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.

Should startups use PR agencies to do AR? [Startup Saturday]

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rocket-for-startups.jpgThis is a post that will no doubt irritate my PR friends, but the answer to the question about whether startups should use PR agencies for AR is “only for the boring stuff.” By boring, I mean interaction logistics and basic information dissemination. However, when it comes to building the relationship and developing credibility with the IT analysts, then the startup’s smartest people need to roll up their sleeves and own these aspects.

If you look at what the analysts […]

Budget cutting can help AR focus and innovate

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icon-budget-cuts-105w.jpgIt is a fact of life that because of the reports of economic slowing, marketing departments at communications and IT vendors are considering budget cuts. Because most analyst relations teams report to marketing, there will be trickle down cuts hitting AR as well. Unfortunately, most AR functions are already short of staff and funding resources so the natural reaction is to perceive that budget cuts are only bad. However, if AR managers use the budget cutting as an opportunity to rethink how they do business the cutting exercise can have at least some positive outcomes.

Any business function can accumulate outdated expenses, activities and techniques like barnacles on a ship. An example can be always buying 20 advisory seats during the annual analyst services contract renewal even though only 14 are really being actively used. Another example is spending too much money on analyst events by selecting fancy destination hotels when analysts would prefer a more convenient and often cheaper location. Yet another example is buying expo floor booth space at firm conferences because “everybody knows” that they are great sources of leads when no investigation of lead generation effectiveness has been done for years, if ever.

Besides eliminating unnecessary spending, a budget cutting exercise can also surface innovative approaches to accomplish tasks that actually might be more effective done in some other way. An example here is substituting “Deep Dives” for the annual […]

Feedback from analysts on what a tech startup knows that would be really interesting [Startup Saturday]

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rocket-for-startups.jpgIn addition to last week’s post (see Startups have unique market insights that they can use as currency with IT industry analysts [Startup Saturday]) I also listed a question on LinkedIn Answers to see what sort of feedback I would get from analysts. I am glad I did as I got some really interesting and useful responses. They fell into three basic categories: standard briefing information that all vendors should provide, information that should be included in briefings by startups and unique “ah ha”s that startups can provide analysts. Here are a few of the key quotes from the responses. All of the responses are included at the bottom of this post and are worth the read and not just by startups either. Established companies can learn a few tips from these suggestions as well

  • The biggest unknown [for analysts] is how the market will evolve – and who/what will be left standing. The insight provided by start up’s is invaluable to helping to understand the market and the changes that are already in progress.
  • Understanding of the buyer side … especially if it sets up factors to track that might indicate the leaders and challengers … are about to be shuffled. Getting in front of that with […]

AR–Sales Partnership [part 1]: It’s not about pushing out reports

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icon-dollar-euro.jpgI think that most, if not all, of us in analyst relations (AR) have been on the receiving end of a phone call from a desperate/angry sales rep who is confronted with salvaging a deal squashed by analyst commentary. Often these calls are unpleasant as the sales rep takes out his or her frustration on AR. Worse yet is when it is the VP of sales who is on the other end of the phone line screaming at you.   Sales VPs have political clout and the ear of your top executives.

The research and recommendations of the IT advisory analysts like AMR, Forrester and Gartner can have a powerful impact on enterprise IT vendor sales cycles, whether hardware, software, telecomm or services. This impact can result in a sales cycle being lengthened or shortened, a vendor being included or excluded from a short list, or most dramatically a vendor that had won a deal finding it evaporate during contract negotiations when an analyst at the last minute gives a thumbs down.

Quite often the success or failure of the sales representative hangs on how well he or she overcomes a hurdle created by analyst recommendations. Unfortunately, the typical vendor sales team has not been educated about who the analysts are, what they do, and how to overcome negative commentary. As a consequence, sales reps experience high levels of frustration as deals go to competitors, sales cycles lengthen and contract negotiations go in favor of the buyer.

Equally unfortunate is that most AR teams do not have formal programs set up to help their sales colleagues. Typically the most that AR does is to push a positive research note out to the sales force. However, even this can be counterproductive if the research is not presented to the sales teams with the proper context and they don’t have the education to make it an effective tool.

What to do? […]

Startups have unique market insights that they can use as currency with IT industry analysts [Startup Saturday]

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rocket-for-startups.jpgAs we said in Should tech startups invest in analyst relations?, the currency startups should use with analysts is not euros, yuan, pounds, dollars, yen or pesos. No, the real currency is information (and the executive time to deliver the information).

Startups need to provide analysts with all the usual information such as strategy, ability to execute, product road map and so on. However, startups will be at a disadvantage to mature vendors in some areas like formal customer references. As a consequence, startups need to mix in some information or data that they are better suited to know and share. In this article, we will offer some suggestions for topics that startups might have unique insights that will appeal to […]

Avoid emotion when building the analyst list for emerging tech markets [Startup Saturday]

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rocket-for-startups.jpgJust as with larger firms, emerging technology companies need to rank and tier their analyst lists.  Ranking establishes the relative importance of the analysts and sets a priority, while tiering is the process of allocating resources.  Based on the available time, money, staff, executive support, and so forth you need to group the analysts into top level analysts who get full attention and lower significance analysts who get email responses only.  SageCircle has detailed information on this process for traditional vendors.

So often the problem in creating these analyst lists is that emotion and the squeaky wheel syndrome play a larger role in […]

Speed versus silence on the Microsoft-Yahoo announcement and the implications for Analyst Relations and the Press

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icon-social-media-blue.jpgIt has been interesting seeing the different responses to the Microsoft-Yahoo announcement. For example, as of 10:15 US Pacific Time:

  • Redmonk’s James Governor on his Monkchips has an interesting post, plus James has been Twittering
  • Forrester has commentary from three analysts (Rob, Charlene and Shar) on three blogs, each with a unique point-of-view
  • Rob Enderle has weighed in on the Technology Pundits blog
  • AMR, Gartner and IDC, nothing so far on their websites or blogs

No doubt, IDC and Gartner analysts have been talking to the press and clients, but frankly so […]

Will the analysts drive down IT spending? Not if you talk to them.

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In Saturday’s New York Times Business Day section there was a reassuring article by Steve Lohr called Belt-Tightening, but No Collapse, Is Forecast in Technology Spending. Reassuring because the IT executives and industry analysts interviewed all indicated that there was less likelihood that IT spending was going to be slashed like during the 2001 recession. Whew, it looks like the IT market will dodge the bullet this time! However this relief could be short lived if the IT analysts turn negative and start counseling their IT buyer clients to be conservative and cut spending.

What could turn the IT analysts negative on spending? The analysts could flip their opinion if all they hear are the concerns and fears of budget cuts from nervous IT executives. As explained […]