View from the City Gates

Is eDiscovery Saturated?

With Autonomy continuing its buying spree, it's obvious that they want to own all aspects of search and storage in the enterprise.  Is there room for others?  At this point most enterprises use at least five search solutions to handle specialized search categories.  Best of Breed still dominates the market but all of the major players are looking to expand their footprint in large corporations.  Next year there will be a "mad dash" to develop end-to-end solutions according to Recommind in a recent CMS Wire story. Those with platforms can will continue focusing on refining their products and integrating with legacy systems. That remains no easy--or inexpensive task.  In addition, there is going to be a continuing need to keep revenue streams flowing, there is going to be a pressing need to offer products that seeks to solve more problems or that aims to solve a very small, but significant issue of eDiscovery.  The marketplace appears to be saturated.  Mergers and acquisitions seem almost necessary.

But is the space truly saturated?  Enterprise solutions are all well and good for those who can afford the massive investment of time and money necessary.  But what about the small firms?  A substantial portion of law firms around the country, for example, are under 20 lawyers.  There is no way they can utilize the massive search software that is out there today.  I'm hoping that in 2010, someone will come out with a solution for them.  It's not an easy segment to serve considering many of them don't have any significant IT infrastructure.  But if someone can come up with the right product at the right price, there's a great deal of business out there. 

Gary

Mommy Blogging Growing Swiftly

In the blogosphere, mommy blogging is becoming one of the fastest growing trends in social media.  Today, there are hundreds of mommy blogs who are reaching out to consumers.  One of the most famous mommy bloggers is Heather B. Armstrong, who blogs on Dooce.com - she has thousands of followers.

 

And from a consumer PR perspective, it makes more sense than ever.  The everyday buying decisions of every household is most likely the woman of the household.  Maria Bailey, the author of Mom 3.0 (a book on marketing to mothers) noted that

"moms spend $2.1 trillion on everything from diapers to cars to electronics every year." So, what better way to spread your consumer product virally than through these very blogs?

 

Check out this article on BusinessWeek.com on pitching mommy bloggers.  It gives great advice on how to approach a mommy blogger:

 

http://tinyurl.com/pe76uq

 

Sandra

 

Impressions of the Web 2.0 Expo and the Fate of Conferences in 2009

In nearly every client conversation about marketing activities this year, trade shows have been receiving bad reviews.  Fewer exhibitors and lower booth traffic have marketers rethinking their presence.  The Web 2.0 Expo was held this month in

San Francisco

and I was surprised at the smaller number of exhibitors.  Booth traffic was lower as well, though Randy Almond, VP/Marketing for Yola (rebranded from Synthasite during the show) indicated that the quality of the booth discussions were significantly better than last year.  For more on that subject, you might want to listen to my podcast at http://www.newworldpodcasting.com/files/podcasts/yola/040709_Yola_Randy_Almond.mp3.

 

Speaking of Yola, a client of mine to be fully transparent, the company also conducted an online survey during the show to look at trends in website development for the next twelve months.  The company used Zoomerang to gather survey results and compile them in real time.  Respondents were encouraged to fill out the survey through a Twitter and Facebook campaign and the results, which I’ll feature in my next blog when they are available to the public, were quite interesting.

 

RSA, the world’s largest security conference, is right around the corner and it will be interesting to see whether the trend in lower turn out and fewer exhibitors continues or not.  Expectations are high, but I noticed that there are fewer sold out hotels than in years past—maybe a sign that even rock bottom airfares haven’t convinced companies to loosen their grip on travel budgets.

 

Keywords: Web 2.0 Expo, Yola, RSA, blogs, podcast, Twitter, Facebook

Sales Reps Changing Their Approach Based On Social Media

March 16, 2009

 

This morning I attended a Mass Technology Leadership Councilroundtable discussion headed by John Neeson, the managing director and co-founder of SiriusDecisions, a small benchmark and advisory firm.  John had a number of interesting things to say about the current B-to-B trends in sales and marketing; had some great takeaways to bring back to Citigate Cunningham.  He discussed a number of issues that marketing and sales reps face today, including how sales and marketing departments need to adapt to today’s changing climate. We’ve probably all heard this before, but he said that the changing state of sales and marketing was primarily due to the introduction of new communications technologies- including everything ranging from social networks to webinars. 

 

 These technologies have drastically changed the way things are done now.  For example, according to John, “the average sales rep spends only 21% of their time face to face with prospects and customers.”  With the advent of the internet, consumers are no longer dependent on the information given to them by their sales reps.  Instead, prospects can go out and do as much research on the subject as possible until they feel they’ve educated themselves thoroughly enough to make a decision.  This decrease in face to face time is primarily due to the introduction of technologies such as podcasts that are now doing much of the selling for the sales reps.  Marketing and sales have consequently evolved to meet these changing needs of the consumer, and have transitioned away from pouring their time and resources into competing for face time with the prospect, and have moved towards creating resources for the prospect to educate themselves. Interesting trend indeed….

 

Shelley

 

To read more about what John has to say, check out SiriusDecisions’ blog:  http://tinyurl.com/4pjcy8

 

Tags: b2b, marketing, Mass Technology Leadership Council, SiriusDecisions

 

Sponsored Conversations May Have Pitfalls

March 04, 2009

 

Sponsored conversations, where marketers are sponsoring blogger posts, have become a hot topic in the past month.  According to Forrester Research, sponsored conversations pay bloggers to create transparent and genuine content about the brand.  This includes both sponsored posts and spokesbloggers.  While this does create buzz in the marketplace and is one of the lower cost ways of reaching the target audience, the blog is still in the blogger’s own voice.  This means that there is a lack of message control from the sponsor’s perspective and no guarantee of a positive review.  Done right there must be complete transparency—where both the marketer and the blogger have to make absolutely sure that readers are looking at paid content, very similar to advertorials in print publications.  The second part is trickier.  The blogger authenticity means that the blogger has to have complete freedom to write, without influence from the sponsor, whatever they think about the product—even if it is negative. 

 

This raises two critical questions.  Will brand sponsors be willing to risk the negative coverage, learning from public input as some are saying, if they are paying for the blog?  And will bloggers truly remain unbiased if they know that their blog is being sponsored and they want to continue that sponsorship?  This isn’t like the fine line that always separated the publisher from the editor—that was an ongoing employer/employee relationship and the primary objective was objective reporting.  Abuses occurred when advertisers were willing to make large advertising buys and on occasion, threatened to pull their advertising based on unfavorable coverage.  While bloggers are concerned about monetizing their efforts, it seems this conflict of interest is one to watch.  It will be interesting to see which brands are actually willing to take the risk of negative feedback and which bloggers will cave to the need to retain sponsor.

 

Tags: Blogging, Forrester Research, sponsorship

 

Gary

 

Four Approaches To Social Media

September 18, 2008

So, this is my inaugural contribution to our blog.  I can’t count the number of times I have told a client that writing a blog is easy.  It’s not.   First, it seems incredibly self indulgent.  But as a card carrying member of the original “me” generation I suppose it’s only fitting.   It seems like I have been in PR since God was a baby, and I’ve seen incredible changes.  When I first started out I had to explain to my mother what public relations was all about.  She’d never heard of it.  Neither had most of my friends who ask if I could really make a living at it.  Well, I’ve been riding a pretty strong wave for a long time now.

For years now, public relations has remained much the same.  Credible for its use of third party endorsements.  Now social media adds a whole new dimension.  We all know it has already had a major impact on the public relations landscape.  And yet the approach I’ve seen agencies taking as I network around the industry varies substantially.   I find that there are four kinds of agencies out there.

First, there are those who have built their successful agencies around traditional public relations practices and have no intention of changing, thank you very much.  My friends in the VC community call these firms “dinosaurs”.  And well they might. 

The next type of firm has embraced social media and abandoned the traditional approach altogether.  To them the old way of practicing PR is dead.  Maybe, maybe not.  We’ll see. 

The third type of agency has been doing traditional PR but has now “bolted on” a social media practice.  These bait shop/seafood restaurants maintain separate practices that pursue business independently.  They have clients who have come to them solely for their social media practice—and it’s often treated as a loss leader to get the client to buy their full service traditional PR offering.  Interesting new business model but inherently flawed as I see it. 

We fall into the fourth category where social media is just another way to reach our client’s stakeholders and present a point of view and a set of products, services and solutions that are good enough to thrive in the jungle of capitalism.  One more way for them to engage the audience.  And that means integrating social media into the total communications mix so that it fits seamlessly into that engagement.  Seen that way, this exciting new medium becomes more of an evolution than a revolution. 

There, that wasn’t so bad for a first attempt. 

My mother would be so proud.

Gary