By Danny Sullivan
This is the question facing many technology companies as they draw close to having a product reach market-readiness. And, while there isn’t a definitive answer as far as timing goes, the real question to bear in mind is, “Are we ready to support this?”
Let’s first think about timing. Waiting to spill the beans until you have secured some lead customers who are ready and willing to support your story certainly gives you a great chance to secure some quality media coverage in support of your launch. But for most companies, this kind of delay is unwelcome as it can mean lost ground on competing products, or simply a missed opportunity to hit the market early with a strong message to drive business development.
And, while I will always espouse the tremendous value that customer validation of a product has among the media, it is not this PR guy’s advice to wait either. Launching a product early can be a powerful strategy, but such a launch must be executed with a clear plan in place to support it with the additional elements of the story within a credible time frame.
A frequently committed PR mistake around a product launch goes something like this: Company X decides to announce its brand new product to the world. It conducts a successful media launch of the product and generates good immediate coverage and interest among its target media. The company then basks in the glow of the launch and says nothing more for six months.
In some cases, the six months of silence may be due to the fact that something happened in development and the product was delayed. But, in many instances, the real reason for the silence was that the product launch was the only PR initiative that had been planned, and PR then became an afterthought as so-called “more important” concerns took over. And guess what? After six months without communicating anything to the marketplace, by the time the company is ready to say something again, the entire introduction exercise needs to be performed again because everyone has forgotten what happened the first time around.
This is one of the greatest disappointments for a PR firm. To take a client through a successful launch exercise and then watch the great momentum established slowly disappear through a lack of commitment to capitalise on that initial investment.
If you are prepared to make the call to launch a product, make sure that you are also prepared to give it the support it deserves.
By Danny Sullivan
Well that’s how this article from the Register describes software vendors’ current status in developing mobile apps. With all the hype around mobile technologies these days, it’s interesting to hear some good points being made about the current limitations in the space.
While there certainly are challenges associated with developing mobile apps, the article states “It’s not clear why ISVs are dragging their feet because demand is there.”
Come on developers – our pimped out phones and PDAs need a better workout!
By inmedia
At inmedia, our belief is that it’s about more than just the technology, it’s about the business case for the technology. According to today’s CIO Insider, this is a mindset that too few IT departments have yet adopted. If you are concerned about the business case for the IT purchases at your company, there are good lessons to be learned in the article “Three Tips for Creating a Business-Savvy Information Technology Staff.”
By inmedia
For one reason or another, we just received the October 15 issue of eWeek. Regardless of its tardiness, the green issue is full of interesting news about what technology companies are doing to improve energy efficiency.
“An inconvenient IT truth” by Michael Vizard is shocking. Here are some quick facts I pulled from the piece:
-Surveys show that 48 percent of IT budgets are spent on energy
-By 2008, 5o percent of today’s data centers will have insufficient power and cooling
-By 2009, energy costs will become the second-highest operating cost of a data center, behind labor
-By 2010, half of all data centers will have to relocate or outsource applications to another facility
Vizard’s conclusion is simple: “Unless IT organizations take a proactive approach to green computing, they will not have the necessary dollars needed to invest in the system.”
By Linda Forrest
I watched a fascinating documentary last night on the CBC called The Selling Game, which talked about the changes in the marketing and advertising landscape, consumer-created content in advertising and myriad other issues that both marketers and consumers are facing in the digital age. Custom made television advertisements that factor in your preferred hotel chain, credit card, airline, and hobbies are already airing, created by an ad agency called Visible World. This sort of narrowcasting is doubtlessly going to be even more pervasive in the years ahead.
It was interesting that experts in the documentary said that studies have shown that the “big brother” aspects of marketers and advertisers having access to personal information and the inherent privacy ramifications are really only perceived as a problem by those in their 40s and older, whereas the younger generation is used to living their lives online, providing immense detail about their lives to whomever wants to see it, via social networks like Facebook, myspace, twitter, Flickr and so on. The convergence of mobile technologies and social networking certainly change how marketers reach their intended audience. Consumers can expect to be the targets of much more sharply-focused personal campaigns that will reach them where they are with marketing messages tailored to their specific buying habits and personal preferences.
