NOTES: This is a step in a planned Branding exercise that is outlined here:
Brand Strategy Purpose and Workflow
We are basing this entire thread on this simple idea: The purpose of undertaking the branding of Drupal is to accelerate the adoption of Drupal.
Which begs the question: Adoption by who?
Who is our target group? What are their demographics? Psychographics?
Obviously, there are going to be some opinions to be shared on this topic! Let me help out by defining a method that I went through at Volacci to help us find out who our most ideal customers. It's a method that I wrote about in Drupal Watchdog and was designed for a business. First, we took a list of all our customers and ranked them from most successful down to least successful. Then we drew two lines to divide our customers into A, B, and C clients.
Then, we deleted the B & C clients from the spreadsheet. We started looking for the commonalities between the clients that were Volacci's "A" clients. We found several things that were similar and many more that we thought were important but ended up not
Once we figured out who our top customers were and the commonalities between them, we knew who we should be targeting in the future.
Obviously, we can't do that for Drupal. It's just too big already. So, think about your own customers. Which ones were the most successful? Which were simply delighted by Drupal? And, importantly, why were these customes so good?
Then, share some basic demographics and psychographics about them.
Since this is a very diverse topic, I'm going to give us 4-5 days to work on this but no more.
Thanks!
Comments
Keypoints
Here are some keypoints that I've seen among my A clients. (I deliver mainly to SMEs):
They had internal marketing and communication staff on the team who had knowledge about web sites and online marketing and were looking for somebody to handle the tough technical parts they didn't have knowledge to carry out by themselves
They kept coming up with new needs that required altering whole or parts of the web site, and were really thrilled to see how malleable the drupal site was, how we could move things around, add or remove from the views and so on.
They were concerned about security and performance
They were always in a hurry to get something done and released, and the web site was important to them
Those are my factors, what do others see?
Excellent!
At Volacci, we see very similar things. When a marketing director or CMO hires us it's because they're already doing other things well and don't have time or don't have expertise in the online space.
I love your comments about how they were thrilled to see how malleable Drupal was. I think that is a huge selling point for our platform. I don't know how this compares to WordPress or CQ5.
"In a hurry" describes a lot of marketing people quite well. And, I agree that the web isn't just some throw-away extra. It's very important to those customers.
Well said. I agree on all points.
Ben Finklea
Chair, Drupal Branding and Marketing* Committee
*BAM!
Commenting to follow ...
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Test assumptions
Hi all,
I would lover to have some empirical, tested facts about (potential)drupal users and (potential) drupal clients and their perception of the system and the drupal brand.
Could it be worth to appy the Lean Startup Principles to find out more about these 2 groups and what they think of drupal? Or are there already ideas about segmentation of these groups.
I think there are different
I think there are different targets with different tactics for each of those targets. The targets can then be subdivided further. However, the different goals all have one thing in common - building relationships with people.
Target 1 - Talent
"Working with Drupal is GREAT because I..."
Target 2 - Customers
"I want Drupal as my software solution because I..."
The motivations between the two target groups are completely different. We should be thinking about two branding strategies to meet each of these groups.
Using Apple as an example:
http://www.apple.com
This screams - look at all the cool products we have that will do what you need them to do. We have a new computer with this nifty thing called retina display, but we also have other computers, tablets, phones, and applications!
https://developer.apple.com/
Design. Code. Build. Innovate.
Each of them has a different call to action for a different audience. Each is carefully crafted for that audience.
We should also be thinking about our two main audiences as target groups - and then slicing and dicing the demographics based on that.
Spot on
I think you're absolutely right. In fact, that's in our charter to target these two groups specifically. I like the way you fleshed it out. Very helpful.
I definitely think that there is a potential for two completely separate brand messages. It too early to try to figure out exactly how to implement that. Great thinking here.
Ben Finklea
Chair, Drupal Branding and Marketing* Committee
*BAM!
Yes - I agree it is too soon
Yes - I agree it is too soon for tactics. My main point is that we should be clearly identifying two different kinds of targets and slicing and dicing those targets the demographics on those two groups. They have highly different motivations.
split talent in 2 groups:
I would maybe like to add a division of Talent:
- people who see drupal as a goal (developers, module builders)
- people who see drupal as a tool to reach a certain goal. (part of the site builders, part of admins, consultants, designers, people working with more platforms)
I agree - we'll find there
I agree - we'll find there are sub-groups in each major target pool.
Nice!
Excellent thinking here. Perhaps too soon, but great to share the idea when it's in your head rather than let the moment pass.
John Hannah
Friendly Machine