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High-tech.

 

McQUERTER Puts Santa Cruz Networks on the Global 2000 "radar screen".

 

When Santa Cruz Networks’ CEO Keith Teare retained McQUERTER for public relations services, he was in no mood for small talk. With a tough funding environment and corporate buyers skeptical of novel Internet-based "real-time communications" (RTC) technology, he got right to the point: "First, launch an awareness campaign that gets us on the radar screen of Global 2000 enterprises. Second, prove our ROI to our partners and customers. We need market traction now."

Challenge #1: "Get us on the Global 2000 radar screen."

McQUERTER quickly did a SWOT* analysis. Santa Cruz Networks had a strong technology position, but was a complete unknown playing in a field that included Microsoft and other entrenched competitors. Going straight to the tech and business media wasn't going to work.

Fortunately, CEO Teare was a charismatic speaker, capable of discussing the technology down to the arcane engineering level.

McQ Response: We decided our quickest road to success was to leverage Teare as a "thought leader," and immediately began searching for a national forum where he could meet with other opinion leaders, media and analysts. We identified Innovation Summit, held at Stanford as an optimal setting. The event's theme, "Always On" Communications, closely aligned with the concept behind Santa Cruz Networks "Real-time Communications" (RTC) platform.

Then we went to work:

  1. We secured a major speaking engagement. We submitted a proposal for Teare to be a speaker for a "Real-time Enterprise" panel discussion. We were accepted, and Teare appeared as an expert alongside PeopleSoft, Cisco, and Veritas. (Already, we had propelled Teare to a best-in-class level!)
  2. We won a major award. Simultaneous with the conference, the show's sponsor, AlwaysOn tech portal, was announcing the AO100 Awards – the 100 most likely companies to disrupt current modes of business by innovating new technologies. Santa Cruz Networks won, alongside Salesforce.com, Vocera, and Good Technology.
  3. We issued a national Media Alert. Powered by this early momentum, we issued a nationwide Media Alert that positioned Teare as an expert in real-time communi- cations, and informing the tech and business press that Teare was speaking.
  4. We conducted aggressive media outreach. Simultaneously, we proactively contacted registered media attending the event, to schedule briefings with Teare. We subsequently booked several interviews with national tech and business media.
  5. We publicized a co-marketing promotion with a world-class partner. Since one of the companyís offerings was an online video service, we negotiated a co-promotion with Logitech, in which Logitiech bundled free web cameras along with Santa Cruz Networks free "minutes" of service, providing C-level executives with a completely provisioned, plug-and-play demo that they could use in their homes or offices.
  6. We pushed for live demos. We also recommended Santa Cruz Networks become an event sponsor, so that it could demo its technology at the summit. Although bringing in broadband internet access was difficult (the exhibit was outside, under the trees), Santa Cruz Networks technicians prevailed, and the company was the only one to hold live demos during the event.
  7. We booked media briefings. During the event, we introduced CEO Teare to a number of reporters from major media, including Fortune, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, NetworkWorld Fusion and CNet. Following the event, we began receiving unsolicited queries from a variety of other media, including a tech reporter from The New York Times, to discuss the company's future with CEO Teare. Seven weeks after starting the PR program, Santa Cruz Networks was on the technology map. "With McQ's help, we went from an unknown to a high-profile player in 30 days," notes Terri Holbrooke, a Santa Cruz Networks executive responsible for marketing. "We were very aggressive at the conference, and came out with the most mind-share of any company, large or small."

Problem #2: "Substantiate our business proposition."

But getting Santa Cruz Networks noticed in the marketplace was only half the battle. The other half was proving the ROI of its business proposition. And the only way to do that was through real customers

McQ Response: McQUERTER quickly identified three customers that represented the key markets and channels the company wanted to attack: the small corporate enterprise, international organizations, and resellers.

  1. We secured approval from think3, a globally dispersed company that was leveraging SCN's communications server to provide collaborative communications between staff on four continents. Agency CEO Greg McQuerter, a technology journalist, interviewed all key execs at think3, then merged their different perspectives into a comprehensive ENTERPRISE CASE STUDY, describing the offering's merits from the operational, finance, IT and marketing perspectives. McQ then designed the CASE STUDY into a magazine-type format that the sales force could distribute as a handout. We also created a quick-download PDF that allowed web-site visitors to instantly access the study. (To see the Study, go to www.santacruznetworks.com)
  2. We then moved into the reseller channel, identifying a specialized international telecom carrier who was reselling the real-time communications server to telecom companies in emerging countries around the world.
  3. Next, we identified an "affiliate-based" Santa Cruz Networks customer to communicate with partners and colleagues internationally on a daily basis. In this case, we used a highly regarded venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, Draper-Fisher-Jurvetson, whose staff must constantly maintain contact with its 13 partners and 25 affiliate funds. "The Case Studies have proven to be enormously valuable for our international sales force," says Jennifer Neal, marketing communications manager at Santa Cruz Networks. "Written in an engaging conversational style, the Studies make liberal use of executive quotes to convey the real-world benefits of our platform. They are a vital sales tool for us, and we were very pleasantly surprised to see that a PR firm could provide this additional creative service."

Results: Six months after signing McQ, Santa Cruz Networks was established as a known, and respected, player in the emerging RTC space. Further, its sales organization was equipped with valuable "proof point" documents proving its solution delivered productivity gains and enhanced ROI.

Noted Teare: "McQ takes pride in partnering with its clients and getting results. They've assembled a team of experts with multiple skillsets, so they can apply various domain expertise that clients need as their businesses progress. They are an extremely 'can-do' agency."