorial that talked about trusted platform modules in storage devices. That seems like a likely connection point with FIDO.
Maybe it’s the canine association (Fido is a dog’s name after all) that makes me optimistic, but I really hope that the FIDO Alliance gets the support it needs to quickly come up with a globally beneficial standard that will make all of our online data more securely accessible.
FIDO Alliance: http://fidoalliance.org/
About the Author
Agnes Lamont is an accomplished marketer of IT products and a partner at Marketingsage, a PR and lead generation firm that specializes in marketing data storage, data management, security, and enterprise software products. She can be reached by email at blog [at] marketingsage.net. Fellow marketers and IT professionals are invited to join her network on LinkedIn and to subscribe to this blog (see sidebar).
In Scott Shane’s book “The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By,” there’s a chart showing data the four-year survival rate for technology businesses at 38% – poor compared to other industries. Given the competitive and fast-paced nature of technology, that’s not too shocking. Great ideas and great people are not enough to ensure success. Time is, as they say, money.
Marketing cannot wait until the product is ready to ship. Although resources in the typical emerging company are constrained, and it may be premature to staff and build a full department, some aspects of product, channel, and communications marketing are crucial to early success. How else do you get the early customers, partners and capital on board and launch successfully? At Marketingsage, we see this gap between marketing needs and capabilities as an opportunity to affordably deliver a new and valuable service that we have named “Countdown” specifically for start-ups in the pre-launch phase.
Prior to launch, emerging IT companies frequently grapple with meaningful positioning for their company and product offering in the market, creating critical sales tools such as white papers, videos, case studies, training material, web content, prospect lists, beta programs and reseller programs. They struggle to generate influential pre-launch “buzz” among investors, analysts, journalists and business partners. Key to overcoming these challenges is combining deep product and market knowledge with a complete array of marketing services.
Too often, consultants can only advise on strategy and content, but can’t produce the actual materials, effectively increasing their client’s workload. Typical PR and creative agencies can’t create content from the ground up, articulate meaningful differentiation, nor create detailed prospect profiles because they don’t have the necessary depth of product and market knowledge. Working with multiple specialists and agencies is not only unwieldy, but far too expensive for a start-up who may be facing the imminent prospect of raising venture capital.
Here at Marketingsage we have deep corporate roots in data storage, data management and security products targeting enterprise and government customers through direct, reseller and/or OEM sales channels. That makes it possible for us to combine the requisite depth of product and market knowledge with our full and integrated array of marketing and PR services and help ensure successful launches, while reducing the capital and time required by up to 50%.
Sorry if this all sounds a lot like a commercial, but I am really excited at how we have organized our capabilities to serve early-stage companies and promote the quest for TNBT (The Next Big Thing). More about Countdown at http://www.marketingsage.com/aboutsage-prelaunch.html
About the Author
Agnes Lamont is an accomplished marketer of IT products and a partner at Marketingsage, a PR and lead generation firm that specializes in marketing data storage, data management and enterprise software products. She can be reached by email at blog [at] marketingsage.net. Fellow marketers and IT professionals are invited to join her network on LinkedIn and to subscribe to this blog (see sidebar).
Agnes Lamont
David Lamont
Marketing for Sales Growth 