[Typo3-marketing] Another marketing paper

[Sander Vogels]

Nagita Karunaratne wrote:
> Wow,
> CMPros looks great. How did this monster pass under the radar for so long.

Well in the begining it was growing by people inviting each other. But 
now the US part is getting mature but Europe and the rest of the world 
needs more people. So that's why i dropped it on the list. You get 
highly professional information to share.
Enjoy!
Sander

> 
> 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 ;)
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Typo3-marketing mailing list
>>>Typo3-marketing at lists.netfielders.de
>>>http://lists.netfielders.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/typo3-marketing
>>>
>>>
>>
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