Are you a marketer in a small technology company?  It’s been hard work being a smaller vendor in a competitive market space these past few years, eh?

In more robust economic times, small company agility can be a valuable marketing tool: “We can deliver new features faster than larger, more sluggish vendors.”  But as sales cycles have been drawn out and big wins harder to close, the bigger players have had a whole lot more stored fat to draw energy from.

Opportunities do present themselves, even in the most difficult of times, however, if you are tuned in to you competitors and looking for those weaknesses in the defense to take advantage of.

One of my favorite tactics is to spring into action when a competitor gets acquired by one of the big players — such as IBM, Oracle, HP or Microsoft.  When a small, agile company gets absorbed by an industry giant, the smaller vendor’s customers who may have been perfectly happy with their vendor have to ask themselves some questions:

1. Is the acquiring company going to modify the acquired company’s roadmap?  (Probably)
2. Will the acquired company be forced to integrate with some other offerings in the acquiring company’s portfolio? (Probably)
3. Will execution lag while the regulatory aspect of an acquisition takes place and decisions about organization and potential “resource optimizations” are investigated?  (ABSOLUTELY)

A client company executed this tactic recently — and the results were immediate and (predictably) positive.  RSD issued a press release in response to the news that IBM intended to acquire PSS Systems.  PSS Atlas competes with one of RSD’s latest offerings from their RSD GLASS Information Governance suite.  The basic concept was simple: PSS Atlas customers will need to have an answer to management’s obvious question: “Is the IBM acquisition a good thing, or a bad thing?”  Raise doubt in the PSS Atlas customer’s mind by presenting an offer: “For the amount you are paying PSS in maintenance, we’ll convert you to our competitive offering, RSD GLASS Mosaic.”  A simple and clear alternative to the path into IBM’s software portfolio, and an opportunity for RSD to upsell the balance of their Information Governance solution.

Not only did the story get wings in the Twittersphere and over LinkedIn, but more importantly it generated an emotional response from the PSS Systems CEO, @dee_dray.  “Ignore false rumors from RSD. Atlas will continue to be info governance hub for all data sources & types + enterprise execution scale.”  And of course, that generated a host of retweets — all to the benefit of RSD’s disruptive tactic.

Chalk this one up for RSD!

When I became a corporate “outsider,” almost three years ago, I felt that marketing as a business function was changing fundamentally.  I plunged into research mode to learn how the “old media” (print publications, radio, network & cable TV, with staff writers employed by giant media companies) were giving way to the “new” (citizen publishers producing content on the web for free).

I launched my consulting business by exploiting social networks, this blog, and free content (see Resources) in order to stimulate my network and tease out interest in project work ranging from part-time-CMO to white papers.  It worked.

I also witnessed “tulip mania” as self-styled (and genuine) experts emerged and captured the attention of almost everyone on a marketing career path.  For a time during 2009 old media events (conferences) were popping up left right and center headlined by new media gurus extolling one of the movement’s foundation principles: Give, give, give… listen, listen, listen… engage… and in the end you will be rewarded a hundredfold with opportunity (and, presumably, filthy lucre).  Become known as a source of quality content, and customers will beat a path to your door.

A couple of months ago, I spotted an ad on Facebook which quoted social media beacon Chris Brogan’s daily rate at something in excess of $20,000.  The offer was to gain all of that wisdom by joining a new community featuring Chris, Darren Rowse, and Brian Clarke — known as Third Tribe Marketing — for a mere $97 initial payment, followed by $47 per month.  As their blogs, collectively, have over 300,000 readers, even using the old school marketing yield on direct mail of 2%, that’s a neat $3 million (with an M) per annum!  Now that’s capitalism for you.  My guess is they timed that initiative just right.

Go for the promotional material on the website if you wish (after all, they’re amongst the best at web copy writing), but let’s be clear: as well as these guys have been doing living off the “give it away for free” model, these leading lights have clearly seen an opportunity to do business one $500-per-year subscription at a time.  Perhaps, like Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — it’s not about their ego or the money — they just want to win the new media world championship.  Time will tell.

Another recent observation: though the new media mantra of “inbound marketing” (nowhere more religiously observed than at Hubspot) poo poos the old-school outbound tactics of telemarketing and direct mail, I know many of us with marketing in our online profiles were bombarded with offers to sign up for the April Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco — notably as the conference’s dates were drawing perilously near.

So should this mini-bubble burst, should the petals drop from the precious tulips (and I believe it/they will), what can we take away?

First, it is true that the media have irreversibly changed. The problem is, the changes are not that dramatic, nor are the implications that difficult to understand.  There isn’t a huge amount of magic; no need for wizards; no new secret handshakes and shibboleths for the elite of this new marketing paradigm.  Brands are their own publishers, and they are largely in control of their own media.  A capability once outsourced to one or more agencies has moved in house, and media costs are heading toward zero.  That’s about it.  I speak to groups of young entrepreneurs from time to time… and after two hours of very high level teaching, they are off and running and becoming their own content foundries.

Psst… guess what… it’s not really that hard to figure this stuff out!

Second, brands (and marketing professionals in particular) need to take much more seriously the content responsibility with which they are now saddled.  We used to talk about a people to programs ratio of 40:60.  Leverage in marketing meant distributing costs 40% in human resource costs, and 60% in media and external programs designed to “drive the fish to the nets.”  Today companies need to invest much more heavily in the creation, curation, and distribution of content — using human beings to do so.  Marketing departments will be moving discretionary spend (which is easy to cut in case of a revenue shortfall) to personnel expense (which is difficult to cut, at least for most sentient humans).

Finally, marketing needs to attack with every fiber in its being the “signal-to-noise ratio” problem which all of this new media and social networking technology has created.  Zero barriers to entry for publishing and vastly expanding user-generated content volume conspire to create a polluted information environment which makes the BP Deepwater Horizon mess look like “On Golden Pond.”  In addition to relentless promotion of our own messages and achievements, we are going to have to exhibit leadership in filtering the extremely high volume of extremely low value information, and continuously enhance our web sites to make them more like museums, libraries, and exhibits — destinations for quality, creativity, and clarity — and less like cheesy storefronts.  Content curation solutions, like the one just launched by HiveFire, may be extremely valuable in attacking this enormous challenge.

What do you think?

I’m glad I’m not responsible for a big brand.

I lie.  I would love to manage a massive “enduring promise of value” like Coca-Cola.  But the challenge those big brands face is huge and growing — and it is coming from itty-bitty brands.

May I explain?

The disruption to the nice, rigidly structured media world which the web and social media have forced means alot for big brands.  It means that their control over the publishers, represented by their multi-billion dollar budgets, is diminishing.  Why?  Because the barriers to entry, the height of the bar, the cost to gain access to buyers — have been eliminated, lowered, trivialized, respectively.

Publishers used to control access to buyers, and big brands owned the publishers.  Little bitty brands can now become their own publishers — using tools that are free and by gaining access to buyers via channels that are also (essentially) free.

Coca-Cola used to be the dominant soft drink product on store shelves in general.  Now, Coca-Cola distributors have to carry dozens of products “on the truck” in order to keep the overall sell-through volume stable or growing.  The market has been fragmented by dozens of smaller, niche products (energy drinks, water, fruit juices, teas) which have effectively ‘dis-integrated’ the once monolithic soft drinks segment.

The second place I’m glad I don’t live is in the high-end web marketing design agency world.  Just like at the macro-level described above, I believe those guys are going to be disintermediated as well.  Free open source tools (like those used to power this site), crowd-sourcing, and an ever-sophisticated generation of technically savvy young people will put more and more and more pressure on the $100,000 logo design project, the $500,000 web site redesign, and the like.  More people will simply have more access to more tools to do excellent work on their own.  Yes there will be brands that need to (and have the requisite profits to) always pay the highest price to have the Chanel or the Prada or the Coca-Cola of marketing sites and  identity systems.

I just think that buyers will begin to see smaller and less significant differences between those massive investments and the results achieved by the more agile, more savvy, smaller brands.

What do you think?

Extra credit question: What was Coca-Cola’s long term financial gain from the Coca-Cola Classic marketing debacle?

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• Profit Edges Up at Coke, but Sales Stall in North America (nytimes.com)
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• A World of Cokes (simplygreen.co.za)

The view from Glion -- photo credit, flickr.com/photos/glion

I have been stressed out lately.  And I feel guilty about it.  This increases my stress.

Life has been tougher in the last 24 months than in the five years prior.  I made the decision to go out on my own as an independent consultant — which has been a fantastic experience — but not without its ups and downs.  At times I have been busier than I want to be, at others not quite busy enough.  After 20 years in the corporate environment of companies like Lotus and IBM, that is a big change.

Within large enterprises there is this vast safety net made of high-tech polymers that smooths out the swings and narrows.

Then I realize just how fortunate I really am.  When I take the time and prioritize the activities which give me a higher-altitude perspective (like getting exercise and proper rest, balancing the energy put in the never-ending list of to-dos with a reserve aimed at other personal hobbies and interests), I realize I’m sitting at a place like the Hotel Victoria in Glion (pictured above), looking down upon a beautiful city built into steep, pre-Alpine hills (Montreux), the freakishly deep blue water of Lac Léman, and a “beautiful river in the valley ahead” (who can name that tune?).

Down below is the foundation — the city in which dwell the people whose skills and efforts drive the engine of the local economic community.

When I work with companies I find a significant portion of the engagement must be spent ensuring that the skills on staff are the skills required to meet their three-year objectives.

Off across the lake is a valley which leads up to the “White Teeth” (les Dents Blanches) and to Mont Blanc.  That destination is off in the future — and their are several paths which lead there.

I also spend a great deal of time working with companies to understand their strategic goals.  I challenge the executive team to define very clearly that target.  I challenge path choices between the here and now and that goal: Why choose to expand into that territory, why not partner?  Is there an opportunity for you to position your product adjacently to a growth category or trend?  Why not disrupt the status quo and the incumbents with a radically new vision?

When I am feeling stress, it is usually during these working phases.  Will the executive team accept my input and challenges?  Will they make the moves that are required in staffing and skills?  Will the clouds lift over that three-year destination — and will all agree to the path which leads there?

Then, if all goes well, I look up as I did yesterday and see a view like the picture at the top of this post.  The pieces of the puzzle fall into place, and suddenly the stress is lifted — the team is aligned — and focus shifts from discussion and debate about the goal, to execution.

Then I feel really lucky.

Unilever: 400 brands!

I’m sure the twitterati and digerati and otherati will be all over this speech:  : from Unilever CMO Simon Clift.

The denial: “Social media is not a strategy.”

How right he is!  Of course you knew that already, since you read this blog.  :-0

The new media are just media; buyers have taken control of information about sellers; vendors need to learn first how to listen… I think I like this guy!

Thanks to Mark Mullen for the tip on the speech!

BlueMovingTruck

Originally uploaded by TimDD

I have worked for or with many companies over the years, and there is one stunning and consistent trap that organizations fall into: they bury their “enduring promise of value” so deep within their corporate storage unit, and lock the door shut so securely, that that message seems never to make it outside the firm and into the presence of prospects and customers.

Call it inertia, call it the clarity and simplicity prevention reflex — but it happens and it happens often.

I have developed a workshop whose purpose is to help a leadership team refine and validate their business vision and mission; articulate clear and measurable business goals; develop precise target prospect definitions; and build message platforms to address those target prospect audiences. It is not a complicated process or methodology, but it helps the team learn (or remember) that business focus must be extremely clear and easy to understand. When this is achieved, the company can clear away the distractions, clutter, and resource sinks. The organization can get moving toward a known and desirable goal. Marketing happens with clarity and purpose.

Sometimes a company’s raison d’etre needs to be liberated; sometimes it needs to be flossed and cleaned up; sometimes it needs a “gut / rehab.” If the executive team continuously validates its mission, vision, and objectives against company performance, stretching that Elastic Brand can occur without breaking.

Chief BlahBlahBlah.jpg Originally uploaded by TimDD

A dear friend put me on to an article today about the impact of blogging and new ways to engage with customers. Here’s an excerpt from “Chief Blogging Officer Title Catching On With Corporations” from “Workforce Management.”

“For better or for worse, it seems corporate blogging—and the title of chief blogger—is beginning to hit its stride. Companies such as Coca-Cola, Marriott and Kodak have recently recruited chief bloggers… to tell their stories and engage consumers.”

Chief Blogging Officer. Pretty soon there will have to be Chief Twitter Officer — but perhaps they’ll just be known as Chief Twit. Did we need a Chief Western Union Officer when the telegraph was introduced? I am working with Ginny Redgate from The Redgate Group to assemble an offering that can help companies find a path through the madness. How should your company engage in “the communities at large” with what technologies and what resources? It is our belief that this can be a managed and manageable process with clear links to business strategy, not the acts of Chief Twits flailing about trying to make sense in a marketing world with a rate of change that has them on the ropes. Contact us to find out more.

Room with a View

Originally uploaded by TimDD

The view from my hotel in Geneva, as I began work on a project for RSD, a 35-year old report and document management company.

RSD is truly an exceptional company: success in the mainframe market for three decades, great new capabilities on open systems platforms, and an exciting set of possibilities as the company integrates new leadership (Pierre Van Beneden took over as CEO about a month and a half ago).

I’ll be sure to report on the experience as we go.

I started Groundswell on the flight from Boston to Geneva, and I have to say Charlene and Josh, whom I have not yet met, are off to a very strong start. I managed to keep my eyes open (red-eye, not a statement about the prose) through the first 100 pages.

What pleases me no end about Groundswell so far is that the authors have avoided the “how cool is that” mentality and trend book writing style which is long on examples of miraculous achievement and short on simple concept definitions, first steps, context.

The indicator that I will enjoy this tome is that within the first 100 pages I have placed three dog-ears: one on the brilliantly simple and accessible explanation of the technologies, in particular of tagging (p 31); another at the fabulous and spot-on quotation from Ricardo Guimaraes of Thymus Branding:

“The value of a brand belongs to the market, and not to the company.”

The third comes also in the chapter “listening to the groundswell,” where the new vehicles for tapping into customers’ ongoing conversations (their existing communities versus artificial environments like focus groups), are discussed.

I was wondering if i would EVER read about social technologies in a way that was practical as well as practicable, and Groundswell is starting out to look like exactly that.

Sometimes technology can really bum you out.  I’m trying to get ready for a week on the road overseas.  I always get reflective — and was hoping to wax eloquent about the beautiful week I had with my two sons, and with my partner, co-borrower, and fellow blamestormer Julie.  But WordPress is failing me and it’s starting to get me angry.

One last try!

OK.  That seemed to work — so I’ll wrap by saying: half-century two for me (turned 50, have I mentioned that) looks promising indeed.  This week I get going with an enterprise content management company in Switzerland; move forward with forward-market maker in Chicago; help friend get stealthco launched; and continue to work on the full-blown book version of Marketing Unbound.

Boding well.