[Typo3-marketing] Another marketing paper

[Nagita Karunaratne]

Wow,
CMPros looks great. How did this monster pass under the radar for so long.

On 4/23/05, Sander Vogels <sander at netcreators.nl> wrote:
> Hi Michelle,
> 
> Thanks for you extensive reaction. At the moment I lay sick in bed with
> a flue so I'm not able to respond to all you're saying. But it is a good
> piece and I'll surely come back to it later. But what strikes me in your
> introduction is the big gap in marketperspective in the US and the EU.
> But I still have hope for TYPO3 in the US cause when I read the piece
> from the T3 UG from Austria, this seemed of another Planet to from a
> Dutch perspective. It was a good piece but as a Dutchman I didn't
> recognise one tiny bit of the Dutch market in their analysis. But still
> T3 is doing great here and in Austria. So I still feel good about the US
> market cause we start to win some ground there.
> 
> More later, warm regards,
> 
> Sander
> 
> PS Michelle, last year I joined CM-Pros. All the big US cms names are
> member. Since they are heavily American based I suggest you join also
> and start pushing ;-)
> http://www.cmprofessionals.org/
> 
> Michelle Heizer wrote:
> > Thank you for the article. Very nicely written!
> >
> >
> > The problem I have with some of the ideas tends to stem from my experiences
> > in the US as both a marketing person and a consultant.
> >
> > We have to face the fact that TYPO3 is a Euro-centric CMS and will always be
> > that way. Having a different portal or a different arm of the association
> > won't change that. You take one look in the extension repository, the
> > websites, or even the software itself and you will see datestamps in
> > dd/mm/yyyy (and when you have a lot of extensions, it's a lot of work for
> > US-based consultancies to overcome), text in other languages, or even text
> > with broken English. There are hundreds (thousands?) of CMSes whose
> > companies are based in the US. TYPO3 will always have a problem competing
> > with that because the US is a fickle bunch of people. They tend to want to
> > buy products based solely in the US. You've probably seen the "Made in the
> > USA" stickers before. While I don't agree with this, unfortunately I'm in
> > the minority. Can this perception be changed? Honestly, I'm not sure it can.
> > But later on in this email, I'll explain why that might not really matter.
> >
> > I believe there should be two types of marketing for TYPO3: One for
> > enterprises, developers and consultancies, the other for small to mid-size
> > businesses (SMBs).
> >
> > How does one find TYPO3? Right now, a business, developer or consultancy
> > would have to know they need a content management system, they would have to
> > know what a content management system is and what it does, they would have
> > to research the different types of CMSes, then they would come to typo3.com
> > by finding the link via a search engine, a site like CMS Matrix, a press
> > release, etc. For the majority of SMBs, this will never happen. SMBs don't
> > even know what a CMS is, let alone understand why they need one. They do not
> > have the time to research CMSes and they would probably get confused in
> > doing so. Most SMBs don't have an IT department and if they do, it's very
> > small.
> >
> > So how should we market to SMBs? I really believe SMBs are an untapped
> > market. There are millions of SMBs in the US and each one could benefit from
> > TYPO3. I have read many articles about what SMBs are looking for. They want
> > low start-up costs, in favor of a monthly or annual fee. During the last two
> > years, large companies have been focusing in on them. If you look at the CRM
> > market, for example, most are turning to hosted applications. Even Microsoft
> > just lowered the price of its CRM and opened it up to the hosting market.
> > Hosted applications are very attractive to businesses will little to no IT
> > departments.
> >
> > So with this theory in mind. Let's say you have a town with 500 local
> > businesses. If you pulled each of them into TYPO3 and charged a monthly
> > hosting fee of $100 (or whatever), you can quickly see how much this would
> > be worth it to a consultancy. My company has been moving in this direction
> > and it's been very successful. Remember, TYPO3 is a wonderful application
> > for hosting several domains in one installation and the extensions provide
> > the modularity and features SMBs are looking for. SMBs may not be able to
> > afford a large extension up front, but they like that TYPO3 has the
> > capability of handling future additions as funds become available to them.
> >
> > So how can consultancies attract these type of clients? Currently, TYPO3
> > consultancies find projects by being listed on TYPO3.com. They wait until
> > someone looking for TYPO3 goes to the list, picks them, goes to their
> > website, contacts them, and then they bid on a project. A customer sends out
> > the same email to several consultancies and just chooses the lowest bidder.
> > This is a bad practice to get into. I completely understand what Sander
> > meant about "fixing" the work of other consultancies. We've had to do this a
> > lot lately. We've even had customers who wanted us to fix the work of other
> > T3 developers except they didn't have a lot of money left or time because
> > they had already given both to the previous developer. We need to move away
> > from this because it's not benefiting anyone, not to mention this is doing
> > nothing to spread TYPO3! Consultancies need to be more proactive. They need
> > to start going to local businesses and explain to them in layman's terms why
> > they need a CMS and how their company could benefit from it. Most businesses
> > just use off-the-shelf products like Frontpage or Dreamweaver or have some
> > local web design company create a site for them that never gets updated.
> > They don't understand the benefits of a CMS, database or an extension. They
> > don't even know what they want in a website or what kind of technology is
> > available to them. This is the perception we need to change.
> >
> > Most SMBs will never want to attend a conference, buy a t-shirt, join a tug,
> > attend a snowboard tour, etc. They just want a product that works. They
> > won't fall in love with the T3 name, they will fall in love with the
> > software itself and how it will quickly benefit their business. I've been
> > working with small businesses the last few months and they had no idea that
> > you could even edit a website through a browser. Once we explain to them in
> > ordinary, non-technical language how easy it will be to update a site
> > without having to purchase additional software, plus all the special
> > features their site can have, they get excited and sign up. We've been
> > training people with little to no computer experience. The results have been
> > pretty interesting.
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > 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. :)
> >
> > Ok, so why do I have reservations about breaking out the association into
> > continental/regional and national/local groups?
> >
> > 1. It's  not supportable. Since this is an open source project and we are
> > all volunteers, our personal and work lives come first. Projects tend to
> > take awhile to get completed or don't ever get completed. When things don't
> > get completed, they fall back on the TYPO3 core group who are already
> > overworked. If we extend ourselves more than we can handle, it will look
> > very unprofessional, not too mention the core group may resent having to
> > take over all these extra groups.
> >
> > 2. Politically, the continental group probably won't work in the US right
> > now and so we'd need to determine the ROI. I have to be honest. After the
> > last presidential election, a large group of people moved north to Canada
> > and south to Mexico, leaving behind many Americans that don't want to deal
> > with these countries. From within the US, "America" means the United States:
> > Canada is Canada, and Mexico is Mexico, and a Canadian or Mexican-based
> > company is not "American". For example, I was at a Chamber of Commerce
> > luncheon this week where two American soldiers were invited to speak.
> > Politics have become really strange here, they transcend everything -- even
> > business -- and everyone is worried about looking un-patriotic. Once again,
> > I don't agree with this -- just relaying what I see.
> >
> > 3. Vendors may help these groups in order to generate business for their
> > consultancies. I have seen a TYPO3 site for the US that was nothing more
> > than a forum and a banner ad at the top for the consultancy. What message
> > does this send to people? While they may have started it with good
> > intentions, my opinion is that it may do more harm than good. We'd have to
> > be very careful who we allowed to represent the name of TYPO3 to the general
> > public.
> >
> > 4. We would be thinning out our community. It seems that the people who do
> > find and stay with TYPO3 like it because of the strong sense of community.
> > If we thin out the group, we'd be losing this aspect of TYPO3. Instead, we
> > may just need to funnel out the community more, getting the community more
> > involved rather than less. Possibly with groups for US specific issues.
> >
> > 5. Miscommunication and misinformation!! If we let the countries market for
> > themselves, we risk even more misinformation about TYPO3. Keeping the
> > information central while making it easy for consultancies to use in their
> > countries will allow us to keep the information more controlled.
> >
> >
> > I haven't mentioned enterprises yet, because I'm not sure how we can
> > effectively market to them in the US. Enterprises are a unique breed. They
> > have their own IT departments with developers and their own inner politics.
> > Most already have contracts with Dell, Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, etc.
> > They are skeptical of open source products, especially ones that aren't
> > located in the US. They feel they won't get adequate support and if the
> > project fails, their jobs are on the line. Most of the time, they just
> > extend the contracts they already have with these companies to include a CMS
> > or get recommendations for a CMS. They do attend conferences, but usually
> > only large IT related conferences. It would be difficult for them  to
> > justify travel expenses for a T3 conference. They aren't going to show up to
> > work in a TYPO3 t-shirt, but they may take the information back to their
> > company if we exhibit at one of those larger conferences. The problem is
> > that these conferences are far from cheap and we'd be competing with big
> > companies who themselves are sponsoring the conferences. On the plus side,
> > many enterprises are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their CMS
> > choices. The market is starting to open up again, but open source is still
> > not taken very seriously. So we'd have to change the perception of open
> > source, which is not an easy feat.
> >
> > So to recap: I'd prefer seeing typo3.com be a resource for enterprises and
> > consultancies. Get them interested in the product and explain why they need
> > it, and how it will help their organization and clients with
> > industry-specific solutions (very key point here).
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > typo3.org would stay the resource for developers/consultancies. I see no
> > problem with that.
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Let me know what your thoughts are on this, or if you have any questions or
> > concerns about marketing to the US market.
> >
> > Cheers!
> > Michelle Pfeiffer <-- just for Daniel ;)
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Typo3-marketing at lists.netfielders.de
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> >
> >
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