Ronnie Simpson's Blog

1. Don’t panic
   

Tech firms have been here before…as recently as the 2000 post dot.com bubble when the sector experienced the first global technology recession. But this period also saw the exponential growth of savvy firms like salesforce.com. See 3, 4 and 5 how salesforce.com persuaded the market at a time when the Internet was a dirty word and anything with ‘com’ in it was perceived to be more toxic than a modern bank’s balance sheet. 
 

2. Review messaging
   

Now the PR and marketing guys have got to show their worth. It’s no longer about column inches but the message. Now technology has got to do what it says on the tin. Ie cut costs, boost productivity, reduce churn, provide revenue opportunities, retain customers. The current market is ripe for these messages. Have you got yours right?
 

3. Back up messaging
   

It’s all very well saying you can do the above “but you would say that wouldn’t you?” so proof through customer wins, case studies and testimonials becomes more important than ever. When salesforce.com was battling against post 2000 fear of dot.coms and the Internet they invited their customers to say how great the service was. I wrote about 60 EMEA Salesforce user case studies in the early years of the decade.
 

In ‘B2B Marketing’* by Steve Minett, Thomas Martin points out: “The B2B marketplace lends itself especially well to the use of case studies, stories of successful applications and end use solutions made possible by the selling organisation”.
 

4. Talk to business audience
   

The problem with many techies is that they love their technology. A big task, especially now, is to translate the tech message into one the finance director understands. So press releases need to be more end user, business focused.
 

5. Believe in PR
   

PR provides the credibility and third party endorsement that is essential in the current uncertain market. Salesforce.com, for example, is a believer in the credibility that PR provides.
 

Similarly, Google built another successful global corporation using PR as described in ‘The Search’**. Author John Battelle writes: “By eschewing traditional approaches to marketing, Brin and Page were betting on a phenomenon that had proven reliable: that of public relations.”
 

Savvy tech companies will thrive in the current environment as they will position themselves and communicate their role in solving customer worries.
 

Sources:  
* “B2B Marketing – A Radically Different Approach for Business-to-Business Marketers” by Steve Minett. Published by FT Prentice Hall.
 ** “The Search – How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture” by John Battelle. Published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing.