The Importance of Building Trust in the World of Regtech

21/02/2022
Time to read: 2 minutes
Lauren Bowden, Fintech content lead at The Comms Crowd looks at the opportunities and challenges facing Regtech firms, and the role trust plays in ensuring future success.Lauren

When the term Regtech burst onto the scene around circa 2015, it was met with mixed reaction. Some took the cynical path – simply as spin for existing regulatory technology vendors who have been in the business for years to benefit from Fintech’s halo effect. Others saw it as a way for new start-ups to shake things up, offering more cost-effective and agile SaaS-based solutions to post-GFC problems.

Seven years later, with the market projected to reach around USD 33.1 Billion by 2026, countless players are thriving in all areas from tax to cannabis. Established vendors are now embracing the portmanteau with open arms and investing in more flexible forward-looking business models – few would dispute that Regtech is here to stay.

That said – there are still a fair few hurdles these firms need to jump before they can realise their full potential. According to the FCA, one of the most active regulators supporting this burgeoning market, it all comes down to trust:

“The trust element is ingrained in the complex ‘business case for RegTech’ – RegTech firms need to convince firms to allow them to work with their most sensitive data assets and systems in order to solve their problems.”

Policies, procedures, and – most importantly – legal documentation go a long way to ensure sensitive data assets and systems remain safe. But before anything gets signed, to get even a toe in the door Regtech firms need to find ways to demonstrate trustworthiness. Of course, trust needs to be embedded internally first, through a solid culture, stemming from the top down and cultivated by HR, but it needs to be demonstrable externally too, especially in such a crowded market. And this can be achieved with transparent marketing communications.

  • For start-ups when there’s a multitude of moving parts at any one time, external communications should be planned carefully and not rushed. Investing in building relationships with the trade journalists forms the beginning of your journey and is always time well spent, as these independent and credible sources are always essential conduits to getting news out when the time is right.
  • For more established vendors looking to move into the Regtech space, a solid analyst relations programme should be at the heart of any product roadmap. Honest, open, and regular dialogue with the gatekeepers of those ever-important magic quadrants, waves, or rankings should be prioritised.
  • Solid content marketing and a strategic social media plan including blogs, e-books, infographics, whitepapers, and other high value content shared directly with prospects and customers or distributed over curated social media accounts like LinkedIn can work at any size or type of Regtech firm. That is provided it speaks authentically to the right audience, and that content is relevant, it adds value, and is not overtly promotional. And with the amount of change inherent in the regulatory landscape, the opportunities for subject matter experts to demonstrate thought leadership and guidance are plentiful.

There is a whole arsenal of comms tools that Regtech firms can employ at various stages of their evolution, but the art is knowing when, what, how and to whom. Working with marketing communications professionals who understand the nuances of this complex, jargon-filled environment, as well as how to make the message hit home will ensure their voice is heard in this very crowded marketplace.

 

 

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We ran a virtual analyst event, and we liked it.

23/07/2021
Time to read: 2 minutes
Reflecting on a couple of our recent virtual analyst events, Eria Odhuba, Head of AR, provides some best practice dos and don’ts.

Eria

Oh, the joys of jumping onto a plane and flying off to host an analyst event in another city or country. If you speak to some industry colleagues, their eyes go all misty as they remember the best bits (or try to ignore the worst bits) after a year of Zoom calls. Physical meetings, handshakes, drinks at the bar, meals, 1:1 meetings – all seem a distant rose-tinted memory. And nobody is 100% sure they want to start again in 2021.

So tech companies have been attempting the ‘virtual analyst event’, with analyst Twitter feeds telling us who got it right and who didn’t.

One of our clients, Finantix, hosted a couple of virtual analyst events last year, and hit gold because The Comms Crowd’s AR team had the exact analysts that focus on their specific technology joining the events.

What did we learn?

  • With only 2 hours for each event, our content had to be spot on. We didn’t have a full day to build up narratives, and each presentation had to deliver compelling content instantly. I don’t see why this should change when we go back to in-person events.
  • Customers are your best friend, and getting them to talk to analysts is even better. Just think, analysts have been on virtual events for 12 months listening to vendors wax lyrical about how great they are. The customer just tells them what has actually worked and where they are going. If there is a moment when analysts will not multi-task, it is surely when the customer speaks.
  • Good broadband is what keeps us all sane at the moment. Not everybody has great broadband, so glitches are inevitable. But presentations and demos need to run smoothly, so making sure you have the right technology, broadband and back-up as a presenter is crucial.
  • Mix it up – videos, demos, panels, presentations. When someone switches their Zoom video off, assume you have lost them. It might not be the case, but if you have rocking content, nobody will feel the need to multi-task and start clearing their inbox (or turn off their video).
  • OK, you are not organising flights, hotel rooms or dinners, but making sure analysts have all the right information in the lead-up to the event is crucial. Let them know the agenda, who is speaking and when/if there will be breaks well before the event, and confirm just before it.
  • Not least, we learned that however important you are, your dog doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that you are delivering a presentation – there is a damn squirrel in the garden.

Feedback

“Thanks again for helping to pull together an impressive crowd of analysts who cover our space for the briefing yesterday… . First time we have done this in our own right, so it was no mean feat to get so many folks on the call for what was a pretty reasonable discussion.” CMO at Finantix
“Thanks for inviting me. I was able to listen in for the first half. I enjoyed the content, especially the happy client testimonial.” Forrester
“Thanks very much for your kind follow-up! Amazing presentation.” Aite Group
“Great briefing today and clearly a lot going on. There were many other topics that were of interest to us. We would be happy to get in touch at the appropriate time.” Aite Group

What might we do better next time?

 

  • Use the technology we have for more personalised engagements with execs, partners and customers (e.g. meeting rooms, personalised landing pages, etc.)
  • Arrange more direct discussions between customers/partners and analysts.
  • Once lock-down lifts, find a top notch venue and meet in person!We love wealthtech

So we are going to run more analyst events this year, having learnt what worked well. We’ll use them as markers to engage with analysts, but maniacally focus on engagements with analysts between times to keep them abreast of client developments and, just as importantly, listen to what they are seeing in the market. Analyst relations is always a two-way conversation, however you have it.

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Analysts, Influencers and The Matrix

29/05/2020
Time to read: 3 minutes

Eria Odhuba, Head of AR, goes deep into the influencer mix.

Remember this line from Morpheus: “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

Analysts, Influencers and The Matrix blogIn the good old days when I started off in the tech industry, we’d just begun to move away from floppy discs, computers booted up really slowly (at least mine did), mobile phones multi-tasked as house bricks, social media didn’t exist, and organisations that wanted to get an idea of what technology to buy read industry analyst reports – sometimes, very long reports. I should know, because I wrote a few of them.

The role of analysts as THE primary third-party influencers was clear, and they really played an excellent role guiding organisations through complex decision-making processes regarding IT.

Fast forward to today, and while industry analysts still play a major role, they are not the only party in town. At the end of last year I went to an event at which industry analysts were joined by technology journalists (as expected), management consultants, bloggers, storytellers and academics driving student meet-ups.

All these influencers play a huge role in testing messages, driving conversations and amplifying what is great about a vendor’s technology. And they do this across multiple platforms – check out this blog post by our very own Marc Duke on the science of influencer marketing on how to deal with this complexity.

So how do you drive analyst relations programmes given the different influencers making their mark in the industry?

Well, fundamentally, how you view industry analysts should not change (see my white paper on how organisations can ensure AR delivers to the bottom line). Analysts are not irrelevant or losing their influence (just look at their increasing revenues). It is just that AR programmes need to take account of wider influencer relations activities, and organisations just have to be very clear what they want to get out of their engagements with analysts versus the other types of influencers.

So analysts still produce reports for those that want them, but even they have changed the way they get information out to a wider audiences (i.e. those that don’t have subscription seats). Analysts write their own blogs, interact with other industry bloggers, host webinars (many of them free), and speak at or run their own events. And, as I saw at the event, they pretty much know all the relevant journalists in their research areas and happily have drinks with them.

The crucial thing is that the core messages you deliver to industry analysts should be consistent to other influencers and across all the platforms (sure, you may give analysts some information under NDA). Ultimately the intermingling of various influencer types means it is easier to get caught out if your strategy or messages have holes in them.

Mapping this matrix of influencers, messages and engagement takes time and, more importantly, needs executive sponsorship. Board-level buy-in is necessary to develop the consistency in messaging to all influencers despite the engagement models with each, and it also means more employees are willing to take ownership of contributing to the developments of great relationships with influencers – including industry analysts.

Considerations for balancing AR programmes with wider influencer marketing or PR strategies:

  • Focus on the core messages you want to deliver to ALL influencers, but tailor the delivery to match the different types of influencer;
  • Point analysts to great work that other influencers may have produced (e.g. academics may have some data that would be useful to analysts as they build a picture of market trends and technology barriers/uptake);
  • Identify the analysts relevant to you that use social media:
    • read their blog posts and contribute to discussions they have started (sometimes, the exchanges are worth more than a 60 minute briefing);
    • follow them on Twitter and comment on their posts etc;
    • If you’ve connected with an analyst, make sure you also connect on LinkedIn and follow their posts – opportunities to commend them, comment or refer to others then become possible – just don’t use this as a platform to sell!
    • THEN – use the picture you have built of analysts on social media to plan for and engage with them as part of the briefing / consultative process – bring all the various strands together but remain focused on the consistent message you are trying to deliver to them;
  • Think about the conversations you have had with industry analysts – how can the information shared be used to drive engagements with other influencers? If you’ve used an analyst for message-testing, get that message out to customers and drive conversations with other influencers so they can amplify or provide feedback from an even wider audience.

Your plan should be to get industry analysts, technology journalists, management consultants, bloggers, storytellers and academics all telling your story – the way you want it.

So, why reference to the movie, The Matrix?

Blue pill = you have a very narrow view of industry analysts – just brief them, see them as people who simply churn out reports or pay expensive subscriptions to access reports which, while valuable, may not be balanced with output from the wider influencer audience.

Red pill = you start to do all the above and realise you are just beginning a journey that will spin faster and faster. This requires a new way of managing the various influencers and measuring the impact each has on sales or market perception, and figuring out how AR can drive engagements with analysts so that the final output is a consistent message that resonates in the market – and across all the influencers.

Which pill do you want to take?

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Writing the American Marketing and PR Playbook: Part II

17/12/2018

Writing the American Marketing and PR Playbook: Part II

Time to read: 3 minutes

Jo Detavernier, vice president  of Swyft our US partner and the founding firm of our global networkFirst PR Alliance  provides this helpful two part guide for UK tech companies on how not to get lost in translation when venturing across the pond:

 

Part two UK marketing to US: getting it right

Any modern marketing and PR campaign must be integrated. Integration implies that you will try to have your ‘owned’ (your website, blog, etc.), earned (media coverage) and paid (advertising) channels working together to reinforce one another as much as possible. In many cases ‘shared’ (online shares) is added to the mix, which when added equates to PESO (paid, earned, shared & owned). In what follows we stick to the first three tracks and count shared with earned.

Here is a list oof tools that are available for a marketing and PR campaign in the US. For each campaign you will be making a very unique selection of building blocks. And since you have now been fairly warned about selecting the right market segment, speaking the right language, funding your effort sufficiently and employing the right channels, all of your marketing activities will now be poised to yield the highest possible return.

Owned media

  • Website with content and style tuned to an American audience (either a U.S. site or American pages on your global site) and plenty of call-to-actions to help people convert through the sales funnel.
  • Blog with articles that depart from the benefits of your products or services as they are relevant to American buyer personas.
  • Newsletter to send out content that is geared towards different buyer personas.
  • Video content aimed at providing valuable information to prospective buyers.

Earned media

  • Distribution of press releases to American news outlets that serve your target audience and to wire services (e.g., Business Wire) when warranted.
  • Offering interviews to journalists that attend a trade show at which you have a booth.
  • Pitching of stories, on an exclusive basis where practical, to journalists.
  • Press tour whereby you visit the offices of journalists for one-on-one talks (this assumes you are a sizable player in your respective industry or are first-to-market with disruptive technology).
  • Contributed articles to trade magazines.

Paid media

  • Advertising in print or online media.
  • Promoted content and/or ads on social media.
  • SEA on Google and/or Bing.
  • Sponsored posts (native advertising) / advertorials in print or online media.
  • Sponsoring of podcasts.

Integrating owned, earned and paid

As mentioned earlier, marketing and PR campaigns that yield the best results are ones that are fully integrated. Pitching interviews on a story in October, promoting posts on Facebook in January and paying for a sponsored article in March can and will have some impact, but they are not nearly as powerful as a fully integrated campaign where you bring everything together in ways that are mutually reinforcing.

Let’s illustrate this with an example. Let’s say you have just conducted a survey about a hot issue in your industry. How can you maximize the impact of that survey to increase brand awareness and stimulate lead generation?

  • Owned: You can make the survey report available on your site for people who leave their email address (make sure you respect American CAN-SPAM regulations while you are at it); write a series of blog posts on the results, illustrated by an infographic; dedicate a status update to the survey on your Facebook page; and publish a slide deck on your SlideShare account.
  • Earned: You can send out a release about the survey (after negotiating a scoop with a major tech news outlet or a trade publication if it’s got strong enough news value), pitch interviews with your CEO about the results and use the survey to feed your proof points for a contributed article in a key trade magazine.
  • Paid: Companies will typically not pay to promote a survey, but the buzz that is created by the survey will allow your now ‘primed’ audiences to be extra receptive to any advertising campaign that you would want to run in the months following the campaign.

In these two blogs we have discussed what some common mistakes are that European companies that are looking to expand in the US will typically make and what advice these companies should heed if they want to succeed across the pond. The American market is in many regards very different from aThe UK and those  entrepreneurs and marketing managers who stick to their UK playbook when arriving in the US will do themselves a huge disservice.

This white paper is based on the Swyft white paper How Should European Companies Write Their American Marketing and PR playbook? Swyft is the founding member and organizer of First PR Alliance. For more information on Swyft, visit growswyft.com

First PR Alliance is a network of independent PR and marketing agencies that offers highly-coordinated support spanning borders, time zones, languages and cultures. For more information, visit firstpralliance.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Writing the American Marketing & PR Playbook: Part I

03/12/2018

Writing the American Marketing & PR Playbook: Part I

Time to read: 3 minutes

Jo Detavernier, vice president  of Swyft our US partner and founding firm of our global networkFirst PR Alliance  provides this helpful two part guide for UK tech companies on how not to get lost in translation when venturing across the pond:

 

Part one UK marketing to US: Common pitfalls

Promoting services and products on the American market looks at first sight very close to how it is done in  the UK. Are Americans B2B buyers not comparable to their counterparts across the pond? And are the best means to reach them the same as in the UK? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer to both questions is a resounding ‘NO.’ UK companies need a dedicated American marketing and PR playbook if they want to be successful on the American market.

So in the next two posts we look at what not to do and what to do to crack the US market.

What UK companies do wrong (most of the time)

  1. Trying to ‘boil the ocean’

Trying to ‘boil the ocean’ is an American expression referring to the trying to accomplish an insurmountable task, or making a project unnecessarily difficult.

Here’s the thing, the American market is simply way too large for any European company to attack all at once, at least not with the kind of budget one normally allocates to attack a single European country (or even Western Europe for that matter).

Omar Mohout, a prominent Belgian professor in Enterprise who teaches at the Solvay Brussels School of Business and Economics, recommends that European companies first target one specific American socio-demographic or geographic segment. For instance, say you developed a SaaS accounting solution perfect for small and mid-sized professional services organizations in the US. You might choose to first target only American law offices in a handful of major metro areas rather than attempt to sell the solution across multiple industries and geographic markets. In other words, figure out how to thrive and be successful in one specific niche, possibly one specific geographic market (for example, the state of Texas). Then you will have something to show when it’s time to convince investors to participate in your next big push to grow market share. Both your organic growth and the extra funding will help make the next chapter in your American expansion story become reality.

  1. Underfunding the effort

This second mistake is closely related to the first one. Not picking a segment that is small enough for you to thrive in will cause you to underfund your marketing and PR effort. But even the ones that do manage to pick a realistic segment will unfortunately often commit critical budgeting mistakes. For instance, marketing and PR agency costs run higher in the United States than they do in the UK (especially if you are contracting agencies on the West and East Coast). It stands to reason that the cost of any effort aimed at brand awareness and lead generation in one European country is much smaller than attacking the EU as a whole. The same rationale applies to the US, only on a potentially larger scale

The per unit cost of acquiring leads may vary in the US as well, if only because the degree of competition in the tech space is incredibly intense. Even the cost of sponsored posts in national trade websites will cost much more than counterparts in Europe. Google Adwords campaigns are tricky given the competitive nature of many U.S. tech businesses; it’s not uncommon for bidding amounts run so high as to make the ROI on leads untenable. Talking about Google AdWords, is about 13% more in the US than the UK.

What can you do to avoid underfunding your marketing efforts? Aim for what you can reasonably afford — don’t attempt to overreach on market size and in the process underfund the effort. Do plenty of research into your target market and what works and doesn’t work when it comes to marketing and PR. Don’t be shy about reaching out to local agencies for advice. What you learn from them could be the difference between success and failure.

  1. Not speaking the language

Well we do share a language but speaking the right language doesn’t only pertain to how things are said. It also has to do with the core messages of your marketing campaigns and the manner in which you articulate them. Clearly American culture is very different from  UK culture. A simple edit of a brochure or website into American English will not suffice. You have to ‘think’ like an American to attract their attention in an authentic way. Otherwise, you risk alienating your target audience within seconds.

  1. Picking the wrong channels

You have selected a segment that you want to target, but now the work begins. You will need to select the best mix of channels to achieve your marketing and PR objectives given your budget and target audience. If you are new to the market you will have to spend a majority of your time creating awareness. Don’t forget to track your inbound leads and properly attribute their source (e.g., Twitter ad, Google AdWords campaign, trade show, etc.) in some kind of spreadsheet. Fortunately, many marketing automation platforms (HubSpot, Pardot, etc.) do a reasonably good job at lead attribution. That said, lead attribution will only partially help inform your marcom spending decisions. Take SEA (Search Engine Advertising) for example: For European marketers, SEA equals Google AdWords. But Bing had in January 2018 a 23.7 % share of the American search engine market (source: Statista). While it’s not the largest search engine in terms of search volumes and ad spend, you can’t afford to ignore it in the long run if you hope to pick up market share against your competitors.

Now we know the mistakes to avoid, the next post will look at how UK companies  should write their American marketing and PR playbook.

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Why engage with Industry Analysts?

13/12/2015
Time to read: 2 minutes

Courtesy of Eria Odhuba, a founder member of the team and our resident analyst relations guru – is it about what you know or who you know?

Why engage with Industry Analysts? blogWhen engaging with industry analysts, tech vendors and end users ALWAYS want to know what value they add and whether they can actually provide guidance to help them make crucial strategic decisions.

For some people, the fundamental reason they engage with analysts is to get advice about how to position themselves better (vendors) or which vendor technologies to consider (end users) because they genuinely can’t do so themselves and feel that analysts know more about certain aspects of the industry than they do.

When everything matches – i.e. connection with the right analyst, finding the best time to engage with them during the product life cycle or decision-making process, execution as advised, and progress reviews – we’re all happy and feel the whole process was worth it.

All this depends on:

1. The analyst adding to the knowledge that didn’t exist within the organisation, or did exist but no-one had a good idea how best to utilise it strategically;

2. The analyst using their extensive knowledge of various technologies, implementations and case studies to provide impartial advice and pro-actively guide their clients.

Now, occasionally, we hear “I definitely know more about this industry than XYZ analyst, what value will they really provide? I will be the one educating them!”

Time is precious and it is understandable if someone doesn’t want to waste time talking to analyst they don’t feel are relevant to them. What people should always remember is that it works the other way round as well. Analysts don’t want to talk to people that are not relevant to their research areas or can’t provide valuable information they can use to help advise their own clients.

So if an analyst wants to speak to you, they may not necessarily know more about the industry than you do but they do want to know more about your company, technology, services, GTM strategy, etc.

Fundamentally, you need to see this as an education process. Though you may know what you are doing, you need to get the message out. So, educate the analysts and let them educate the market / tell people about the value you provide.

For a normal briefing, the question to ask is “what gaps in the analyst’s knowledge exist that I need to fill in?” instead of “does this analyst know more than me?”

For consulting / inquiry-type engagements, you can think differently. You want to make sure the analyst you talk to is providing you with the necessary advice related to messaging, market positioning, technology development, etc. What you are looking for is an independent opinion which, given the opportunities analysts have to talk to end users (about deployments) and vendors (about technology solutions), allows them to give actionable advice that you can use.

Sometimes, all they can do is validate what you already know or do. But it is important to have that validation so you don’t get caught up navel gazing. A reality check is always good.

So, do analysts always know more about an industry than you do? No they don’t! But by carefully identifying and approaching the right analysts, you can engage with those (paid or not) that are driving conversations or have an impact on end user technology selection because someone somewhere finds their output valuable enough to engage with them.

Their independence, means people will be more open to them than to you, is something to take advantage of. So don’t ignore the newer / younger analysts – they could be your biggest advocates in years to come.

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Why and how to engage with industry analysts on social channels

28/07/2015

Courtesy of Eria, our resident analyst relations guru, we look at engaging with the industry analysts via social media channels:Why and how to engage with industry analysts on social channels blog

In the ‘good old days’ of analyst relations, things were easy. If you wanted to know what analysts thought about technology, markets or vendors, all you had to do was read their reports or, occasionally, get it direct when they spoke at events.With so many channels for information exchange now, AR teams have their work cut out tracking analyst opinions. This is even more difficult (though I should really say exciting) when you consider all the ‘disruptive’ analyst firms that have sprung up over the past five years.

Many analysts don’t just rely on reports, inquiries and speaking engagements to engage with their audiences. They use social media and, more importantly, use it so naturally that there are significant opportunities to interact with them in meaningful ways. Analysts that use social media successfully don’t see it as a separate project / strategy to what they do. It is simply part of a multi-faceted approach to engagement which fits in naturally with everything else they do, including paid engagements / products.So the big question for many vendors isn’t, “Should we spend valuable time and resources tracking relevant analysts on social media, and engage with them / their community?”

But, “How do we continue to engage with our important analysts using all the channels available so there is a seamless relationship experience?”

  • First of all, we all need to understand that we have moved on to a time where social media is seen as part of normal day-to-day activity. It is, for many people, now simply a channel to engage with followers and/or communities where information sharing, recommendations and online reviews are fundamental parts of decision-making processes. If you still need to have a meeting to decide whether to have a social media strategy, you’ve missed the boat! So, in answering the key question, you have got to make sure you have the right reasons for doing so and realise that it can’t simply be a case of following analysts on twitter. A well-executed and comprehensive AR program will include many traditional elements (i.e. briefings, inquiries, speaking engagements, white papers etc.) but will also have adequate resources to track analyst conversations on social media. More importantly, there will be a willingness to engage with analysts via social channels by sharing useful information or providing comments that add value to conversations taking place (without the hard sell).
  • Secondly, it means getting a better understanding of how end users or key decision makers use social media to help them engage with analysts and make purchase decisions. This is hard, really hard! Though the actual decision to select a particular IT vendor may never be known, engagement within relevant communities can sometimes give an indication of the views that end users have regarding particular technologies (though you have to look beyond the beliefs of die hard fans for specific ones such as the Apple fanzine), and analysts’ reactions to these views is important to understand what they think needs to be addressed.
  • Thirdly, you have to accept that social media engagement with analysts will not necessarily result in their endorsement of your products / solutions. More often than not, you open yourself up for scrutiny and possible criticism which means being prepared to address community concerns in ‘real time’ just to maintain any credibility. Think crisis management on speed!
  • Finally, the social media experience should give companies more information on the analyst they engage with, and form part of the wider intelligence they gather about analysts, including their views on the market and trends they see in the market.

We shouldn’t really be talking about social media for AR any more. We should think of it as seamless, multi-channel AR where we curate information from multiple sources to build better pictures of analysts and develop mutually-beneficial relationships with them.

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When it comes to AR – does size matter?

18/05/2015
Time to read: 3 minutes

Guest post: Eria Odhuba analyst relations lead asks, when it comes to conducting an analyst relations programme, does company size matter?

AR blog

Large or small everyone can make themselves heard

I’ve worked with every size of technology company – from mighty household names, to hungry start-ups. While many may differ, the goal is still the same for their AR programmes – they want to make sure they are on the radars of relevant analysts that cover their technologies and, hopefully, fall into conversations analysts have with their clients.

The key perception that vendors need to overcome is that they must have large budgets to be on the analyst radar. Well – that is just not true. Here is why:

For super large vendors – AR programmes are normally
multi-faceted (especially if there are different business groups that need to
build a story that shows they are fully integrated with each other, and where
the vendor needs to show growth in multiple markets). More often than not,
there are opportunities for numerous engagements with analysts as there is a
lot to update them on. Occasionally, analysts are writing reports looking at
key vendors and they need to keep in touch to make sure they represent the
vendor properly. Basically, there are more opportunities to build comprehensive
AR programmes that have an impact on the bottom line.

At the other end of the scale are the start-ups…. yikes,
where do you start? Actually, you start by first finding out what you’re
passionate about and what problems you are looking to solve. You may not have
the budgets larger vendors have, but you’re doing something interesting
(hopefully) and touching people they probably don’t want to or can’t, and
making your clients’ lives better. Crucially, you can be mavericks as you don’t
have to defend vested interests or fight internal political battles that
sometimes happen at larger vendors.

Working it

Whether you have large or small resources certain basic principles apply for an AR programme to succeed. These include:

  • Doing some homework on your messaging to make sure you are
    absolutely clear on what problems you are actually solving and what solutions
    you have to help clients. You really need to make sure there actually is a
    problem you are solving;
  • Identifying who actually needs your solutions and ideally,
    or if you’re lucky, finding out more about their decision-making process to see
    how they use analyst research to select technology solutions;
  • Finding out which analysts are covering the technology
    solutions you provide, and tracking their research plans and speaking
    engagements;
  • Using multiple communication channels, including social
    media, to amplify your message and get people to follow what you say as you
    drive or contribute to relevant discussions. If you’re a start-up – be
    provocative. You have no time for timidity;
  • Taking the plunge and speaking to the analysts you’ve
    identified;
  • Taking on board their feedback and make sure they see you
    addressing any concerns they have raised.

So, those are the basics. You really can’t do much more if you’re a smaller vendor simply looking to start engaging with analysts. That is a good start! You just need to be realistic about the frequency of interactions you have and depth of programmes possible. If you are a start up with 15-50 employees, you will not have the frequency and depth of engagements a mega vendor has, but you can still make waves. And analysts will speak to you if you’re willing to accept that they will not promise quarterly updates or publish a report four weeks after meeting you.

As you get bigger and perhaps have larger budgets, your challenges as an organisation will change. There are more opportunities for competitors to hit back at you and you have to show you can continue to grow and defend yourself from all the FUD competitors will throw at your clients or prospects.

Now you can start thinking about more commercial relationships with the analysts – white papers, subscriptions, speaking gigs or event support. And be sure any feedback is integrated into your internal market intelligence, and that sales / marketing teams benefit from the enhanced relationships.

If you’re careful, you will have made sure you’ve used the interactions with analysts to identify who actually impacts your target market and can actually help you (without compromising their independence). While respecting the analysts and how they work, you can make better decisions about which paid engagements to plan for and how these help your wider marketing and sales teams to do their jobs more effectively.

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Can you have a non-commercial relationship with analysts?

14/06/2014
Time to read: 3 minutes

Eria Odhuba, resident analyst relations lead dispels the most common myth about analyst relations – you have to pay them to play with them.

Can you have a non-commercial relationship with analysts? blog

Analysts are paid to know, so what do you know?

“We have a problem with analysts,” I hear you say. “You have to buy analyst services to have a good relationship with them,” has got to be the most common phrase any analyst relations professional hears from colleagues.

Cynicism reigns when it comes to judging analysts, which reflects the way many of us might feel about the role they, and other influencers, have when recommending IT products or services.

Admittedly some are harder to engage than others if you do not have a subscription, but is that true of all Analyst Houses or is there a middle ground?Seven things worth knowing about analysts

We’ve compiled a quick checklist to help you understand their drivers and so you can better develop great relationships with analyst firms:

1) Good analysts prize their independence. In fact, their reputation hinges on remaining independent while advising their clients.

2) Analysts will NOT ignore you if you have something really good to talk about. Why should they? After all, you might be the trailblazer they identify and, in turn, get the kudos for predicting the disruptive influence you have on your target markets.

3) Analysts are human. They don’t know everything but, crucially, don’t have time to speak to every single vendor.

4) As they are human, you have to understand how they work, what they are working on, the timescales they have and the channels through which they provide advice.

5) To catch their attention, you need to provide really useful information using structured engagements over time to help them with their research, and make sure this fits in with their schedules. One off briefings are useless.

6) If you say ‘we are the world leading vendor providing modular, scalable solutions…blah, blah, blah’, just STOP. This means nothing. Tell analysts about specific and real problems you are addressing and let them tell people you are a leader.

7) They need to eat, pay mortgages and go for the occasional holiday. Separating how they make money and learning about various vendors so they can then advise their clients is something they all do – the best ones give disclaimers so you know exactly who their clients are.

So, what are analyst subscriptions all about?
Sometimes, you just need help with your lead generation and market positioning. Analysts who track various vendors in a specific market will know the ones that are doing well. Sometimes it is simply the technology or services that competitors provide which simply rock. Most of the time, they just have a good story that resonates better with clients than yours does.

Analyst subscriptions are, therefore, useful to help you position yourself better using the resources, advice and specific feedback opportunities you have available with individual analysts.

If you think it means analysts will say you are the best thing since sliced bread was invented, forget it. No analyst worth their salt will destroy their reputation doing so. Yes, you might get the Gartner Magic Quadrants and Forrester Waves, but these follow strict guidelines to maintain analyst independence (whether you agree with them or not).

Why don’t analysts want to talk to me then?
Just maybe, you don’t have anything relevant to add! Or maybe what you have to say is not relevant to their speciality.

There are too many vendors to track and a lot of output they need to plan for and deliver. Follow the steps above. Make sure you have a really good update or case studies to follow up with (even better if end users can talk to the analysts directly).

Will analysts stop talking to me if I don’t pay them?
No. They would ideally like to have you as a client (if they take on vendors as clients), but if you’re making waves in your market they still want to give advice to others that will help them make good purchase decisions.

So, be relevant but realistic about what analysts are looking for. They need information to help them build thought leadership positions. You can help them if you engage properly with them. They can also help you if you are honest enough to recognise you need advice to position yourselves better against your competitors. That is when analyst subscriptions come into play.

If you found this interesting you may also to peruse our analyst relations whitepaper which can be downloaded here.

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How to ensure AR programmes deliver to the bottom line – part two

09/12/2013
Time to read: 3 minutes

The second post courtesy of Eria Odhuba, a founder member of the team and our resident analyst relations guru, we look at how best to measure the impact of an analyst relations engagement programme.

How to ensure AR programmes deliver to the bottom line - part two blog

those are big ears, is that relavant?

In part one I looked at the reasons AR programs fail and what you need to do before speaking to analysts. In this post we look at some metrics you should consider measuring and a few questions you need to ask yourself to maximise the impact AR has on your marketing. This should help create the right foundation on which to build an effective AR programme.

Metrics to measure
If you don’t know your key marketing and sales metrics, how do you know what needs to improve? And if you don’t know what needs improving, then what is the point of doing AR? Typical metrics you need to know include:

1. Number of enquiries for a product or service;
2. Number of referrals made by existing customers or partners;
3. Percentage of enquiries and referrals converted into RFPs;
4. Typical lead response times;
5. Number of RFPs that convert into actual sales;
6. Number of active customers;
7. Total spend per active customer;
8. Customer churn rates;
9. Gross revenue;
10. Gross profit;
11. Marketing costs;
12. Marketing costs per enquiry;
13. Marketing costs as a % of gross profit;
14. Cost of sales (i.e. cost of converting RFPs into actual clients);

Once you have this information and can pass it along to your analysts, it is easier for them to compare you with competitors and work with you to identify specific activities or messages that need to be improved. Tap into their knowledge of industry go-to-market, partnership and channel strategies. Use their unique insight into competitor or industry-wide metrics to test how well you are doing. Most of the time, all you have to do is position your company more clearly in your target markets. If the analysts don’t believe your messages resonate with the needs of your prospects, you will need to keep tweaking;

The key marketing metric take-away is this: analysts can only help you improve your marketing and sales metrics if you measure them properly in the first place.

Is what you say you do what people think you do?
The key consideration here is that in order to develop an accurate representation of your company’s technology or services, you must first get the right feedback from customers, independent influencers and your employees.

To do this properly, you need to have a well-defined process in place to ask the right people the right questions, store the answers and provide easy access to anyone developing marketing strategies.

When approaching customers for feedback, you need to try and get them to do so based on a full understanding of the key competitive options available. You need to understand why they bought from you but might not do so again, or what their biggest frustrations are with vendors in your sector(s). Finally, you must understand where they look for information and how they make purchase decisions as this can help you direct resources to the most appropriate channels.

The feedback from your employees should be consistent across the various teams. There is nothing worse than having the sales and marketing teams disagree on the best action to take to generate leads or because of internal feuds.

Finally, all this feedback needs to be independently analysed or verified. This is where analysts are important. They should be used to sanity check feedback and company-led competitor research. They will compare it with opinions they get from end-users or your competitors. Based on this, they can advise you on how to use the feedback to change your product or service strategies.

Are you talking to the right people?
This is all about marketing to specific niches / target markets so that you maximise your marketing resources.
The people you target should want what you offer and be actively looking for a solution to specific problems that you can provide. More importantly, they should have the money to buy from you and be easily reached by your marketing efforts.

TAnalysts have a good knowledge of potential target markets and will give you advice on how best to reach out to them. They know the drivers and trends that impact purchase decisions. Though bound by client confidentiality, their inside knowledge should be tapped to re-focus your marketing messages and tactics. Analysts also monitor regulatory and industry trends and will suggest markets to consider that you might have ignored.

Part three, we’ll look at some thorny marketing problems AR can help solve.

Post script: These three AR posts have proved pretty popular. So we’ve put them together, ripped out the fluff, given it a bit of structure and turned them into a whitepaper, which you are welcome to download here:


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