Marketing Blog

It has been said that one of the top five most stressful things a person can do in their life is move house. Interestingly getting married also features in that list.

This month the team at C2 Software experienced the biggest 'house move' in the companies history. We packed up our desks, laptops and coffee mugs and made the short trip across the road to our new offices in the Grianan building in the Technology Park in Dundee. We occupy two floors of this building, which was voted 34th in the 100 Best Modern Buildings poll in architecture magazine Prospect and was designed by Nicoll Russell Studios.

Our new offices, being much bigger, have more scope for expansion and feature a large training and meeting room.

Watch this space for news of our client open day early next year! 

How very apt (that’s apt – a, p, t) that in the week we are nearing the nail biting climax of the current Big Brother series, I was subjected to my very own Big Brother moment. Yes unfortunately I have succumbed again to the car crash telly that fills our screens for three months of the year. Cameras everywhere watching the participants every move. No words or actions go unnoticed, not matter how innocent or otherwise.  And all for the notoriety of being a Z list celebrity for a few weeks, trawling China Whites and the odd film premier before plummeting to the depths of has-been-ness.

Anyway, my Big Brother moment came in the form of being ‘stalked’ while perusing a well known direct mail list website. I had registered my details as required in order to progress past the initial screen. Without going into too much detail regarding the usability or lack of it of the site, after some time (and weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth) I managed to filter to a list that I may or may not wish to purchase. And all of a sudden, as if by magic, I received a call from said company, asking after my well being and general happiness with all things direct marketing.  Coincidence? I would have liked to have given them the benefit of that doubt, had the same thing not happened on EVERY occasion I used the site.

I have visions of huge rooms filled with ‘account managers’ trawling the lists of users on the site, tracking their every move, leaping on the phone to close the sale, should they dare to abandon their shopping cart and leave before purchasing.  

This sales tactic that they are employing is making me not want to buy from them. In the same way that I don’t want to buy from the sales assistant in the electrical goods shop that insists on following me around asking if they can help me. The buying process of the consumer is an easy concept to grasp. I am happy to browse your wares at my leisure, without your interference. If I need your help, you will know because I will ask for it. Simple really.  

And on that note, I am off to resume my obsessive people watching on the Big Brother live streaming.  

I’ve just had a brainstorming session to touch base about the decentralization of knowledge acquisition that has got me thinking out of the box. We’re all on a three way street here and the question we should ask is what we can bring to the table?

I mean, our business is a finely balanced situation, weighted heavily toward the customer. But in order to grab the low hanging fruit, we need to make sure all our ducks are in a row.
So let’s take a blue sky approach to this. It’s obviously important that we are all on the same page and 360 degree feedback is vital. But let’s park that offline for a moment. Have we mapped the processes for this? We don’t need a seagull manager who drops the ball. We need someone who can step up to the plate and hit the ground running.

So I’ll just run this up the flagpole if I may. Let’s get ahead of the drag curve, stop all this prairie dogging and take a helicopter view. If we drill down, we can rightsize the road map and reduce the burn rate.

However at a guesstimate, I would say that I don’t have the bandwidth at the moment to third eye this by close of play. Perhaps we should just draw a line in the sand until we are all singing from the same hymn-sheet.

But I will keep you in the loop...

I found myself in a place I haven’t been for far too many years to disclose last week – a secondary school! Kirk and I were involved in an initiative with schools from the Angus area to promote the uptake of computer science in secondaries in a bid to reverse the decline in places sought on computing courses in Scotland’s universities.

The initiative, the brainchild of Carole Munro, Principal Teacher Curriculum (Technology) of Arbroath High School, saw each of the eight Angus schools enter a team of four, third year pupils to take part in a competition to produce a page for a website, promoting their own town. The pupils were asked to use specialist software which they were only introduced to on the day and were given just basic instruction on how to use it.

The pupils had approximately 3 hours to complete the task and then were asked to ‘sell’ the pitch to a panel of ‘clients’ who included our very own Mr Potter.

I was absolutely blown away by the high standard of submissions from the pupils. And their ability to navigate round the new software completely unfazed would put most adults to shame.

As a company, we were delighted to be asked to sponsor the competition and to take part in the day itself. However it’s a little worrying that the issues surrounding the reason for the competition could have far reaching implications for businesses in Scotland.

Indeed, uptake of pure computing courses in Scotland’s universities has been on the decline for several years resulting in good development staff being thin on the ground. If this trend continues, businesses will be forced to move development work overseas which is bad news for the Scottish technology community.

Interesting however is the fact that Computer Gaming courses are among the most sought after places in further education. So perhaps we need to teach our kids that there is more to computer skills than Grand Theft Auto and Wii Fit...

I received an email yesterday from someone who can only be described as a passing acquaintance inviting me to be her ‘friend’ on an online community site.  This prompted a quick check on my own ‘Bebo’ page to review my friends list which was disappointingly depleted compared to that of my peers,  in this new popularity race called Social Networking.  Perhaps I needed to ‘market’ myself as the email sender who prompted this had.

Online community websites can also however play another role aside from highlighting your own lack of popularity. Big brands such as Philips, British Airways and O2 are launching their own community websites to engage with consumers and test their reactions to new products, adverts and designs.

Community members can offer opinions and suggestions allowing the Brands to gain valuable market research while in turn promoting their products to a mass audience in a more sincere manner than standard advertising.  

Similarly online forums can prompt brand interaction and provide valuable feedback to marketers on possible improvements to products and can quash negative feedback at the source by rectifying highlighted issues.

And forums can get your customers talking about your product and interacting with each other. Fundamentally, people have a need to belong and forums, online community sites and consumer panels feed that need.

Activedition as standard is available with forums, polls and blogging included. For advanced features, Activedition integrates with Community Server by Telligent. This provides organisations with the tools to engage their customers make friends and influence people.

Now I’m off to work on my own self- marketing plan and see if I can’t up my number of friends...