[Mageia-marketing] Plan - stuff to do pre Beta 1 release

[Wolfgang Bornath]

2011/4/5 Patricia Fraser <trish at thefrasers.org>:
>>
>> Hmm, how many people you want to ask what has to be written in an
>> announcement of a new version? Isn't it quite clear what has to be
>> addressed?
>
> One man's clarity is another woman's obscurity... 8-). If we're
> representing a community - which is what I think Mageia's marketing
> is doing, in part - it's good to know whether or not the community
> feels comfortable with the way they're being represented. It's also
> good if the community feels that marketing is actually a useful
> and valuable part of the community.

And how do you want to do this in practice? Announce the draft of an
announcement?

> You could check out the last time Yorick and the discuss list had a
> conversation, to get a really unmistakable feel for this - I should
> probably not need to point out that the shrinkage to not-quite-zero
> of the marketing team can be traced back to that conversation. A
> pity, because we were full of energy and working hard and well.

Hmm, I can't say much about that, it was going to deep into an area I
am not comfortable with.

> It's all in who you're talking to. If you're talking to a community
> of which you're part, you're talking to people who are already on the
> inside - there's an existing relationship of a kind, and they know
> the context and what's going on and who's who. If you're talking to
> people who aren't part of the community yet, you're extending an
> invitation. You want to present them with a picture of the community
> you're inviting them into (which the community doesn't need), and
> give them reasons that might lead them to come investigate joining -
> or they might just take the community's output and still not join...
> or they might think: no thanks.

What you say makes sense but I still don't see the difference. Read
previous announcements, they all were targeted at the whole crowd,
saying geeky things but also trying to establish a relation, asking
the people to join the fun and all that jazz.

> Would you feel like joining, if you felt like the announcement was
> exclusive, geeky, very plain-ordinary and didn't actually say: we're
> looking for people. Please join us - we have room in our community
> for people with all sorts of interests and talents. We need you! -
> you mightn't. It might all feel just a bit too elite.

> On the other hand, if you're an established coder, this kind of
> "soft" approach might make you wonder whether you'd be comfortable
> here - do people actually code, or package, or do anything really
> interesting to me? or am I going to get stuck being a marketroid?

IMHO announcements have to be both, not distinguishing between target
groups. You can do such a distinction when you hold a conference. You
know what type of people will be in the audience and you compile your
speech according to that. You can make a distinction in an article
about Mageia, you know what kind of people will usually read the
magazine, so you write the article speaking to them in their language.
But we are talking about an announcement of a release here, aimed at everybody.

>> We never did. We always tried to send release announcements out to
>> everybody, geek or not geek (I'm relating to former Mandriva
>> communication policy, around 2003-2005). As I already wrote, we
>> spread to the geek targets but also to the general IT crowd,
>> private users and professionals. Best examples are /., Distrowatch,
>> online and print magazines.

> Yep. It was moderately successful. It could have been more so; it
> could be for us. It all depends what the community wants to have
> happen.

Hmm, I think you don't know what we did then, may be not in the
english Mandrake websites but in some localized areas. Well, what the
community wants to have happen? What do you think? They want to

 - get the feeling that it is their distribution, that they are part of it.
 - see success, Mageia becoming what Mandrake was for a short time.

> I'd separate here the "persona" which could have anyone behind it
> from the people who do any communication with people outside the
> community (or in it, for that matter, from the "function" of
> co-ordinating, writing and disseminating targeted, on-point and
> well-constructed information about Mageia, whether graphical or
> verbal (or audio, or Braille, or what-have-you). I was positing a
> "persona"; I do think the...

Well, this depends on what you mean exactly. Of course it would be
nice to have an ideal setup:
 - all technical and organisational people will report constantly to
marcom about what they are doing in detail
 - marcom is perfectly understanding what those people are talking
about so marcom can communicate with the press.

As of now we haven't this setup. So, press questions (like request for
an interview) are done by the person who can do it best. You want to
change that?

>> > What if we get TV interest? Who will handle that and how much
>> > backup will they need/want from marcomm?
>>
>> This depends 1. on the occasion (local), 2 on the language, 3. on
>> the kind of coverage the tv company wants to do (more general, more
>> technical, etc.
>
> I'd like to see marcomm be multilingual in time - maybe working
> together with i18n, which is currently very technically-focussed. The
> linguistic needs of marketing are a little different from those of
> package translators (who need to be very precise) and documenters
> (who need a different kind of precision and communication) - it would
> be good to have marcomm/i18n people who could look for the marketing
> nuance as they translated (like it would be good to have documenters
> ditto).

Depends what you mean with documents. Id you are talking about manuals
and HowTos there is no room for marketing, neither in authoring nor in
translation.

Back to that tv show: as I said, it will depend on the occasion. A tv
station in France will obviously talk to french people, a tv station
in Berlin will obviously talk to somebody speaking German, etc. In
such an interview you can't say, "Cut, I have to ask our marcom team
what to say."

> What you get TV to do for you (we/us) depends entirely on how well
> you target your approach to them - same as anything marketing. If you
> can give them an angle that will help them sell advertising, they'll
> look at you. So it depends on the kind of program you want to target.

This is quite different depending where you are and what type of tv
station it is. I've done some (radio and tv) in Germany, the occasions
that they are waiting for you are rare because a Linux distribution is
no real news to get excited over.

> What I was wondering about, though, was: suppose we're successful in
> getting a TV spot? What then?

This is a very different thing. There you are on the spot with all
your thoughts about targets and all other stuff. Because advertizing
is always a question of target.

> Marketing is the same whether commercial or otherwise - it's about
> getting the message out. First decide what you want it to be;
> second, construct it; third, spread it. Simplified, but that's the
> job.

That's all what I was talking about. :)

-- 
wobo