Technology Marketing

Be In The Know: The Managed Service Provider Journey

Jonathan Silber — Thu, 24 May 2012 23:02:58 +0000

Over the last two months, I've had the opportunity to interview a plethora of managed service providers (MSPs) and MSP platform vendors across the US, Europe, and Asia. The experience has provided me with an inside view into the fastest-growing technology channel today, but it has also provided me with a clear understanding of the evolutionary path MSPs must take as they attempt to reach a new level of maturity (and profitability).

For those tech vendors hoping to cash in on the budding billion-dollar managed service opportunity, it is critical to first understand where the movement began in order to understand where it is headed. The figure below (from my most recent report, Managed Service Providers, Part 1) highlights the three unique stages of MSP development:

How Well Do You Manage Your Brand? As Good As Adobe, IBM, Infosys, or TCS?

Peter O'Neill — Mon, 14 May 2012 07:06:36 +0000

Before you read this latest blog by Peter O'Neill, please join our survey on content management maturity.

Brand marketing was a focus of our Marketing Leadership Forum in Los Angeles, where Chris Stutzman talked about brand building in the 21st century (see video). His examples were primarily B2C, but he also cited IBM and Adobe: two tech vendors that have rightly earned respect for their brand marketing. But to be honest, for the rest of us, brand marketing is less about raising the bar and more about getting out of our limbo position (think about that).

Your Business Tech Buyers Are More Social Than Ever

Kim Celestre — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:08:21 +0000

I am writing this blog from a country club in beautiful (albeit rainy) Virginia. It seems like yesterday when I was in warm LA for the Forrester Marketing Leadership Forum. What a difference a week makes! Our sales enablement and tech marketing teams have a 3-day offsite here to dive very deep into our clients' problems and how Forrester can help solve them. In order to tackle these problems, we must start with the critical step of understanding everything we can about our customers. For example, Forrester has surveyed business technology buyers over the past 4 years to gather data on their on line behaviors. This data is commonly known as Forrester's Social Technographics™ ladder. This intelligence is priceless to our Forrester clients, who more often than not are skeptical with regards to B2B buyers' use of social media. There is a general perception that social media primarily applies to consumers, not B2B buyers. Well, if you still don't believe that B2B tech buyers use social for work purposes, think again! I created an infographic to show that B2B buyers continue to engage online for work purposes and in more ways than you may think. They are commenting on your products, creating video, writing blogs, and posting status updates. And this just scratches the surface!

You have two choices: 1) ignore this data and continue to believe that social media does not apply to B2B or 2) differentiate your social marketing strategy by creating targeted B2B social media campaigns that are based on the unique characteristics of your buyers. As a former tech marketer, I know which alternative I would choose!

My Next “Letter From Germany” – Happy Birthday SAP & Time To Automate Marketing

Peter O'Neill — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:23:52 +0000

Those of you who know me (Peter O'Neill) know that I've lived in Germany for 30 years. So, I am posting a regular blog - probably bimonthly - where I highlight something important for you that has or is about to happen in Germany. We'll start with a history lesson. In 1972, the last Apollo moon mission was launched, Germany won the European Championship (soccer), and five consultants and developers left IBM Germany to start their own company called Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung GbR. They wrote financial accounting software for the local Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) factory, which incorporated the then-revolutionary idea of using terminals and keyboards for data entry and reporting instead of the more common punch-hole cards. This made their software appear to work in "real time," so they called it R/1. Now, 40 eventful years later, SAP is undoubtedly one of the most important technology vendors in the industry and still doing very well, thank you.

So, happy birthday SAP! As someone who was part of the early HP team that partnered with you to market R/3 on HP-UX back in the 1980s, and now work with numerous SAP marketing professionals in my current capacity, I enjoy the success you are having.

Tech Marketers Have A Reason To Love LA...The Forrester 2012 Marketing Leadership Forum!

Kim Celestre — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 07:30:07 +0000

I am embarrassed to admit that I have lived in the California Bay Area for 18 years and have yet to venture outside of the Los Angeles airport. Some have told me that I "am not missing much," yet others are surprised...as if one is never truly a "Californian" unless you have been to LA for a visit. Well...this year will be my first official visit "in" LA...and excited that the reason for breaking my 18-year streak is Forrester's 2012 Marketing Leadership Forum! My Tech Marketing (i.e., "Travis Martin") colleagues and I have a very energetic, interactive, and fun session in store for you. Join us to learn how to improve your marketing strategies by using "journey marketing" to engage with your customers. Peter Burris and Chris Kelley will kick off our TM track session on April 18 with "Driving Revenue With Journey Marketing." I will follow Chris and Peter with "Getting From Good To Great: How To Create A Winning Social Marketing Strategy." On day two, Lori Wizdo is presenting: "Engage Customers With Lead Nurturing" and Peter O'Neill and Tim Harmon close our TM track session with "Marketing To Customer Value."

In addition, I am hosting a special VIP breakfast session on Thursday, April 19, to share a new Forrester framework for building B2B tech communities called CLICK. Attendees who participate will be able to influence the outcome of this new framework through open discussion and feedback. If you are attending the forum and interested in this event, please send an email to kcelestre@forrester.com

I look forward to seeing you in LA!

Some Busy Weeks Researching Content Management

Peter O'Neill — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:43:38 +0000

Peter O'Neill here. As well as working the end of our fiscal quarter (yes, we analysts must also meet targets), I've been busy in the past few weeks getting ready for our upcoming Marketing Forum, where I am co-presenting a session on the rising importance of the customer retention and expansion phase with my colleague Tim Harmon. A Forrester Forum always presents me with a dilemma: I'd like to have as many client one-on-one sessions as possible -- it's always great to meet people that I often only know from the telephone -- but then again, I'd also like to enjoy and learn from the other presentations at the conference.

Are You Absolutely Sure You're Doing Enough With Social?

Lori Wizdo — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:42:06 +0000

I (Lori Wizdo) have just put the finishing touches on the content for tomorrow's (Wednesday, March 28 at 10am PT/1pm ET) interactive webinar, Socialize Your Lead To Revenue Process. B2B marketers (even tech marketers) are not sure their buyers are really engaged in social media for business purpose. We'll see Forrester research that proves they are. We'll discuss how social marketing can address the issues I am hearing, over and over again, in client inquiries:

"How can we increase inbound?".... "How can we increase conversions?" ... "How can we shorten nurturing cycles?" And, most importantly, "Is social worth it?"

Despite the doubts and uncertainties, tech marketers plan to increase spending on social media for L2RM in 2012: 43% plan to increase social media spend for lead origination; 41% for lead nurturing. Tomorrow's webinar hopes to give some very pragmatic advice to help you jumpstart or scale-up your social marketing program.

If you can join us, you can register here.

Introducing CLICK For Customer Communities

Kim Celestre — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:44:24 +0000

Join me for an interactive webinar on Tuesday, March 27 at 10am PT/1pm ET on a new Forrester framework for building an online community called "CLICK." CLICK is a new approach tech marketers can use to define the critical elements of a community: context, linkages, identity, conversations, and knowledge assets.

Why are we so passionate about communities here at Forrester? Well, our research has consistently shown that communities/discussion forums/support forums are the most influential social media information source for BT tech buyers. In addition, some B2B companies are achieving outstanding results with their community efforts by lowering support costs and increasing conversion rates. And that is just the beginning. We predict that we will see many more success stories in the future.

Most importantly, tomorrow's webinar provides a rare opportunity for you to provide your comments and feedback on a new framework that is in the final stages of development. You can influence the outcome! Yes...YOU. Hope to "see" you tomorrow.

Proving Theodore Levitt Wrong About Sales

Lori Wizdo — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:52:09 +0000

I (Lori Wizdo) am on a plane, flying to San Francisco, to participate in Forrester's Technology Sales Enablement Forum. As I was prepping for my (limited) role in the event, I had a flashback to one of the most famous disses of the sales profession ever written.

It's contained in the 1960's article "Marketing Myopia", written by Theodore Levitt, which has become one of the best known and most quoted of Harvard Business Review's articles. The article is essentially about having a business strategy that concentrates on meeting customer needs rather than selling products. A key take away, which most marketing or business school grads remember, is the observation that "had railroad executives seen themselves as being in the transportation business rather than the railroad business, they would have continued to grow."

However, it is also in this article that Levitt was breathtakingly critical of the sales profession: "Selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about." He went on to explain that sales "does not...view the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse, and satisfy customer needs. The customer is somebody 'out there' who, with proper cunning, can be separated from his or her loose change."

Well, that might have been true then (who I am to disagree with a marketing legend) but it's definitely not true now - and certainly not in the tech industry.

Event Season Has Sprung

Kim Celestre — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:42:29 +0000

For many, spring brings visions of robins, tulips, Easter bunnies, and longer days. For Forrester analysts, it marks the beginning of what I like to call "event season," which officially kicks off with Forrester's Tech Sales Enablement Forum. This event takes place at the lovely Palace Hotel in San Francisco on March 19-20. For those attending, you may catch me during one of the Q&A sessions on Tuesday. Come say "hi" if you spot me there! And better yet...mention that you read this blog :-)

How Is Social Impacting Your Business? Join Our #IVJam Tweet Jam On Monday, March 12!

Kim Celestre — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 02:38:10 +0000

I am honored to be at InsideView's Insider Summit on Monday, March 12 at 9:15am PT to host a keynote and tweet jam. Join me and my fellow analysts, @ZacharyRD, @loriwizdo, @JRSilber, and @timharmon for a lively and interactive discussion on the impact social media and social data are having on marketing and sales processes.

The tweet jam hashtag is #IVJam

Some of the topics we will discuss are:

How do you think social media impacts an organization's lead-generation and lead-nurturing processes?
How has your company reacted to the use of social media for work purposes?
How has social media influenced your customer's buying experience?
What are the best practices for using social media to engage with customers?
What results are you getting from your social media tactics?
What are your top social business priorities in 2012?

We look forward to your participation!

Stay tuned to this blog for a recap on the event and attendee feedback!

Cisco Partner Velocity 2012: Leveraging Marketing Enablement As A Differentiator

Jonathan Silber — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:32:40 +0000

Cisco's annual partner marketing conference, Partner Velocity, wrapped up in Las Vegas last week. Two hundred and thirty-five partners from 24 countries were in attendance to witness Cisco's recently appointed VP of global partner marketing, Amanda Jobbins, sing her heart out during the closing ceremony. I can confidently confirm that she passed her trial by fire with flying colors and her future at Cisco (or Glee, if she decides to pursue that path) is fully secured.

I had the pleasure to sit down with approximately 15 partners over the course of the three-day event. Here's what the event looked like throughthe lens of partners' marketing professionals:

"As a member of a tiny marketing team, I have a lot of responsibility and very little support. Velocity helps bring me up to speed on the latest-and-greatest marketing trends and best practices."
"The marketing experts that speak at Velocity are top-notch. The only thing more valuable is the peer-to-peer network that the event cultivates. Cisco sure knows how to bring the marketing community together."
"I'd like to see Cisco create marketing education-for-dummies and align it more specifically to my business."

This was my first time attending a partner event focused exclusively on marketing enablement and innovation. I can honestly say that I drank the "Partner-Led" Kool-Aid and walked away believing Velocity is a clear differentiator for Cisco. If the company delivers on its promise to provide ongoing physical and virtual educational programs for all its partners (not just top partners), it will solidify its position as a maturing partner favorite. Velocity did the job it was intended to do, and I left the event with three key takeaways:

Everybody Has The Same Three Strategic ISVs

Peter O'Neill — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:25:47 +0000

I (Peter O'Neill here again) had the pleasure of visiting Twickenham rugby stadium in London last week - sadly, not on the Saturday to watch my national team beat England but on the following Monday to meet Dell executives and hear about their Enterprise Spring Launch of new products and services. As I listened to the speeches about new servers, storage, networking, and end-to-end applications, I kept thinking to myself how difficult it is these days to sound different from other infrastructure vendors who do the same thing - and often with the same technologies. I remember making those same speeches over 15 years ago and it was difficult enough then! My colleague Richard Fichera has commented on the product details, so I'd like to review the most important one, for me: Dell's solution program. As far as I am concerned, only those IT infrastructure vendors who market at the business technology level will enjoy success in the future - and that means solutions marketing with commitment.

My First Tech Marketing Letter From Germany: "CeBIT Reinvented"

Peter O'Neill — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:51:41 +0000

Those of you who know me (Peter O'Neill) know that I've lived in Germany since 30 years. Now, when I grew up in the UK, I remember so well the BBC journalist Alistair Cooke reading his "Letter From America" each Sunday night on the wireless (as we called radio then!): It was a great familiarization exercise and stood me in good stead when I visited and worked in the US many years later. As I do at least one inquiry per week for Forrester clients describing the state of the European and/or German tech market, I thought I'd kick off a regular blog in the same vein - probably bi-monthly - where I highlight something I think is important for you that has or is about to happen in Germany.

New Channels Track At Forrester's TSE Forum

Tim Harmon — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:42:15 +0000

This year (next month) Forrester's Technology Sales Enablement Forum will sport a new channels track. With a theme of "Bridging the Strategy-to-Execution Gap," we will drill into the issues vexing channel professionals on why "perfect" strategies, involving partner recruitment, partner enablement, and partner loyalty, often fall flat with channel partners.

I'm particularly excited by being joined on stage, not just by my colleagues Dane Anderson and Michael Speyer, but by [yes, real live] channel execs Jon Roskill of Microsoft and Wendy Bahr of Cisco. Jon and Wendy are going to share their insights and their most effective techniques around channel enablement - i.e., how their companies' channel teams empower their channel partners to effect maximum productivity. Attendees will have plenty of opportunity to grill Jon and Wendy with their particular issues.

Moreover, Dane, Michael, and I are going to bring "the voice of the channel partner" directly into our explorations of partner management execution. I'm sure you're going to take away some valuable, actionable ideas for boosting your own channel strategy-to-execution map. Check it out:

Forrester's Technology Sales Enablement Forum 2012

Bridging The Strategy-to-Execution Gap

March 19-20, San Francisco

http://www.forrester.com/events/eventdetail/0,9179,2586,00.html

See you there!

Technology Marketing

Be In The Know: The Managed Service Provider Journey

Categories:

How Well Do You Manage Your Brand? As Good As Adobe, IBM, Infosys, or TCS?

Your Business Tech Buyers Are More Social Than Ever

My Next “Letter From Germany” – Happy Birthday SAP & Time To Automate Marketing

Tech Marketers Have A Reason To Love LA...The Forrester 2012 Marketing Leadership Forum!

Categories:

Some Busy Weeks Researching Content Management

Are You Absolutely Sure You're Doing Enough With Social?

Categories:

Introducing CLICK For Customer Communities

Proving Theodore Levitt Wrong About Sales

Categories:

Event Season Has Sprung

How Is Social Impacting Your Business? Join Our #IVJam Tweet Jam On Monday, March 12!

Cisco Partner Velocity 2012: Leveraging Marketing Enablement As A Differentiator

Categories:

Everybody Has The Same Three Strategic ISVs

My First Tech Marketing Letter From Germany: "CeBIT Reinvented"

New Channels Track At Forrester's TSE Forum

Categories: