[Typo3-marketing] Another marketing paper

[Daniel Hinderink [TYPO3]]

Hi Michelle,

Thanks a lot with your mail, that hits a lot of nails on the head.
It does seem you share a view with Sander on what the branding issue means,
that i regard as a misconception, but I will return to this in the end.


> This leads us to the group that needs the "TYPO3 marketing" the most.
> Consultancies! They need to be the ones to support the T3 name, through
> marketing efforts and donations. The only way to get TYPO3 to grow in the US
> is to get more consultancies using it. SMBs will only want to work with an
> actual person or company. They like the interaction, the training, the
> support a consultancy has to offer. If we had thousands of US consultancies
> (as opposed to the two on typo3.com) moving all the businesses around them
> into TYPO3, the use of TYPO3 would grow exponentially and would filter into
> larger enterprises.

I also think they are the key, as they are in Europe. However, they have
been won through the developers, rather than the marketing people.

> This is also where I agree with Sander. In the end, the people responsible
> for "selling" TYPO3 will be the consultancies. I think that TYPO3 training
> and certification will certainly help, but we also need to enable
> consultancies in their marketing efforts. TYPO3.com should be a repository
> for white papers, case studies, marketing materials, feature lists,
> presentations, videos, etc. Anything consultancies need to show to potential
> customers. This will ensure there is no misinformation coming from
> consultancies because we are controlling the information flow. I don't
> necessarily think SMBs even need to know the name "TYPO3", they just need to
> understand that they need it. :)

I suppose it is the marketing support you demand, as well as some more
active representation at trade fairs and the press.

> Ok, so why do I have reservations about breaking out the association into
> continental/regional and national/local groups?

(...)
All agreed. It is also quite natural that in comparatively "developed"
markets local branches become integrated and demand autonomy. This is at
first a good thing, if a common denominator can be found. That is again not
naturally the case, but subject to much communication and coordination.
 
> Get consultancies in the association and let them know the benefits of being
> in the association. Maybe we could give them exclusive use of a marketing
> repository. Since many people here are marketing professionals, we could
> also add articles to the repository on how to market TYPO3 to SMBs or even
> enterprises.

Yes, that has been also been suggested by Sabina.

> typo3.org would stay the resource for developers/consultancies. I see no
> problem with that.

Let's see what comes out of the communication matrix.

> TUGs, conferences, merchandise, etc. would be marketed to developers and
> consultancies. Each country would have one contact/organizer that reports
> directly to the association. The contact would be responsible for getting
> people to help them and for determining the ROI for each of these items in
> their respective country. For example, maybe there is not enough interest in
> a TYPO3 conference in the US right now, but having TYPO3 reps attend 5
> IT-related conferences would be much more effective. The specifics of
> marketing to prospective T3 users will be different in each country, but the
> information needed will be the same. By giving local consultants the tools
> they need to sell T3 to clients to meet their specific needs rather than
> trying to establish TYPO3 as a "brand name", we can help the consultants be
> successful even when the client has never heard the name. In this manner,
> TYPO3 will naturally develop its "brand name" the same way other OpenSource
> programs have, such as Linux and Apache. At the same time, by keeping the
> association more central, the efforts of those who are organizing and
> maintaining the information won't be duplicated by each
> continent/region/country/consultancy every time the information is
> distributed. The contact/organizer for a country would be able to simply use
> the information that pertains to their market.

To tell you the truth, I think Open Source Marketing is in the introduction
phase almost exlusively viral marketing. Your plan could support such
activities and provide some sort of home base for sparking messages in
certain communities and to monitor the resonance.

Regarding trade fairs, I can only report that the approach a bunch of
consultancies in Germany took, to represent themselves and TYPO3 as a
network has been rather successful. It helps to share cost, cover a large
area with your services and most of all rises visibility.

In respect to what you have stated about the brand, there are a lot
arguments to be made about this, many of them can't be discussed here.
The point about looking at this field of action and the methods associated
with it now, is that it is _the_ prerequisite for further market
penetration, because it will align the communication as well as the product
development.

In practice serves as an umbrella and a yardstick which helps to unify and
integrate all of our currently highly redundant and partly inconsistent
activities. As the Association is bundling and controlling these, it seeks
to consolidate form the ground up, starting with defining the common ground.

I hope this helps to understand the reason for looking at something
seemingly metaphysical, like the brand first.
 
> Cheers!
> Michelle Pfeiffer <-- just for Daniel ;)

Thanks :-) And also many thanks for taking the time for this mail.

Daniel

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-- 
Vice-Chairman
TYPO3 Association
http://association.typo3.org