Category: 3. Engage – AR implementation

Engage is the implementation stage of the IDEAL model. It primarily means planning and conducting tactics that support the strategy that drives the program. It also means collecting some of the data needed for evaluation.

Analysts who blog versus Bloggers who analyze

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icon-social-media-blue.jpgBy Carter Lusher, Strategist

Last week’s Forrester Analyst Relations Council Panel on “Analyst Relations 2.0” was fun and interesting. There was quite a bit of diversity of opinion on the panel with KCG’s Bill Hopkins playing the self-described anti-blog/anti-Web 2.0 curmudgeon and Dana Gardner from Interarbor Solutions way on the other side playing the pro-social media fan. That left plenty of room in the middle for Jonathan Eunice from Illuminata, Forrester Senior Analyst James Kobielus and me to take a balanced approach. The moderator was Forrester VP Laura Ramos, who I count as a blog skeptic when it comes to blogging by analysts and vendors.

There was a fair amount of angst in the audience, with many AR professionals clearly wishing blogs would just go away, while others were open minded. Very few AR pros in attendence had embraced blogs personally or professionally. Many were clearly overwhelmed because of the sheer number and types of bloggers who could touch their companies.

While fun, there some something unsatisfying about the panel. One attendee e-mailed: “What struck me about the panel was it asked more questions than offering answers.” Hmm, good point. I tried to provide very specific advice (see Steps for AR teams for starting with analyst blogs), but I admit there was a lot of philosophical ramblings during the 100+ minutes of the panel. Upon reflection, I think the problem was that the panel was not asked to focus on a specific issue, rather we were given a topic that provoked entertaining discussion, but was too broad and fuzzy for hard recommendations.

Bowl of Spaghetti

Because “AR 2.0” was clearly too broad, the organizer and moderator decided to narrow the discussion to “analyst blogs.” However, ever this re-definition of the panel topic was too broad because it encompassed the entire blogosphere. This led to panel discussion, audience questions and comments that touched on traditional analysts and bloggers without distinguishing between the type of influencer. In addition, the discussion occasionally drifted into whether AR teams and their companies should blog and […]

“Media training” does not, I repeat, does not prepare one for the analysts

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icon-the-press-110w.jpgHad a great meeting today at a software company where the subject of preparing spokespeople for interacting with industry analysts came up. Before the I chance to say anything, the head of corporate communications – a very smart gentleman with a heritage in PR – immediate piped up that tradition media training is not useful for preparing spokespeople to interact with the industry analysts.

Hurrah! Someone who gets it!

Everything about how the analysts work and how the press works is so different that using media training to get executives and domain experts ready to interact with the analysts will actually cause more problems than […]

THE TOP 5 Common Mistakes that Analyst Relations Programs Make

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5.  Vendors approach analysts with an undifferentiated message and lack of thought in their vision and strategy.

Downside – why should an analyst pay any attention to a boring, me too vendor, especially if the market is crowded and fragmented?

4.  Vendors use the same approach used for all analysts and all firms. Some firms have very bureaucratic briefing request procedures while others permit vendors and PR firms to call the analysts directly. Market researchers need numbers while advisory analysts provide customer success stories. Some analysts are very structured in the information they want and the briefing structure while other analysts even at the same firm are very informal.

Downside – analysts are narcissistic prima donnas who want to do things their way. Vendors who ignore basic differences between analysts and firms run the risk of irritating the analysts, not providing needed information and wasting the analysts’ time.

3.  Vendors provide the wrong type of information, not supporting the methods the analysts use to […]

Presentation Tip: Watch out for the notes on PowerPoint slides

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If you send industry analysts PowerPoint files of your presentations, do make sure that you review the text in the Notes section of each page. You’ll want to delete any text that is inappropriate to give to the analysts. This is a step that is easy to miss and which will give you great heartburn. Add this step to your standard presentation critique checklist — you do have a presentation critique checklist, right? — is a simple way to avoid reaching for the antacid pills.

BTW, sending PowerPoint and Word files is a best practice that AR managers should consider using. Providing content in Microsoft Office format makes it easier for analysts to repurpose your content. No, silly, this is not “stealing.” It is called […]

The value to team collaboration – The ROI of an Analyst Relationship Management System [part four]

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icon-tools.jpgThis is the fourth 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 investigate how these systems can enhance collaboration.  Other posts will explore metrics and look at the values that can be obtained.  Your comments are encouraged.

It is 11 PM, do you know where your analyst is?

AR teams should know the perception of analysts long before the curfew of a Magic Quadrant.  Getting blindsided by a presentation, or knowing you have been dropped from a short list is never fun.  There are many ways to determine current analyst perception – but one not to be overlooked is simple team collaboration.  This becomes especially true with larger AR teams, or those that are organizationally or geographically distributed.

Tracking your AR activities and the perceptions that analysts have about your company is not an individual effort, but requires teamwork.  Methods that promote easy sharing of […]

Steps for AR teams for starting with analyst blogs

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Welcome members of Forrester’s AR Council. Here are those steps A through F that I rattled off at the beinging of the panel. I also put in links to directories of analysts blogs and Don Bulmer’s blog. If the session ran out before we got to your question or you want more depth, leave your question as a comment and I’ll answer it.

In case you’re wondering what this is post is about, today SageCircle’s Carter Lusher was a member of the “Analyst Relations 2.0” panel at the Forrester Analyst Relations Council (ARC) meeting, which was co-located with Forrester’s IT Forum. The focus of the discussion was on analyst blogs and how AR teams need to think about them. Other members of the panel included analysts  Jonathan Eunice from Illuminata and Dana Gardner from Interarbor Solutions. Besides Carter on the AR services side was KCG’s Bill Hopkins (Tekrati’s Barbara French could not make the meeting so Bill took her place). The whole circus was moderated by Forrester VP Laura Ramos. The panel and audience discussion was quite lively, fun, and raised a number of issues.

 One of the requests by panel organizer Trisha Mirel was that we give the AR managers in attendance a list of practical action items to start incorporating analyst blogs into how they work. Obviously, this is something SageCircle has covered on a number of occasions (see our series of posts on social media). The more important recommendation is that interacting with analysts via their blogs should be part of an overall social media plan incorporated into the strategic AR plan. Getting started is quite simple with a few steps that go from A to F: ask… begin… conduct… develop… educate… forward…

 SageCircle Technique:

  • A = Ask your top analysts about their current or planned blogs, either under personal or firm brands
    A = Ask you customers about where they go for information and advice for product decisions
  • B = Begin to add analyst blogs to your overall AR plan, especially the […]

Getting value out requires putting effort in – The ROI of an Analyst Relationship Management System [part three]

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icon-tools.jpgThis is the third 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 review some best practices in using a system.  Other posts will explore metrics and look at the values that can be obtained.  Your comments are encouraged. 

Data entry needs

A good ARM will allow you to append interaction information to each analyst record.  This information can include personal entries about analyst perception, but most significantly it can be the corporate memory of analyst interactions.  By recording the date, type, and results of each interaction with each analyst you build a history that is available to the entire AR staff as well as new members. 

We have heard comments from AR managers who believe that data entry into any ARM takes too much effort and the value is not worth the work involved.*  This is a short sighted view for several reasons.

  • Generating metrics – SageCircle is a strong believer in metrics. If you don’t record your activities and […]

AR-Sales Partnership case study – Using a teleconference to raise Sale’s awareness of the analysts and improve AR’s strategic standing

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icon-dollar-euro.jpgWho: Director of Analyst Relations at a mid-sized enterprise software vendor

Situation: The vendor’s previous CMO would not permit AR to interact with Sales so there was no outreach to the field on analyst impact and how to leverage positive analyst commentary. After a change in both the CMO and AR director positions the situation changed. The new AR director proactively sought permission from the new CMO to start interacting with Sales, which was granted with enthusiasm.

Process: The AR director teamed with the VP of field sales support to determine the best venue and outline for an initial presentation about the impact of the industry analysts. It was determined that […]