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The PR Report
Strategies & Actions
July 2006
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Taking the Market By Storm
When we started working with MCA in
2004, few people outside of academia paid attention
to the immense revenue potential of aftermarket
services. Our mandate: bring this out of the lab, and
into the boardroom.
Within six months, the company was firmly on the
map. Today, less than two years later, MCA is widely
considered the standard-setter in a market that’s
quickly becoming vital to manufacturers around the
world.
Our Plan of Attack
We shaped our program around three core
themes:
- Creating a business imperative. We used
the
company’s annual customer conference to identify
upcoming trends – providing irrefutable evidence that
this is a market of significant interest to powerful,
high-performance companies. The media and analysts
took note, and began writing about the trends we
identified. MCA was cited in every story.
- Building relationships. We reached out –
quickly and consistently – to two dozen ‘hot
targets.’ Some were obvious; others, less so. We
created custom campaigns for each, with stories,
ideas and data that would resonate. The team
expanded our reach by extending relationships with
academic peers, because this tech sector, more than
many, recognizes that thought leadership often takes
root in the B-schools.
- Getting the media to anoint MCA as the
leader. We carefully placed three major features
in each of the industry’s top publications, in a 60-day
period. MCA – on two magazine covers – quickly
became the company to notice.
Today, anyone who considers the supply chain a
strategic advantage understands that a powerful
aftermarket ‘service chain’ can be the single-most
important driver of customer service, customer
retention,
improved product design and profits.
As expected, the competition has been mimicking
MCA’s positioning for months. We stay in front with a
thoughtful and aggressive program driven by news
and market insight.
ROI in Action
- Industry Analysts’ #1 Choice. All four of
the top market firms highlight MCA as the company
to beat. Unsolicited endorsements include: “Market
leader in parts inventory optimization” and “Apple of
the SaaS market.”
- Tapped by SAP. SAP selected MCA to
create the first ‘joint’ supply chain solution for
complex service parts planning. The market
implications of this relationship are already being
felt.
- Executive Authority. The Harvard
Business Review recently published a major
overview
of the importance of aftermarket service, authored
by Dr. Morris Cohen, MCA’s co-founder. It’s just the
latest in a series of authoritative articles that are
truly shaping this market.
Marketing to Millennials
Whatever you sell, Millennials are your future.
They’re highly connected, inclined to collaborate and
cynical when it comes to advertising
messages. More than other groups, they expect
customization; give them what they want, and they’ll
tell their friends. Mass market to them, and they’ll
ignore you – or worse.
Most of the 79 million Millennials are still in school.
The oldest
are entering the workforce – and in the next few
years, will begin to change how companies buy and
sell technology.
At Worldcom’s annual worldwide meeting in New York
this spring, Frank Magid Associates, the consumer
advisory firm, detailed how to communicate with a
generation that takes media convergence for
granted. Though the firm focuses largely on the
consumer and entertainment industries, its findings
have enormous impact for how to sell IT.
What They Expect
Dialogue. Millennials do not swallow
messages whole. They shape and refine them, and
use blogs, podcasts and their own Web sites to give
feedback. It’s easy to envision how social networks
like MySpace can spawn forums for swapping
information about which vendors to trust.
Niches. They consider themselves part of
many small groups, making highly targeted niche
marketing a mainstream activity. The jury is still out
on how Millennials will behave as business consumers.
Today, they consume multi-media voraciously and
often simultaneously: using IM, talking on their cell
phones, browsing and watching TV or listening to
music.
Tone. Relevance and humor are key to
breaking through. As a whole, Millennials are highly
social – and group-oriented. On average, Millennials
say they have 21 ‘friends’ in their social network; so-
called super-connectors have more than 25 peers in
their group. These groups typically operate by
consensus; 64 percent said everyone in their group is
equal, and they make decisions together.
Leaders ‘manage agreement’ rather than shape
outcomes.
What does this mean for marketers?
Attention spans are short, and sponsored information
constantly competes with other input – whether
podcast or E-mail. This overload may be one reason
why word-of-mouth is so important to this group.
Word-of-mouth will become a potent channel, even
though today, just 2 percent of the Millennials say
it’s a primary source of information.
Marketing: The Re-Mix
All marketing outreach should be a true two-way
conversation, highly targeted for specific audiences.
PR can be a key tool, if handled well.
Be sure to expect feedback. The one-to-many model
of broadcasting and advertising will become
marginalized, if not obsolete. Reverse the
assumption: Individuals will seek guidance from – and
influence – their peer groups.
Any device may be a portal to information, though
attention may come in shorter bursts.
And When They Join the 9-to-5 World?
Will they change as they enter the workforce, and
take on the demands of the workplace?
Probably.
Will they change the workplace, and how technology
solutions are marketed? You can bet on it.
Interesting Data Points:
- 46 percent of Millennials consume most
of
their news online
- Millennials are largely content, conforming,
and not revolutionaries
- ‘Super-connectors’ are in active touch with
more than 25 friends every day
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In Our Corner
"Corporate Ink played a substantial role in our
success, which led to the acquisition of the
company. The team executed with precision and
dedication – and it was a joy to work with them. If
you want results, I strongly recommend Corporate
Ink.”
—Axel Tillmann, vice president of sales and
marketing, ENIRA Technologies
(acquired by
ArcSight, May 2006)
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Q2 Wins
Q2 brought exciting wins for our clients – and us.
Two of our clients also reported big
wins:
- Guardium, the
database security company, received an investment
from Cisco Systems – the networking giant’s first
entry into the data security market, and a clear
endorsement of Guardium as the market leader for
safeguarding corporate databases.
- ENIRA, at
the forefront of the convergence of network and
security management, was acquired by ArcSight this
spring, just 12 months after launching – and without
a single round of venture funding
Corporate Ink is taking a leadership role in
Worldcom,
the largest network of independently owned public
relations firms.
- Amy Bermar is the new co-chair of Worldcom’s
Technology Practice Group. The group shares best
practices – and innovative technologies – for local
and global technology clients in North America,
Europe and Asia.
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Clients 
