[TYPO3-UG US] US Marketing Plan

[Gregory Remington]

Michelle Heizer wrote:

> I would love to see it. I was thinking about this recently after reading
> an article about Ubuntu Linux
> ( http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5886194.html ). Many people are
> talking about how fast it spread in such a short amount of time and how
> their community was a big part of it.

"One thing Ubuntu lacks is commercial partnerships, but there are some 
early signs that's changing."

Commercial support and implementation is what we need to focus on 
naturally. Ubuntu's success looks promising but there are few financial 
reports available to show how economically viable it will be in contrast 
to other distros. The quality of the business and development community 
representing Ubuntu may ultimately determine it's financial success.


> They offer
> commercial support directly on their website, along with  links to other
> providers. They also have a partnership program with 3 membership
> levels. It looks like this has been working well for them. I'm wondering
> how we would be able to apply this to a TYPO3 US organization.

Then we offer commercial support directly from typo3.com/.org, etc. 
emulate their organizational structure to some degree. We'll need a 
unique business plan and marketing strategy featuring TYPO3 for the list 
of vertical markets we determine are best to approach. Wiki anyone?

> Agreed! I think the first ones will be education, government, churches,
> nonprofits, etc. (notice a theme here ;) ). Typically, these are the
> first types of organizations to make an investment in open source
> because they do it out of a financial need. 

And they have the tightest budgets sometimes ironically. We should also 
add these to the list and more. tt_products is looking better every day 
too ;)

Michael Cannon wrote:

 > Most of my clients are print publishers, event organizers,
 > politicians, or brochureware folks. They've been pretty happy with
 > Typo3 and like how they have control of their website. I met up with
 > Ruv at Tycon3 and want to get going on a North American marketing
 > push.

Best,
Greg