The importance of timing one’s marketing is critical in most industries, but particularly so in the EMC realm. Because EMC product and service providers must consistently focus on developing new offerings in order to remain competitive, marketing planning and execution can sometimes take a back seat. If and when that happens, how does that impact your bottom line?To find out, I talked to two EMC industry C-level executives; Mike Violette, president, Washington Labs and Nissen Isakov, president, LCR Electronics. I also talked to three C-level execs at Marketing Communications and Advertising agencies that serve EMC clients. Joe DiLeonardo, CEO and Joe Caserta, president and chief creative officer at DSC Advertising offered advice, as did Dave Lesser, president, The Simon Group. My thought was that in-house C-level executives are very busy and may not be able to prioritize marketing the way that agencies do. The idea was to compare marketing methodologies from both views to be certain I got the full picture. I asked about marketing planning, budgeting marketing dollars and whether it’s better to focus media placements around shows, product releases or end-of-year capital equipment buys or whether it’s best to stay in front of the target audience on a consistent basis. In sum, I wanted to know what they do, how they do it, what works and what doesn’t when it comes to their marketing strategies. In the end, the consensus was the same:
- Consistency is key: stay in front of your audience by frequently reaching out to them using a variety of content-driven media
- Intensify marketing efforts when releasing new solutions or announcing technological breakthroughs
- Because EMC product and service providers continuously develop and release unique solutions, budgets must be flexible enough
- End-of-year spends are a thing of the past; because of the economy, often there are no end-of year dollars left
Want to know more? Read the full interviews below.
