Category: 2. Drive – AR strategy

Drive is the strategy stage of the IDEAL model. It turns business goals into measurable communications objectives that are supported by evaluation and effective messaging.

Introducing yourself to an analyst for the first time [Startup Saturday]

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rocket-for-startups.jpgStartups are often in the position of introducing themselves to industry analysts as they start or expand their AR outreach. In addition to the initial outreach, startups find themselves introducing themselves to new analysts because the analyst landscape is very dynamic.  Analysts change firms, but more importantly change coverages and areas of research.  This means that your analyst lists need to be updated regularly and there is a significant chance you will need to interact with new analysts at some point.  Startups lack the name recognition that larger communications and IT vendors can leverage, but the process of meeting new analysts applies to all vendors.

How you handle meeting new analysts is somewhat dependent on the level of experience of the analyst as well as your product or services maturity.  Novice analysts are far more likely to […]

Definition and basic characteristics – The ROI of Analyst Relationship Management Systems (part one)

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icon-tools.jpgThis is the first in a series of posts that will explore the resources required and the advantages gained in using a formal analyst relationship management (ARM) system.  In this post we will look at the characteristics of a good system.  In future posts we will review some of the commercially available products, suggest some best practices in using a system, and look at the values that can be obtained.  Your comments are encouraged. 

What is an ARM?

Sales and service organizations have long used customer relationship management (CRM) systems to provide customer service, track and promote sales, and maintain general customer records.  These can range across home-grown in-house systems, commercially-available software run by IT, and hosted solutions provided by outside firms.  The value of these systems is well documented.  Public Relations departments often track their work in PR-specific systems that fit into the same three categories.  Analyst Relations teams need to look to […]

Social media inputs need to be added to analyst opinion monitoring programs

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icon-social-media-blue.jpgAnalyst opinion monitoring is a critical AR task because it contributes to AR planning, rapid response to sales impact, relationship management, message management, internal politics, and overall metrics programs. In the past, savvy AR means focused on the spoken word – using the SageCircle spoken word audit technique – in addition to the usual written word tracking, typically press quotes and written research. The 21st century raises the bar for what is required to be best-in-class savvy because AR now has to track analyst opinion as expressed in social media.

At this point in time, the analyst opinion monitoring program needs to add analyst podcasts, analyst Twitter streams, analyst blogs and […]

To generate short list placements, you need to narrow your claims to analysts [Startup Saturday]

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rocket-for-startups.jpgFounders and senior executives at startups frequent speak about the future of their companies and markets with grand sweeping statements about how they are going to change the world. They also will say that every enterprise and small business or consumer should buy their product or service. While these might be legitimate statements and required when speaking to the press, when used with IT industry analysts they are often a credibility killer. After hearing such claims from a tiny vendor without many existing customers or demonstrated ability to execute, an analyst will often quietly smirk and not consider mentioning the startup to clients – potential prospects for the startup.

If analysts perceive that you are so scattershot in your target markets that you won’t be effective then they won’t risk their reputation putting you on short lists. What is more effective is […]

Educate your executives about the analysts to building sponsorship and improve spokespeople effectiveness

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Many communications and IT vendors executives are really not informed about the IT Industry analysts.  They often believe one or more the Analyst Myths.  Frequently, tech vendor executives also view the analysts as predators or, worse, as irrelevant. This can both lead to lack of support for the Analyst Relations team and to a reduced effectiveness in using the executives as spokespeople.

As we have said, the most important currency to the analysts is information.  Getting that information directly from the CEO or other executives adds credibility and promotes the relationship you are attempting to build.  As a consequence, it is in the AR team’s best interest to improve their executives’ […]

Portland’s tech startup community – Startupalooza [Startup Saturday]

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rocket-for-startups.jpgLast Saturday I attended one of the events coordinated by Portland’s vibrant startup tech community and encountered entrepreneurs, executives, bloggers, analysts, and consultants.  Startupalooza (link) is one of the various ways that social media is helping to bring people together.  Organized through the web this event had capped the attendance at 200 people due to space limitations, but had an additional 67 people on the waiting list.  Its goal was to provide a live networking opportunity as well as a forum for presenting ideas.  Many of the attendees had their twitter addresses on their name badges.

Among the presenters were executives from Jive Software to explain their successful startup process.  They understand the influence of the analysts and have dedicated resources to an AR program.  You will note that […]

The organizational challenges of managing AR, CI and MR [Practitioner Question]

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question-mark-graphic.jpgWe often are asked about the differences in management techniques when AR is organizationally under corporate communications or marketing as compared to a when it is part of a strategy group.  How you deal with analysts, and the need for strategic interactions as compared to product-level briefings, will be altered based on the client base you are attempting to serve.

Analyst interactions also occur in the Competitive Intelligence (CI) and Market Research (MR) groups.  They are also often the keepers of the major analyst contracts and the “repository” of the purchased analyst data, reprints, and commissioned research.  In addition to providing research for the product and strategy teams they contribute to the sales organization with share numbers and competitive bullet points.

Sometimes these groups are in very separate parts of the company (e.g., AR in corporate communications, MR in product management and CI in field sales) while at others, especially in smaller vendors, one person does it all.  In larger companies these functions may be so organizationally separate from AR as to require processes for enhancing the communications and collaboration, despite the fact that you are all dealing with the same analysts.

From time-to-time, companies make organizational changes with AR being told – sometimes over AR’s reasonable objections – to take responsibility for the CI/MR teams. Incorporating the CI/MR teams with AR can prove to be an interesting challenge for the AR manager because […]

Are the analysts laggards or have startups neglected to brief them? [Startup Saturday]

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rocket-for-startups.jpgHere is a comment from a blog that is representative on the attitude about analysts at major firms covering an emerging technology:

“…I think that the Social Revolution is being underreported by Gartner et al, because the enterprise world is a laggard …”

Or maybe the thought leaders and leading providers of an emerging technology market (in this case social media technology and services) have not done a good enough job briefing the analysts and sharing market intelligence.

Myth #1 – The analysts know everything (see Analyst Myths Revisited)

The commenter was right that a significant portion of the advisor analysts’ client base is large enterprises. It is also true that most enterprise CIOs are inherently conservative in adopting technology. So advisory analysts, like Gartner, that get a lot of data points from their end-user client inquiries will not hear about cutting edge uses of emerging technology. Another critical fact in this situation is that an important source of information for the analysts is the vendor community. However, tech startups and small vendors are less likely to have formal AR programs. This means that the emerging technology crowd is not making its point-of-view heard.

So it is logical that if only one side of a debate (e.g., enterprise IT managers concerned about the risks whatever new technology) is talking to the analysts then that side’s opinion and factioids will be overweighted in research. Equally damaging for emerging technology is when end-user clients don’t talk about […]