Future Gazers

Volume 10 - May 2005


	Talking with Susan Odell

Brief profile

Susan Odell is Vice President International, of TechTarget, a publisher of integrated media that enable information-technology (IT) marketers to reach targeted communities of IT professionals and executives in all phases of the technology decision-making and purchase process.

Ms. Odell has more than 10 years' experience with IT media companies and previous roles include Vice President, Group Sales and Marketing (Electronics Group) for CMP Media; Associate Publisher and Eastern Regional Sales Director for EE Times; Associate Publisher and Regional Sales Manager, Electronic Business, Cahners Publishing (now Reed Business Information) and National Sales Manager for PC World Online In 2003, Susan developed TechTarget's international expansion strategy, which capitalizes on the international affinity for TechTarget's editorial offerings among enterprise IT professionals outside of North America.

Prior to assuming responsibility for TechTarget’s international expansion, Susan served as Vice President, Product Management, overseeing the development and implementation of TechTarget's highly targeted media vehicles.

1. What are some of the online tools that you have seen companies use successfully? Can you give us some examples/statistics?

A. IT marketers use a host of online advertising vehicles--from banners to sponsored white papers, e-newsletters and webcasts, even blogs--to reach their target market of IT decision makers. No one vehicle inherently works better or worse than any other. In fact, we have discovered that a campaign that uses just one vehicle or medium to deliver a message (for example, just a banner, or only one e-newsletter) will perform very poorly. We've collected data that compares the performance of such standalone campaigns with "integrated" campaigns that use a combination of vehicles such as e-mail, banners, Webcasts and even offline media to deliver a consistent message over a sustained period of time. We've discovered that integrated programs increase brand awareness and response (as measured by click-throughs and conversions) by anywhere from 10% to 25% relative to standalone campaigns.

To maximize your response, you also need to expose your audience to your messages on a fairly regular basis for a sustained period of time. One exposure to an advertisement can create awareness; however it will fail to generate a response rate that justifies your marketing investment. Furthermore, the awareness you create with that first exposure soon dwindles away without follow-up exposures that reinforce your message or spur action. We find that within the context of an integrated campaign, two or three sponsored e-newsletters per week for a period of five to six weeks, reinforced by banner advertisements that offer IT pros a concrete benefit, such as a white paper or informational webcast, can help achieve your branding and lead generation objectives. Over a period of five-to-six weeks, you'll achieve a 25% to 50% increase in overall response relative to a one-shot campaign.

2. How important is the role of online marketing in furthering the branding strategy in the context of an IT Services company? Can you give us some examples of how online marketing has been successful for other companies?

Online marketing should play a dominant role in the efforts of IT services and products companies for several critical reasons. First and foremost, most complex transactions are researched first on the web. Whether to a general search engine or a targeted vertical sites that provides in-depth, focused IT content, IT pros and executives turn first to the Web to acquire information that enables them make wiser, more cost-effective purchases and IT decisions. Marketers who advertise on such contextually relevant sites are able to engage the IT pro at a critical juncture in the buying cycle: when s/he is highly engaged with a relevant research and before they have made a buying decision that may ultimately happen offline.

Second, online media enable IT marketers to easily tailor their messages and measure performance. IT marketers can quickly implement and execute online campaigns. As they monitor campaign performance, they can determine whether campaign elements need to be tweaked or altered completely. This is especially important for IT marketers reaching across international borders, where messages that perform well in one geography may not yield similar results in another.

3. What is the lacuna that you see in Indian IT companies as well as global companies? What can you recommend for Indian IT companies? What is the process you would recommend?

The Indian IT industry has experienced phenomenal growth over the past several years. During this period, Indian IT companies have enjoyed the luxury of heavy demand for their services without having to make significant marketing investments. Now, as the markets become more competitive and new entrants emerge daily, this luxury has become a two-edged sword, as Indian companies learn they must accelerate their marketing or even develop a marketing infrastructure they lack entirely. The first imperative is for companies to proactively build their marketing functions. They should begin by identifying opportunities to build brand awareness and attract leads from a wider base of qualified prospects. At the same time, it’s important to remain keenly aware of the return on investment each effort generates, and to focus on vehicles that can help them generate the best results with the least waste. .

Susan Odell

Vice President International

TechTarget

4. What is the role played by thought leadership content such as whitepapers in the decision process?

When IT pros and decision makers are making product purchase decisions, they gather a wealth of information but are highly selective about the sources they use. The first level of information they seek is expert content—independent analysts, researchers and others who can offer opinions, analyze current technology trends, and rate products and services without vendor bias. Once they’ve gathered this information, they want to test it against the opinions of the people they have confidence in —other IT pros and decision makers. They use interactive forums, read blogs, and review peer-contributed articles to get the “real picture” on what the experts are saying.

At this point, it might sound like it is pretty tough for an IT company to influence this audience. However IT companies actually possess a huge advantage: their enormous research-and-development budgets. IT companies have the resources to be out on the front lines of IT exploration. White papers and Webcasts are vehicles that IT companies use to reveal the fruits of their research and make their IT leadership apparent to their target audience. Especially when not overtly “selling” a product, such white papers and webcasts position the company as expert, innovative, and smart. Our research shows that three in four IT pros report they are more likely to consider evaluating a company’s products after reading the company’s white paper. Nine of ten actually use white papers to research vendor capabilities, while eight in ten state that vendor-sponsored white papers improve their perception of the sponsoring company. Similar data also exists to support the same conclusions with respect to vendor Webcasts.

5. What advice do you have for companies on disseminating such content? Product companies have traditionally been generating more content as compared to services companies. Can you throw some light on their experience?

Many companies do a wonderful job of producing white papers, but then make the mistake of expecting themselves to be publishers too. IT companies are not typically equipped to disseminate information by driving large volumes of qualified professionals to their sites This is a specialized function that calls for the expertise of a publisher. Specialized Publishers have built-in audiences and marketing mechanisms to reach that audience, whether the information they strive to disseminate is a White paper, a Webcast, or newsletters that alert IT pros to the latest offerings on their sites.. Additionally, Indian companies looking to reach IT decision-makers, need to leverage the reach of a publisher with a large audience beyond India.

IT companies should also consider how search engines will treat their white papers--a significant factor in attracting IT pros in purchase-consideration mode. Publishers who have a large number of white papers on their sites, experience heavy traffic, and numerous external links to their sites get far better placement for white papers on major search engines.

IT companies looking to reach the US IT market can work very closely with US publishers who specialize in developing an audience of qualified IT professionals and helping them market your white paper to that audience.

6. Can you tell us something about the role of content aggregation services such as Bitpipe?

TechTarget’s Bitpipe—a site (Bitpipe.com), a distributed library on the TechTarget network,and a network of affiliated sites with Bitpipe research libraries—is the largest source of vendor white papers and vendor-sponsored content on the Web. By providing IT pros with a destination for vendor-produced content, Bitpipe is a link between the vendor and the IT decision maker. IT pros who seek out content on Bitpipe are typically in product research mode: looking for information that helps them form a “short list” of products for purchase consideration, or even looking for information that helps them better evaluate a vendor.