What Impact will the Apple iPad 3 have on Fortune 500 Desktop Computing?

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

This blog has not served as a discussion forum for computing platforms actually used by IT organizations within the markets where we have an interest (which are, specifically, fortune 500 businesses together with comparably sized organizations in the public sector); rather we talk about marketing and sales strategies and tactics for tech innovators with products targeted to these markets. This post is not meant to set a precedent; however, we recently learned (via Bloomberg “InsideTrack” television show aired on Wednesday, March 7, 2011 and an interview with Joseph Beery of Life Sciences Corporation) of a claim that a staggering 95% of IT organizations within Fortune 500 businesses are testing Apple’s iPad tablet for approved device status. If this claim is correct than a major shift in business computing may be at hand. Of course, any/all potential changes in market realities must be thoroughly evaluated by technology vendors as quickly as possible. Hence this post.

First, we should note that the individual who voiced the claim was none other than Erik Schatzker, the show’s moderator. Mr. Schatzker provided no references to support his claim, therefore we plan on looking further into this claim to verify its credibility. Assuming for discussion purposes that his claim is valid, then the question becomes what should technology innovators do about it as they sell into this market segment. We are not concerned here with the technical steps that ought to have been taken quite a while back to ensure that application portability to the Apple tablet computing platform ought to have been included in any product plan; rather, we are more interested in what changes widespread adoption of the iPad 3 computing platform may have on how business computing will be handled by our specified market. Our bet is that any money pot at the end of an iPad 3 rainbow for our tech innovators will be found around the new form business computing will take with greater access to lightweight portable tablets with long battery life and all sorts of network connectivity, not to mention high definition graphics.

Short term we don’t see much change in the offing for business computing paradigms. As long as mandatory daily attendance at a specified workplace remains the norm for the vast majority of businesses, then a wave of purchases of Apple tablets will simply mark a shift in the operating system of choice for desktop computing (PCs and laptops morph into Apple tablets). Once again steps ought to have been taken quite a while back, as required, to port any/all applications to this platform. If the portability question has not yet been addressed then, yes, certainly address it now. As well, plan for the fact that you are absolutely late to this game.

It’s the longer term implications that catch our eye. If tablets facilitate an explosion in remote computing, then all sorts of opportunities will be on the table for new applications that exploit a business user class empowered with computing anywhere capabilities. We maintain a high interest in this topic. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you care to further the discussion. Please call me, Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion.

Injecting Brand Strategy into TeleProspecting Activity

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Over the last several years we’ve worked with tech innovators who have eschewed traditional marketing communications activities as the result of a larger business effort to operate under the radar. We’ve treated the rational for pursuing this larger business effort in detail in earlier posts to this blog. Nevertheless, it is worth recapping: staying under the radar buys time for tech innovators who do not want to leave a trail that may be easily pursued by bigger competitors. As well, staying under the radar opens up an opportunity to play with ready fire aim while product specifics are refined and/or market hypotheses are tested with minimal exposure of the core business brand. In sum, under the radar marketing sometimes makes lots of sense.

Teleprospecting and any other engagement tactics with prospects provide a legitimate opportunity to implement brand strategy decisions. Indeed, if the marketing communications component of the marketing plan for the business is not to go entirely into sleep mode (absolutely a not recommended approach) it is essential that the brand strategy apply to teleprospecting activities. For example, key phrases within any teleprospecting scripts should align perfectly with brand strategy. As well, objectives for teleprospecting calls should include ensuring that each substantive conversation with prospects include informing the person on the other end of the telephone call with the most important (and easily communicated) features of the brand message. Governance methods for teleprospecting activities should include verification that any/all important features of the brand message were correctly communicated during each substantive conversation with prospects.

With marketing communications established in a healthy, but limited role within the direct marketing activities for the business (including the above mentioned teleprospecting example) an overall brand strategy can continue to evolve within the natural evolution of the business. In sum, there is no need to relegate marketing communications strictly to traditional media; rather, innovative direct marketing tactics like teleprospecting can deliver impressive results for core brand strategy with little risk of exposure for tech businesses operating under the radar.

We strongly encourage out of the box thinking like opting to operate under the radar, just be sure to make a spot for each of the essential pieces of your marketing plan within your operation. When/if you opt to go overt with your new business, then the transition will deliver much stronger results of brand strategy did not take a breather during the under the radar phase.

We welcome opportunities to discuss how powerful direct marketing tactics like teleprospecting can be utilized to build brand strategy for tech innovators targeting enterprise class business targets. Please call me, Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion.

Building Online Lead Generation Systems Makes Sense for Tech Products in Commodity Markets

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

It makes sense for tech companies with product offerings in commodity markets to invest the resources required to build competitive lead generation systems for online media. Elsewhere in this blog we have spent considerable time pointing out why precisely this type of effort does not make sense for complex tech products offered to nascent or dysfunctional markets. But for tech products in commodity markets the story is very different, indeed. The facts are that the pace of the sales cycle for incoming leads for known tech commodities is very fast. Therefore, it makes no sense to avoid optimizing programs for online media. Further, it makes no sense to expend lots of effort on teleprospecting when resources ought to be redirected to hasten revenue. To everything there is a season. Tech commodities are no exception.

We advocate focusing entirely on opportunities to build online lead generation systems on search engine marketing, despite the presence of an exploding number of social media outlets. We are not convinced that time spent on social media (with the notable exception of online content creation through blogs) will pay off anytime soon for early stage tech businesses catering to Fortune 500 markets and/or comparable size groups in the public sector. On the other hand, working hard to optimize online websites with some substantial level of existing visitor traffic does make sense. We engage in the following activities for clients to enhance prominence of websites in search engine results:

Weekly monitoring of SERPS for client websites as well as the websites of identified competitors for as comprehensive a list of keywords as possible
Creation of original, substantive text content to support the prominence of client websites for targeted keywords. Generally we focus on one keyword string per blog post
Periodic monitoring of Google PageRank results for any/all client websites
Ongoing analysis of the effectiveness of keywords
Ongoing analysis of competitor websites complete with summary opinions for client consideration

Where a client possesses a website with a substantial level of current visitor traffic we tend to focus on optimizing pages already prominent in SERPs. Where this success has resulted from “homegrown” efforts, we typically find that search engines point to the home page of the website for most targeted keywords. Our response is to spend lots of time optimizing the home page (usually through the addition of links on the home page that point back to more promising, and appropriate pages deeper within the website) while we make efforts to produce new content specifically crafted to draw useful attention from search engines.

As we noted above, this effort makes sense. Why wait 3 to 6 months for orders “from nowhere” when fielding requests from buyers who know what they want may be readily available through website optimization. We are happy to elaborate on our recent experience in this area. Please call me, Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion about your product and your plan.

Limits on framing marketing communications around an argument from authority

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Social media advocates often frame marketing communications efforts around a rhetorical argument from authority. This type of communication is crafted to convince the reader that a particular approach ought to be adopted based upon eitherthe soundness of its logic or its popularity. With regard to popularity, the question inevitably comes up as to just who is using this specific approach. Picking examples that do not resemble your audience is generally a kiss of death; therefore, some thought must go into framing an argument from authority where the authority amounts to ubiquity in a market.

I think social media advocates should take a big step back and rethink any/all marketing communications framed around an argument from authority. Further, some control ought to be exercised around the level of hyperbole vented by this group. After all, are enormous breakthroughs really popping with the frequency often documented in these presentations? My guess is probably not. From what we’ve read and the condition of recent Social Media IPOs we would say more that the opposite is in fact the case.

Rather, social media advocates ought to provide some case studies, or at least provide some meaningful examples of how specified markets are using social media tools and the accompanying rationale. We focus in this blog on marketing innovative technology into bigger businesses and large organizations. We have found a dearth of meaningful examples of how bigger businesses are successfully implementing social media tools. Therefore, we would welcome some specific examples of success culled from Fortune 100 businesses and/or large groups in the public sector. With this kind of stuff in hand we would warm up to a thought process that social media is actually sticking somewhere within the ranks of big business.

In fact, we’ve grown something of a callous with regard to typical social media marketing communications. In fact we ignore most of what we see as simple conjecture without real substance. Perhaps the success and ubiquity of social media for Fortune 100 is inevitable, but we just are hard pressed right now to say why.

We try to maintain a healthy level of skepticism in the work that we undertake for clients. If you can use a dose of skepticism to keep your marketing plan on track for an innovative technology offering, then we would like to hear from you. Please call Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion about your product and your plan.

Value Based Pricing Should Never Equate With Expensive Pricing

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Dr. Jim Anderson authors the blog, The Accidental Project Manager (http://www NULL.theaccidentalpm NULL.com). I read Dr. Anderson’s post, “Confessions of a Product Killer” with interest. After all, Dr. Anderson communicated in simple phrases some foundation-level principles of product marketing, principally that overlapping products rarely make sense (though they do make sense for a multi channel marketing strategy with OEMs and manufacturers selling the same products into competitive markets) and that much less sense where pricing will work to the detriment of a business.

I would like to clarify, however, that when Dr. Anderson alludes to value pricing for products, in a marketing context as “expensive”, I see a meaningful opportunity to differentiate my view from his own. I do not see value pricing for products as a process that renders a marketing message “expensive.” In fact, and further, if the pricing appears to be “expensive” then the marketing team has not done its homework to demonstrate to the public just why a comparatively higher price is, in fact, a substantial bargain versus actual costs that would otherwise be incurred to get the same job done via existing resources or, better yet, competitive products.

Certainly it takes a substantial amount of work to determine the hard dollars and cents savings to be realized through the purchase of a product versus continuing with status quo business operations. For example, one needs to collaborate with prospects and customers to unearth the real specific costs incurred to perform the activities that will be enhanced by a new product. Further, one needs to be open to the possibility that these savings will vary from customer to customer and, thereby, opt for a complex selling strategy with, perhaps, different pricing for different applications.

Nevertheless, value based pricing, as a feature of product marketing, should never result in an “expensive” price as perceived by the market. Certainly, the price might be out of the reach of prospects who cannot afford to capture value from their purchase, but the price should be compelling and inescapable for the right market segment.

I specialize in this type of work. I actively pursue opportunities where I can help customers realize substantial value through saving precious funds that would otherwise be expended on inappropriate and ineffective product pricing methods. Please call me, Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion about why value pricing makes the most sense for your IT product marketing efforts.

ISVs grappling with commodity driven markets can safely look to online marketing for leads

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

ISVs offering software products in commodity markets can look to online marketing to generate useful sales leads. Typical sales cycle length for these leads can be a mere fraction of the amount of time required to identify, develop and close leads for complex product sales to global businesses and other large organizations. Therefore, we counsel this type of business to spend the time necessary to develop as prominent a level of online visibility as possible in order to prime the online lead generation pump.

As we have recently written elsewhere in this blog, we think it makes most sense for these ISVs to spend the time necessary to further optimize SERPs. Of course, some of this SEO effort should have been ongoing for a while as the best results are to be derived from combining ongoing SEO for a website with some decent level of online visibility (most of our clients have sites that magnetize approximately 1K visits per day) with a blog specifically dedicated to optimizing relevant sought after keywords in an absolutely natural manner. Each blog post should include a prominent link, together with the specific keyword string built into this prominent link as anchor text. We’ve had very good results with this and are happy to say that many of our prospects can look at leads to low hanging fruit while they are freed up to spend the requisite amount of time on harder sales that promise greater revenue.

Given the IT buyer profile for 2012, essentially an individual who comes up with the information that he/she requires prior to reaching out to a sales person anywhere, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to avoid participating in this online promotion if you are producing software for commodity driven markets. Why not jump in and enjoy an faster paced sales cycle?

Of course it is critically important that you have sales people at the ready to field these leads as they come in. IT buyers of 2012 do not have the patience to wait for replies; therefore, have staff ready to receive telephone calls and/or email as required. Well staffed ISVs with online presence that meet our above mentioned criteria can safely plan on a useful chunk of revenue to be received from the Internet if they follow our method. Of course, the best way to follow our method is to engage us for accomplishment of your online lead generation effort. Please call Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion.

Peculiarities of marketing software to large groups in the public and private sectors

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

A radically different computing era was ushered in around 1985 with the advent of the so-called personal computer. Pertinent to this post is the observation that the personal computing era was characterized by a shift from cloud computing resources (in the form of distributed mainframe computing and share computing via mini computers marketed by Digital Equipment Corporation, Tandem, etc) to the desk top where increasingly more powerful computing devices were brought to market, the use of which proliferated throughout Fortune 1000 and large public sector business workspaces.

Today, as Forrester Research has recently pointed out, market interest in computing resources appears to be shifting back to cloud based offerings, or at least the hype would have one think so. Regardless, software technology innovators marketing software to large computing workspaces need to speak to

present day realities
public message topics of discussion
and, finally, assumptions as to where markets are headed

Our bet at IMB Enterprises, Inc. is that the safest assumption is that enterprise class business and public sector buyers will very carefully scrutinize any purchase requests that pop up over the next 3 years as the result of pervasively unsuccessful efforts to capture value from software purchased and already implemented.

This dearth of success on the trail of value does not necessarily spell terminal bad news for software technology innovators looking to establish a toe hold in large workplaces. Rather, the lack of success compels businesses committed to marketing software to frame marketing communications around the best obtainable set of financial information about specific, verifiable, cost savings to be realized from the implementation of specific pieces of software by enterprise business customers. The more specific the better. In all cases the bottom line needs to be, clearly, specific amounts of money that will be saved as the result of purchasing and implementing software. Hype just won’t do. If a year or two is required to genuinely collaborate with the marketplace to determine the specific costs that can be saved, then so be it. Make sure that the resources are at hand to support the business through the fact finding period without pushing the market to accelerate the pace.

We have excellent recent experience working with software technology innovators committed to global business markets. We welcome opportunities to elaborate on our experience. Please call Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to discuss your product and your near term market plans.

Sometimes Ready Fire Aim makes sense

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Sometimes it makes sense to implement a ready, fire, aim product development strategy. For example, to test out market interest in various product types, or to gauge the readiness of a market to purchase products and solutions for otherwise unqualified needs.

Maintaining product direction in an entirely pliable state, capable of moving any which way to meet market needs, while engaging with prospects on ostensibly clear sales discussions is a great posture to gather lots of useful information about product perception, first hand. This stage should be incorporated within any product marketing plan as it makes little if any sense to finalize product performance without some reliance on the perception and interest of representatives in the marketplace. Usually this type of information is gathered through prospect and customer interviews, but with ready, fire, aim it is possible to go even deeper with prospects and, thereby, gather the most credible response from the market. The fire stage, after all, is actually mustering selling efforts around products. A go to market strategy on the fly.

Notice that I stressed maintain products in an entirely pliable condition. If, on the other hand, products are rigid, then engaging with prospects in this fire stage prior to aiming sales efforts can provide little more than an excuse to either race into product development, or to abandon the business plan altogether. Therefore, but have your funding in place before entering into this type of marketing strategy to ensure that you realize the most benefit from this exercise.

With regard to using the fire stage to determine present buying interest in products and services, this technique can jump start revenue building–no doubt about it. Even more compelling, this stage does not require the support of a full complement of marketing communications tools, etc; therefore saving cash strapped technology innovators precious cash. Further, marketing communications materials can be assembled and published entirely on an as needed basis, which may make the most sense from a funding perspective.

Despite these advantages, I counsel caution with regard to implementing this approach. By no means should your firm look half baked as the result of proceeding in this direction. Be sure, as ever, to stay under the radar while you navigate these turbulent waters.

Call us for further information on the above points. IMB Enterprises, Inc. has considerable recent experience implementing lead generation programs for complex sales of IT products and services to global business. Please telephone us at +1 631-673-2929 to discuss your products and needs. We are particularly interested in technology products–software or hardware–as most of our experience has been garnered from working with software and computer hardware manufacturers.

Producing Valuable Leads for IT Sales to Global Business Is Challenging but ROI is Very High

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

The process of selling IT products and services to global businesses and other large organizations, with overwhelming frequency, devolves at an alarming rate into highly competitive situations where factors are clearly at the disadvantage of IT marketers. These factors include:

Important roles within opportunities to engage with prospects change. Prospects assume a dominant position, changing direction as they see fit. IT marketers may be left high and dry at will
Telling signs of commodity purchasing scenarios rear their heads. For example, prospects cut back on engagement opportunities with IT marketers. Pricing discussions proliferate. The task of researching needs as well as methods of satisfying these needs becomes entirely relegated to prospects. IT marketers have little to no opportunity to speak up.

It is imperative for IT marketers, even those with products and services offerings entirely relegated to specific product platforms that lie out of their control (I include in this category offerings from Microsoft Managed Partners, Oracle Partners, SAP Partners, etc) to build fine tuned lead generation programs to ensure as completely as possible that precious scant face time and ear time be spent with the right prospects. IT marketers must be sufficiently capitalized to ensure that these opportunities to engage include no unnatural imperative for prospects to move forward, prematurely, at all. Better to take two years with the right prospect to land a lucrative order than to utilize artificial means to hasten the purchasing process. In fact, it may be necessary to authentically partner with decision-makers within prospect businesses who have a useful view of realities while incorrect decisions, already on the table for purchasing discussions, are dismantled.

Broadly speaking, in order to produce useful, promising sales leads for complex IT products and services to global business prospects, it is imperative that methods emphasize telephone contact to ensure that a meaningful set of potential advocates, information-gathering resources, decision-makers, etc within prospect businesses can be gathered in an efficient manner over manageable time frames. It is quite simply not possible to “touch” enough contacts within prospect businesses, neither via opportunities for face to face meetings, nor from conference attendee lists, or even email marketing outreach programs. Further, the mode of this telephone contact method must be firmly limited to teleprospecting activities, at least at the outset of campaigns, prior to identification of useful decision-makers, etc.

IMB Enterprises, Inc. has considerable recent experience implementing lead generation programs for complex sales of IT products and services to global business. Please telephone us at +1 631-673-2929 to discuss your products and needs. We are particularly interested in technology products–software or hardware–as most of our experience has been garnered from working with software and computer hardware manufacturers.

Global Business Markets Require New Product Marketing Strategies in 2012

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Technology innovators looking to build mission critical requirements within today’s global business markets must develop new product marketing strategies. Pervasive disappointing performance of big ticket technology purchases since the mid 1990s have graced technology buyers with a new tough skin — hard to penetrate and bullet proof just like rhino hide. Portfolio management is now a pervasive reality for IT departments at global businesses. Products without a cogent value proposition are not only unwelcome, they are ignored. Therefore, marketing teams must come up with new product marketing strategies to stimulate interest.

We think it’s helpful to characterize the global business market for technology as dysfunctional. Buyers pursue solutions to requirements that may vanish at any time as the result of dwindling technology budgets. As well, management may rethink needs, deciding that the pain of unmet needs will prove less expensive than a solution. With these assumptions in mind, the prospect of fabricating new product marketing strategies for complex products designed for global business markets takes on a more promising glow. Better get with the program, after all, February, 2012 is already just around the corner.

Collaboration ought to be the new mantra for technology vendors vying for global business markets. Maintaining a collaborative position with customers, prospects and the overall market means crafting opportunities to discuss requirements, objectives and long term planning with buyers as well as the important business managers that have been identified within prospect businesses. An ability to transpose the objectives of technology manufacturers into customer and prospect objectives is welcome. Successfully transposing objectives renders prospect discussions into a level playing field where all parties are after the same objective. As well, once all objectives are uniform and completely aligned, then prospects, customers and vendors take on similar roles that all parties (particularly buyers and business management) will look to perpetuate over the term during which relevant solutions are under discussion.

How to manage this transposition? It’s helpful to realize that the business objectives of vendors include placing products within solutions at global businesses. Buyers truly have the same objective, do they not? In fact, buyers are looking to implement solutions. They will maintain that objective as long as solutions appear viable and rich in value. Therefore, seeing matters clearly is the same as realizing that everyone at the table is after the same thing. With that understanding in place marketing and sales make more sense. Get it?

If you have a product or service that you think makes sense for global business markets, we’d like to hear about it. Please call Ira Michael Blonder directly at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion.

Marketing, Promotion & Sales Consulting for Business

IMB Enterprises, Inc., Huntington, NY 11746 +1 (631) 673-2929, imblonder@imbenterprises.com

Category Archives: Product Marketing