NASSCOM EMERGE Community Catalyst for Growth of Emerging & Start-Up companies

Nari,

Nice thought. I agree and have been using the same techniques where I found Newsletter as an effective tool to create higher brand recall and engage prospects (customer/employees).

However as rightly pointed out by Nari, they can cause good damage as well if your organization is sending it unsolicited or to a list with out offering them an option to opt out. While US based companies are well aware of spamming rules. Indian marketers are slowly responding to this need.

In this Information age when we have number of sources, we can drive the best ROI when we deliver relevant content to the relevant audience. Newsletter deliver better ROI when it is highly targeted i.e. there is some perceived value (by your target audience),  the frequency is optimized to ensure it gets due attention.

 Once you realize this you can use this as a tool to reach out to various group of audience like Media Journalists, Domain specific Developer community and prospects, Academic community etc.

So, slice and dice your database to deliver target and relevant info...

Thanks Nari for stimulating post..

Guerilla Marketing Tip #2: CaseStudies!

Whether you are an SME, Product or Service company, case studies can be a very effective Guerilla marketing Tool.

Case studies are not sales pitches. They are to show your prospect that you understand business problems, you can come up with solutions for them, and you have done them before! Depending upon the niche you are targeting your prospect in,  you can give them appropriate ones, or have them pick them up from your web site after you organize them under various topics. Also don't put them in your general website area accessible to the general publc. If you do, always make sure that if they click on a case study link, you lead them to a Prospect Details page where you can get details like who the person is, their contact information etc very briefly. Do not hand out casestudies like candy. They are only for the truly interested, and qualified.

They should always be one or two pages long - no more than that. Case studies are scanned, not read by anybody fully, unless they are really really interested! That's why you have a summary section for scanning.

So have two sections in your case study:

Summary section at the top and details section following that:

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Title:

Company: Many times you may be allowed to mention only "A Large Apparel Manufacturer in the U.K"  or "Retail Giant in the U.S". That's o.k as long as you make sure you dont reveal too much proprietary information about the problem or the solution - you may have a Non-Discclosure agreement with them.

Business Problem: One or two sentence summary - "Scaling up The Test Team". "Augmenting Onsite SAP Resources", "Specialized RFID Software". You can always make it interesting without revealing too much. The prospect is only interested if you have worked in a related area. Their problem may be different.

Challenges: Two or three bullet points that capture the essence of what the difficulty was - Could not find local RFID resources or Test Team Needed Augmentation to Meet Deadlines etc

Solution - Two or three sentences that say what did you do for them to solve this problem. Only phrases, not even sentences.

Benefits - What did your solution get them business wise. Two or three bullets again - Lower Cost of Testing, On-Time Delivery of Software, Application Rollout Deadlines Met, etc

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Detail Section - Include Text and as many pictures and diagrams you can provide without breaking any confidentiality rules. Make it as interesting and specific as possible for someone bothering to read the detail section past the summary. Provide detailed technical lingo if necessary. Although you don't need to label the sections again, expand on the points in the summary section again in the same order.

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Contact Infomation: ALL your locations listed in the Contacts section. You never know which one may be the nearest. Always provide website information as well as email addresses.

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PDF is a great format and probably an excellent choice for case studies.

Case studies provide a great way for you to formalize and use as collateral all your different projects and assignments you have done. AFter a while you will find a number of case studies to pick and choose from based on your own understanding from the prospects' website.

Hope this helps!

Guerilla Marketing Tip #3 - White Papers!

White papers along with Case Studies can be very powerful Guerilla Marketing tools. It does not matter what your differentiation is - RFID development, ERP Implementations, Agile Development methodologies, Banking Applications Development, etc, you can always leverage your own projects to come up with white papers that you can send your prospects.

White papers need to demonstrate somewhat in-depth understanding of whatever area you think your differentiator is and it can explore some current issue in that area - Foe example - RFID developments in Retail, or Importance of End User Involvement in Rollout of ERP Applications, etc can all be useful topics for your white papers.

It needs to provide something of use to the reader without piusing your services or product in their face, needs to be current and should not be more than two or three pages in length.

White Papers when hosted in certain relevant websites are potent tools for prospect generation. In exchange for filling out a form they get access to the white paper.

Guerilla Marketing Tip #4: Scheduled Webinars

SMEs, especially those that have local presences in the U.S and U.K can try Scheduled Webinars that last for an hour or 90 minutes at the most. Scheduled Webinars can get very expensive when larger companies do it. They usually invite someone from the Analysy Community to talk about general subject related to the area that provide products or services in.  For SMEs in products and services, it could be a general topic like "Efficacy of Online Teaching Methods", if you are in the business of providing learning services or online learning module development. It could be something general, relevant, informative and educative to the audience you ar trying to reach - like "Pitfalls in Traditional Software Development Project Management" or "How to make Offshore Testing Services Effective and Efficient".

Web meeting services like GotoMeeting and Webex have become so common and widely used that you can sign up for a monthly service fee of around $50 to $100. It is very convenient for people to join in from their offices, they don't need to ask for a travel budget from their bosses.

The Key is to make it as soft marketing as you can. Your audience knows very well that you are trying to sell your products or services eventually, you don't need to push it in their faces. The trick is to make their one hour or 90 minutes worthwhile. This is also an inoffensive way to approach prospects for the first time.

It needs a little bit of creativilty, patience and reaching out to the right target audience with email announcements using targeted mailing lists. As always, these emails should have a link that anyone receiving this email can unsubscribe if they don't like getting these emails.

Scheduled Webinars are a great way yto reach your precise audience, especially if you are an SME in the Software Products space. Niche services can also benefit immensely. SMEs providing all kinds of services, it may not be of too much use.

Guerilla Marketing Tip #5: Articles

Articles are some new tools SMEs can leverage fully without too much expenditure except your time and effort. There used to be a time when most Articles in your area of expertise appeared in Print form and nothing else. These days, it is easy to be in front of your prospects periodically by writing articles, since most of the magazines, have a primary presence on the Internet and optionally, in print form! You can submit articles electronically, they appear in a web site and some of them make it to the print form in parallel. For example general interest IT publications like Information Week, CIO, DM Review, eWeek, eBizq, all have a presence primarily in electronic form on web sites.

Articles are a very great way to gain credibility and prospects, especially if you are an SME who is concentrating on specific niches. Thankfully, there are online publications no matter what your chosen niche is or even multiple niches. Embedded software development, RFID, Agiile development, SaaS, Quality Assurance and Testing, General Software Development all have multiple online magazines and they are all looking for informative, non-sales-oriented articles that add to the body of knowledge of their readers.

If you read through a few issues - monthly or fortnightly versions of these issues, you will get a feel for what kinds of articles get published there. The trick is not to push what you sell in the readers' faces but add something of value - may be Best Practices, Implementation Tricks, Methodology Assessments may all be good starting points for these articles.

Infosys, TCS and Wipro have all encouraged these kinds of articles, it appears. I have seen many articles from these companies and have proudly featured them in our own company newsletter about Process Improvement!

The best way to prepare for this kind of marketing is to make sure you subscribe to these online magazines for sometime and diligently reading articles that appear there. You will very soon get a feel for what kinds of articles make it. Many of these magazines have an Editorial Calendar that you may see on their web site as well as Writers' Guidelines published there itself.

Some of these magazines may expect some kind of sponsorphip of ads on their magazine but there are many that may not but be very strict in what they publish.

Writing articles well comes with practice. If you have one or two that don't get published, you should not lose heart. Becoming an expert in a chosen niche also comes with practice.

Articles add a layer of credibility and authority for SMEs and can be a good differentiator. They can also drive traffic from prospects to your web site. It needs to be one of the many pillars of your marketing effort! 

Senior Management needs to set an example for these kinds of activities but encouraging senior people in your company to do these kinds of articles is a great way to motivating them as well as benefitting your company.

This is the Internet Century. Internet connectivity has made the global marketplace much much smaller. Online articles are a great way for SMEs to find your prospects and prospects to find you, SMEs. Articles are a great way to reduce this distance even further and gain credibility.

Guerilla Marketing Tips #6 - Blogs!

Blogs have become very effective marketing tools that do not cost too much in terms of reaching the precise audience you are trying to reach. Companies themselves have blogs, especially exciting new startups that rely upon Early Adopters to start using a new kind of product or service.

Individuals in emerging companies have leveraged blogs to start interacting with potential prospects and others in the same space by writing highly technical blogs in that space.

Blogs are easy to start but hard to sustain. I have seen thousands of blogs start with great enthusiasm and fizzle out after two or three entries.

I have been blogging regularly for the past four years or so. It takes work but it is very rewarding from an emerging company perspective. If you want to say something technical it forces you to learn as much as you can personally about that area so that you don't look like an idiot. A funny thing happens on the way to the forum here! You become an authority slowly! I have been writing blogs regularly about Process Improvement and Toyota Production System, you would not believe the kinds of email requesting this piece of information or that from around the globe! We have added so many contacts to our Newsletter mailing list, people who we came to know about us through the blogs!

In 2005, I wrote two blog entries on how to write a blog on my own blog - could be useful for you also - Check them out:

How to write an Interesting Blog:

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/narikannan/how-to-write-an-interesting-blog-3737

I heard a lot of feedback and got enough material to write a follow up:

How to Write an Interesting Blog - Part II

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/narikannan/how-to-write-an-interesting-blog-part-ii-3850

Hope these are useful to you!

Nari,

These are some great tips. In the past we have had monthly newsletters for my company -- and it really helped to stay connected and stay in touch with prospects, customers. However we have found it hard to keep it up.

It would be  beneficial if readers of this thread could share their personal experiences of using one or more of these tips -- maybe we could create a separate thread.

Also some of the above things work best when done regularly over a period of time say 6 months and more -- often when one is trying to get a quick return, it may not work -- but these are great tips and they work.

thanks for sharing.

Ankur

Guerilla Marketing Tip#7 Networking

Networking at relevant events if you can attend them physically is a great way to do Guerilla Marketing! If you are an SME services company, attending events where potential prospects may show up is a great way to generate leads and follow up with them later. For an Indian SME services vendor, attending events in the U.S and U.K may be too expensive. However, these days NASSCOM and others are organizing many events in places like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. These may be within reach if your resources are constrained. Attending these events and attending the networking events in the evenings or afternoons is a great way to generate potential prospects. You can exchange buisness cards, ask them if they would be interested in your products or services and then diligently follow up on email. And may be add them to your newsletter mailing list also.