Category: AR best practice

SageCircle defines “best practice” as the approach that is generally accepted. Superior alternatives that are not generally accepted are “leading-edge practice”, not “best practice”.

Responding to Analysts’ Published Comments – Speed is Essential

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As pointed out in past posts (see The Volume of Analyst Publishing and Quotes), analyst opinions show up in published format thousands of times each month. Unfortunately, too many AR teams are behind their colleagues in knowing when the analysts are being quoted or published. This lag can result in a CEO being embarrassed by a reporter or by a financial analyst who asks the CEO’s position on an IT industry analyst’s opinion. Another example is a sales deal gone awry because the company’s sales representative did not know that a relevant industry analyst had published a negative research note, or that his company was not on the Leaders Square of a Magic Quadrant.

The way to avoid these types of situations is for AR to know first when any Tier 1 analyst ends up in print. That way AR can prepare colleagues instead of responding to their pain. Too often, AR either ignores this requirement or does something ineffectual. Some AR departments subscribe to alerts that the analyst firms’ research engines have, but never look at the daily e-mails that are generated. Other AR departments buy a clipping service to get analyst press quotes.  However, because these services typically have a delay of one to two months between the original publication and their report delivery, clipping services simply are not timely enough for effective response.

SageCircle recommends that AR put into place a program for daily monitoring of analysts’ opinions. What need to be monitored are specific analyst opinions, not just […]

AR & recession – briefings need to focus on customers and fast business results

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Analyst Relations PlanningBesides refocusing their priorities and activities during a recession, analyst relations (AR) professionals also need to think about what they are telling the analysts. Ordinarily briefings can cover any of a number of topics with even more numerous proof points to support their key messages. However, during a recession AR teams should be rethinking what they communicate to the analysts. 

SageCircle research of how IT managers use industry analysts, reveals that helping them make the business case for a technology product or service purchase is high on their list of activities. This insight provides AR with the direction they should taking their briefings during a recession. Because enterprise executives become cautious during a recession, they demand a more detailed justification for technology purchases. By giving industry analysts customer success stories and hard return on investment (ROI) numbers, AR can provide the analysts with fodder that they can in turn give to IT managers that will help shorten the sales cycles.

While customer success stories have always been considered a high priority topic for vendors to provide analysts, because they are difficult to obtain they frequently get pushed to the back burner.  During a recession AR needs to make finding and communicating customer success stories a much higher, if not the highest, priority. This becomes part of AR’s strategy of refocusing its priorities during a recession.

A critical success factor is to focus attention on examples of […]

Defining “Analyst Editorial Calendar”

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n:  A calendar listing anticipated analyst research report publication dates. Because few analyst firms do publish formal editorial calendars, comprehensive Analyst Editorial Calendars have to be built by the core AR team. A variety of intelligence sources are used to gather information for the calendar.  These include holding formal and information conversations with analysts by the extended AR team, asking questions during scheduled interactions, analyzing past research publications, and anticipating work for upcoming conferences. The Analyst Editorial Calendar feeds into […]

Creating an Analyst Editorial Calendar

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Analyst Relations PlanningAnalyst relations (AR) teams that are building their AR Strategic & Tactical Plan need to have insights into what critical analysts are planning to publish over the next few months. Knowing what an analyst is going to publish is an important planning trigger that helps AR teams be analyst centric, not company centric.

In other posts (see Responding to Analysts’ Published Comments – Speed is Essential), we have discussed responding to analyst research or rebutting their positions. An unfortunate fact is that once analysts have publicly taken a stand on a subject, getting them to change is much more difficult. On the other hand, if you start working with the analysts early in their research process, before anything has been published, it is much easier to influence the outcome and perhaps eliminate the need to rebut something that already has been printed.

An important tool for knowing what the analysts are working on is the Analyst Editorial Calendar.

An Analyst Editorial Calendar is a listing of anticipated analyst research report publication dates. Because analyst firms typically do not publish formal and complete editorial calendars, comprehensive Analyst Editorial Calendars have to be built by the core AR team. To create an Analyst Editorial Calendar, AR teams attempt to map out all […]

Take a deep breath before responding to analyst commentary

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Almost every week, SageCircle strategists do inquiries about how to respond to an analyst quote in the press or a piece of published research. Most often, the AR staffer is more than annoyed because the analyst’s words have caused a brouhaha with his or her management. Sometimes the AR staffer is so angry that he or she wants to call the analyst’s manager – or CEO – and complain, or put out a press release about the analyst’s shortcomings. While this could be satisfying emotionally, frankly it would be counterproductive. 

Rather than attacking the analyst by putting out a press release or talking to his or her manager, AR is better served by taking a deep breath, analyzing the situation, and developing a campaign to change the analyst’s opinion. Unfortunately, implementing a campaign to change an analyst’s opinion takes time and your executives probably want something done today. Consequently, one of AR’s challenges in this situation is how to manage the expectations of executives […]

How third parties can help with data collection

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AR Metrics & MeasurementAs was mentioned in Out-tasking AR Activities, measurement work is a prime candidate for out-tasking. There are various firms that can assist AR programs with measurement program design, gathering, and analyzing data. Some examples include: 

Measurement program design – SageCircle has proven intellectual property and templates to help AR teams set up practical and effective measurement programs.

ARchitectTM – ARinsights‘ collaborative application and integrated database makes data collection, querying, and reporting easy. AR practitioners can accomplish in seconds what used to take hours of manual effort. SageCircle strategists are experts in how to leverage ARchitect as part of a measurement program.

Spoken Word Audits – A variety of firms provide services which are similar to SageCircle’s suggested technique for Spoken Word Audits. The Spoken Word Audit uncovers what analysts are saying about your products/services to end-users during […]

You have to focus on influential analysts even if they are negative or unpleasant

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An all too common comment from vendor executives is “That analyst is such a jerk, I don’t want anything to do with him.” Or maybe the executive thinks the analyst is out to get the vendor, an idiot, or just wants to extract money from the vendor. For whatever reason, the executive has decided not to brief or otherwise interact with the analyst because this influential analyst is unpleasant. 

On the other hand, this executive loves to talk with another analyst who is by no stretch of the imagination influential, but is nice, agrees with the executive’s points-of-view, and is just more pleasant.

A critical success factor for your AR program is getting your executives to understand analyst influence and to get on board with a plan to turn around negative or unpleasant analysts instead of just […]

Good post by IBM’s John Simonds on “Getting Your Executives to Cut Down Their Presentations To Analysts”

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John is an AR professional running AR for IBM’s Lotus division. The post is well worth reading, click here to visit John’s Delusions of Adequacy blog. Here are a few extracts (with my emphasis in maroon):

2. If you can’t get your message delivered in 15 charts or less, you likely have clarification issues.

5. No chart is golden, (many) could (should) be sacrificed.

8. If the analyst wants to go off the charts, be willing to go as long as you stay on topic.

9. Use A/R to speak to the analyst before the briefing/discussion/meeting/conference to see […]