Analyze this
By Danny Sullivan
My colleague, Jill, recently wrote an introductory post on analyst relations, and I felt compelled to augment this with some additional thoughts on the topic.
“Technology analyst firms, there’s no point in talking to them unless you’re prepared to pay them, right?”
Wrong. But it’s not an uncommon perspective among technology companies that have yet to engage with the analyst community.
It is certainly true that analyst firms do very well out of the consulting side of their business, and it is fair to assume that companies who pay their consulting dues probably experience a good level of mind-share with the analysts as a result. But it is a mistake to say that there is no value in speaking with analysts unless you pay them.
Technology analysts are viewed as independent experts in the fields they choose to cover. As such, they have a reputation to uphold. (Granted, some have more of a reputation to uphold than others, but we don’t need to go into that here!) This reputation depends entirely on the analyst being firmly plugged into the industry in which he or she is an expert. And this means they need to know about everything that is going on in that sector – from market leaders right down to emerging players.
As a result, those introductory briefings Jill describes in her post are highly important to analysts, ensuring that they maintain that position of all-knowing expertise that their clients expect.
Of course, the degree to which unpaid briefings with analysts are immediately useful to a company depends very much on the individual analyst. Briefings can be effective testing grounds for messaging around new products and services, but feedback is often at a premium and there will always come a point in the conversation where you are recommended to “have a conversation with our account manager.” How early this point comes in the conversation varies greatly between firms and analysts.
But none of this means you should not be talking to analysts. They are a direct conduit to your market. If they don’t know about your company, they can’t recommend you to end-users or include your products in reports. Ultimately, analysts will give coverage to companies that deserve it, typically through demonstrated, quantifiable success in the marketplace. In most cases, spending money with them will give you access to their expertise, but it does not equate to coverage in industry reports.
In the weeks ahead, I’ll continue to write about analyst relations and explore some of the differences between the big analyst companies and smaller, boutique firms.
