On Tuesday 31 August 2010 23:26:17 Nelson Marques wrote:
On Tue, 2010-08-31 at 23:06 +0200, S.Kemter wrote:
How to do marketing with OBS I am very interested in, so tell me.
I would probably put it this way:
1. Identify and triage your audience; the group of users or potential users who might be interested in OBS. 2. Get to know your audience; focus on which needs they need to be satisfied and which ones OBS satisfies, which are the most important. 3. Elaborate a communication plan aiming for your audience. 4. Deploy on field.
That's pretty much as it gets, off course this can mean massive research work, which in our field is pretty much non-existing... but you always have the quantitative side of the thing, in which you can collect data from people you know that are users or can become potential users of OBS.
About the communication plan, it focus on the following:
1. Presentation - Brief presentation of the organization which is promoting the product/service. In this case openSUSE/Novell. 2. Product/Service - The presentation of the product/service to be promoted. In this case, a presentation about OBS. 3. Analysis: Should contemplate the following (this is a generic approach, therefore you can freely modify this accordingly to your needs, this is typical marketing work): * Characterization of the clients that consume the category of the product or service to promote (social-demographic, psicographic and situational characteristics). * Information Processing: does the audience knows well, average or doesn't know the product/service? * Degree of involvement from the client with the product/service to promote. * Perceptions of the client facing the product or service and while facing the competitor products/services. 4. Goals - Define the goals to be reached with the Communication Plan and positioning (if the product/service already exists) or future (if the product/service doesn't exist or is changing positioning). 5. Target Audience - Selection and Identification of the target audience. 6. Message - Choosing the message (slogan, elevator pitch, 30 sec speech/images/video)... Consider several techniques and creativity strategies also. 7. Communication Mix - The components of the chosen 'communication mix' (specify the channels and means of communication). What goals to reach with each one of them and with the mix itself... Tactics adopted for each of them and why. 8. Other Considerations - some examples: * Is the internal audience involved on the plan (is openSUSE involved?) * Is the image coherent with the adopted positioning * Cultural differences - important if this is addressed to international community or to minorities. * Ethics - Does the plan follow ethical principals and is socially responsible (this means no Swedish girls in bikini on Iran or using children). * Legal Considerations - Do we have legislation to follow the communication campaign? Double importance on product/service. Are legal considerations respected ?
This one of the tiny thingies that Marketing can provide. Need help? Feel free to bug me or eventually start a collaborative document so we can work this out and eventually adapt the process to future needs and document it.
Looks good, could indeed be part of the wiki - how to plan around a certain topic or something. Meanwhile, planning is useless if there is no execution - the only thing that really counts is RESULT, not a great plan. And for the openSUSE conference we have little if anything. We can plan all day but if writing a little article about it is not something anyone is interested in I doubt it is useful to create plans. So I'd like to repeat my call to edit the doc: http://piratepad.net/wJ2WiNfp7X I know francisco ariasI has added a few things already, points for him. I don't want to put down planning efforts or strategic stuff - but it doesn't lead to anything if there is no execution and I have seen great plans catch dust in FOSS a few times to many. I therefor personally prefer to just *start working*. U with me?
nelson