Protecting Mobile Data: A Business Imperative

An InformationWeek and DarkReading.com Virtual Event

Event Date: December 9, 2009
10:00 AM – 6:00 PM EST

Combine the power of the InformationWeek  & DarkReading.com editorial content with an engaging online platform and gain maximum impact with business technology decision makers.

This unique virtual event will feature:

• The industry’s top researchers, experts, and solution providers in an interactive environment
• The opportunity for decision-makers to hear about some of the latest hacks, access controls, and governance policies.
• Ability to participate in discussions on key issues such as risk management and data protection

Benefits include:

• 2,000 security professional attendees
• Alignment with InformationWeek &  DarkReading.com editorial content
• Visual engagement with your brand, executives and solutions
• Advanced behavioral tracking and reporting 
• Platform supports rich media assets including Flash, webcasts, podcasts, PDFs, etc.
• Immediate interaction between the buyer and seller at your virtual booth
• Lead guarantees by sponsorship level

The virtual event simulates the activity and impact of a face-to-face live event but with the ease and economy of the web.

Download PDF:  Security-Virtual-Event

Building the Next-Generation BI and Data Warehouse Platform

An InformationWeek and IntelligentEnterprise.com Virtual Event

Live: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
10:00 AM – 6:00 PM EST

Combine the power of the InformationWeek  & InteligentEnterprise.com editorial content with an engaging online platform and gain maximum impact with business technology decision makers.

This unique virtual event will:

• Share how leading companies are getting to real-time and near-real-time data access
• Explore the pros and cons of data marts versus scaling the enterprise warehouse
• Gain insight on in-memory analysis and data acceleration technologies
• Get best-practices tips from experts on data quality and master data management
• Lean what complex analytics practitioners are doing to ensure speedy performance

Benefits include:

• 1,000 business technology registrants
• Alignment with InformationWeek and IntelligentEnterprise.com editorial content
• Visual engagement with your brand, executives and solutions
• Advanced behavioral tracking and reporting 
• Platform supports rich media assets including Flash, webcasts, podcasts, PDFs, etc.
• Immediate interaction between the buyer and seller at your virtual booth
• Lead guarantees by sponsorship level

The virtual event simulates the activity and impact of a face-to-face live event but with the ease and economy of the web.

Download PDF: Business_Intelligence_Virtual_Event

Latest Insights and Updates on 2009’s Most-Relevant Business Technology

Combine the power of the InformationWeek Global CIO editorial content with an engaging online platform and gain maximum impact with senior level business technology decision makers.

Event Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009
10:00 AM – 6:00 PM EST

This unique virtual event will feature topics including:

• Cloud Computing:  what it means, how it works, who’s using it and why
• SaaS versus traditional enterprise-applications
• Green IT: latest approaches that will help you lower energy costs, improve your processes, and reduce waste
• Virtualization:  pros and cons, best practices, case studies, and research
• Security’s two facets:  protecting your assets, and providing access to expand your business
• Global supply chains: best practices for competing in the global economy, plus latest research on what’s working and what isn’t
• Talent retention and enhancement: what new approaches are working and why, and what are the hottest new skill sets

Benefits include:

• 500 senior level, internationally focused business technology decision makers
• Alignment with InformationWeek Global CIO  editorial content
• Visual engagement with your brand, executives and solutions
• Advanced behavioral tracking and reporting 
• Platform supports rich media assets including flash, webcasts, podcasts, PDFs, etc.
• Immediate interaction between the buyer and seller at your virtual booth
• Lead guarantees by sponsorship level

The virtual event simulates the activity and impact of a face-to-face live event but with the ease and economy of the web.

Download PDF:  InformationWeek_Global_CIO_MBA_Virtual_Event

Data Centers For Growing Companies

Combine the power of bMighty.com editorial content, with an engaging online platform and gain maximum impact with SMB technology decision makers. 

Live:  Wednesday, October 21, 2009
10:00 AM – 6:00 PM EST

This unique virtual event will:

• Feature the industry’s top researchers, experts, and solution providers in an interactive environment
• Feature informative research, white papers, and other resources
• Provide participants the ability to interact through real-time chat and networking tools

Benefits include:

• 2,000 senior level SMB registrants
• Lead guarantees by sponsorship level
• Alignment with bMighty.com editorial content
• Visual engagement with your brand, executives and solutions
• Advanced behavioral tracking and reporting 
• Platform supports rich media assets including Flash, webcasts, podcasts, PDFs, etc.
• Immediate interaction between you and buyers at your virtual booth

The virtual event simulates the activity and impact of a face-to-face live event but with the ease and economy of the web.

Download PDF:  bMighty_bCentered_Virtual_Event

A Closer Look at CIOs in the Financial Services Market

Bob Evans, SVP and Director of InformationWeek Global CIO

July 22, 2009
1:00 pm EDT
Register Now

Join Bob Evans as he chats with Financial Services experts, Greg MacSweeney and Kathy Burger, about what CIOs are up to in this especially tumultuous market. Find out:

• what technology issues keep financial services CIOs up at night
• what their top tech-related goals are for the next 12 months
• what their top 3 priorities are

While financial services business technology executives are interested both in holding down costs and somehow building for future growth, hear what our experts have to say is more top of mind for them right now.  And find out how these professionals are measured on delivering business value to their companies and customer value to their clients.

Don’t miss this call that is specially targeted to help Tech Marketers hone in on CIOs in the financial services market.

CIOs today are delivering unprecedented levels of strategic insight and business opportunities at the boardroom level, and as a tech marketer, you need to know what it is.

Learn more about the CIO’s role and the priorities these powerful leaders are focused on during our monthly conference calls led by Bob Evans, SVP and Content Director of InformationWeek Global CIO.

During these 45-minute long conference calls, Bob will not only share what he has been seeing and hearing from the most prominent and powerful CIOs in the world, but will also make some strong predictions about what’s in store in 2010 – and beyond.   Each call will end with an open discussion to allow you to share your perspective with your peers and get answers from someone deeply engaged with your target audience.

So, here are a few examples from the collective brain trust that will hopefully stimulate a root of an idea for Q2 and beyond.   Thanks for the marketing execs that participated and contributed.

Mobile & Demand Gen Collide for results: Sybase, a leader in mobile applications, has deployed one of the most interesting and effective applications of online user engagement and mobile delivery.

Applications-based media: NetSuite must sell and market to many different decision makers, so they created an interactive demo customized for each decision maker’s perspective.  This is very clever and easy to use, especially when you have many different “players” that influence the purchase of your solution.   http://www.netsuite.com/portal/home.shtml 

Widgets/Gadgets: The Trend Micro team has created a Threat Assessment widget that tracks and monitors security threats and attacks.  Security and IT pros can easily add this widget to iGoogle or equivalent pages to track security threats.  http://us.trendmicro.com/us/products/personal/free-tools-and-services/widgets/index.html

Branded Premium Content alignment for thought leadership and demand gen:  Symantec effectively underwrites and sponsors high-value branded content to drive leads via InformationWeek Analytics research reports – http://cxoreport.informationweek.com/

High-Touch Executive Relationship building for key account penetration: Wipro, a very progressive business service provider, is organizing very high-touch, c-level sessions around the country. http://www.cmp-customevents.com/wipro/

Vendor Community: The team at Brocade is transforming their marketing programs into innovative ways to stay connected to their best customers, prospects and partners. Just as cool and impactful is the way they communicate to members.

Next up: we are going to organize another session in the Fall timeframe.  If you are interested in participating, drop me a line at svaughan@techweb.com.  And share your ideas and the marketing therapy!

Introducing InformationWeek Analytics Alerts. 
Powered by Information Week Analytics,  Alerts focus on delivering real-time updates and perspectives on IT issues in the headlines.  As news and events across the industry break, InformationWeek Analytics analysts package up critical information and directional advice around those events so business technology decision makers can quickly grasp the most critical issues facing their business.   Decision-makers are directed to this time sensitive premium content via a special InformationWeek Alert email sent out on Saturdays.
InformationWeek Alerts are compendiums of highly relevant content allowing business technology professionals to obtain a  clear and succinct view on timely technology issues – all complied into a 15-20 page report.
An InformationWeek Analytics Alerts sponsorship program inserts your company’s solutions into the decision making process by integrating your perspective and marketing collateral within contextually relevant content on the InformationWeek Analytics site.  And, as users download the sponsored report, “compliments of your company,” you’ll be seen as a thought leader in your category.

Program sponsorship includes: InformationWeek Analytics Alerts sponsors have the opportunity to provide IT decision-makers full access to timely analysis – compliments of your company – while also providing relevant sponsor assets.

Program closes the Wednesday before the Saturday “Alert” email is deployed.

Download PDF: InformationWeek Analytics Alerts

I pitched the ‘Bull’s Butt’ blog topic to Jeff Kristick, the head of marketing at Plateau, a leading provider of web-based (SaaS if your nasty) talent management solutions.  The conversation was invigorating enough to drop into this article word-for-word (with his permission of course). It really shined a light on the opportunity side of these conditions. With tighter budgets and less staff, great marketers would be really focusing on getting the best results with fewer resources. It’s a candid peak into the thought process of a marketing leader dealing with challenging times and asking himself (and his people) the hard questions. It’s unrehearsed and unedited (OK, OK, I fixed some spelling mistakes).

IM conversation between Jeff Kristick (Plateau SVP/head of marketing) and Scott Fingerhut:
scott: What do you think of my pitch for the next blog article: Bull’s Butt or Bull’s Eye? Which side of the bull are you targeting?….  Money spent now should be targeted on getting the most leverage for your organization and winning business.…

Jeff: ok, but how do you contrast that investment argument with the fact that most marketing money spent in B2B won’t yield revenue for 6-9 months

Jeff: marketing works on getting deals in the pipeline, and maybe helping move deals along, but moving them along is tough once they get past the early stages

scott: Ok. “Winning business” should be changed to “generating business opportunities” - it’s what I’m going for, but asking how you are doing it differently in this environment?

Jeff: learning to do it with less money

Jeff: i am generating one half the inquiries and responses, but getting the same amount or more opportunities for the sales team

Jeff: with 30% of the budget that I had last year. So what was going on with the other 70% of the budget?

Jeff: was it a waste of money? I wish I could figure that out. 

scott: well the main point is that you shouldn’t look at your budget and say “10% of my budget will be spent on doing things differently or being aggressive.”  You now take less money and focus on being more effective.  This is a fantastic example.  I might use you in this one.

Jeff: feel free to use it

Jeff: i am still trying to figure out what is working and what is not working

Jeff: frankly, a fat budget makes you lazy.  you just spend money
scott: For one thing, with more money, you spend less time focusing (you get lazy - exactly)

Jeff: a webex here, an event there - all for crap results

Jeff: i want to drive more revenue, but the reality is no one in marketing has more money now

scott: So with less money, you need to show what marketing can do even more.

scott: You look at each campaign more diligently. Now you run your budget, your budget doesn’t run you.

scott: I mean, I’ve had bosses say “use your budget…. spend the money”

Jeff: it is like water - it rises to its own level

Jeff: give me more money and i will spend it, but i might not deliver more

scott: absolutely. What’s an example of something you are doing differently in tight times?

scott: uhh hello, you writing a book there? (response to “Jeff is typing” for an eternity).

Jeff: patience anyone?    a recession is good for focus. For example, we did online events just to do them. I canceled most of them and told my people that I wanted us to do 1 effective event that would be interesting and attract attention. So, we are doing what we call “Talentpalooza” a hip way to play on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and draw a correlation to the magic that diverse talent created then and the magic talent can create in companies today. Check it out at: http://www.talentpalooza.net/

scott: Wow, how’s that been going? And what else have you changed?

Jeff: We have over 2x more signups than we expected for it, so it’s great.  It’s actually simple to attract attention by being different when the rest of the industry is a snore.

Jeff: And another change is i cut out paid search completely.. a lot of stuff does not deliver deals for me.
scott: are you focusing on organic

Jeff: yes

Jeff: organic search is much more effective. we just switched to a paid provider and we only pay them based on results
scott: and most importantly, what you are saying is just because it’s being done by most people and it seems to be a best practice, does it make sense?

Jeff: correct

Jeff: common practice does not make it right. or effective

scott: in fact, common practices are the most assured way you will be lost in the noise of all the other people following common practices. Important for compliance issues, but not for marketing.

Jeff: yep,  lazy marketing

scott: I might just cut and paste this IM conversation into the blog! You OK with that?

Jeff: sure, I can go on for hours

And Joyce knows, CreateYourNextCustomer.com is the one resource you need to design and implement integrated marketing campaigns that reach the right audience, at the right time.

There’s no better way to become redundant than by acting redundant, yet in these challenging times so much of marketing is exactly that.  I applaud marketing folks that are seeing these times as an opportunity to outshine the competition.  Money spent now should be targeted on more effectively generating business opportunities and helping your company stand out.  But just when your company needs you most and when conditions are ripe for break-through marketing, the majority of marketers are being extra conservative.  Most stories of great achievement center on a hero that is outnumbered (a lot of competition) and outgunned (bigger budgets) in unsure times.  The underdog takes calculated risks (OK, jumping off a 70-story building isn’t so calculated, but that’s Hollywood) to win the day and becomes the hero – luckily for marketers, we don’t have to dodge real bullets. In an economically tight environment with large, well-established competitors, sticking to run-of-the mill best practices are sure to result in little perceived value-add.

I’m not going to tell you what specific activities are most important since every company has different challenges and opportunities. How you prioritize and execute those activities is critical. It’s less costly to execute activities and fewer folks are being aggressive, so it’s the perfect situation to capitalize on and demonstrate how marketing can put your organization in winning positions.

Your obvious objections include:
“With tightened budget and reduced headcounts, we only have enough to keep the lights on.” I would challenge this by pointing out, like every group, it’s also marketing’s job to maximize effectiveness in your activities.  If you ever thought, “With 10% of my budget, we’ll push the envelope,” you were wrong. With every “reasonable” dollar of budget spent, you should ask “how are we doing this more effectively than our competitors?” You’ll still do direct marketing – are you simply doing the math and expecting the typically dismal conversation rates? Are you happy stating success is reaching “industry standard” metrics? You should be A/B testing different subject lines and content. You should either have offers that are worth doing campaigns around or not do them at all. But, for God’s sake, stop wasting money for no competitive advantage! Stop wasting money just because you have the budget to waste it!

“We don’t want to jeopardize losing more budget/headcount/etc.” The best way to lose budget and people is to show how absolutely mundane and replaceable they are.  If a manager pays a person $75k to do tasks that can be accomplished by someone for $50k, now is the time they might make a staffing change or outsource the function. The function is much more difficult to outsource if the person that is doing it brings some extra spice to the job and demonstrates differentiated success.

This topic can go on and on, so, in my next post I’ll discuss some ways to be more effective by putting greater focus on fewer activities. Look forward to Part II: “Your Marketing ADD Fix: That Smaller Budget.”