When I was reading this mail, I was in my cousin brother's place, and he was using windows. He was looking for an anti-virus software to protect his desktop. Then I told him to go for Ubuntu which free OS, with free open office. I also offered to have a look into the system since I was carrying Ubuntu in a flash drive. I also told him that no change will be done to your machine. But he was so scared to consider / listen to my advice.
So the fear of unknown may be the major issue to market a new product / service. With Warm Regards V.Kadal Amutham 919444360480 On 4 December 2012 20:36, Rob Weir <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 2:59 AM, Graham Lauder <[email protected]> > wrote: > > On Monday 03 Dec 2012 10:25:22 Rob Weir wrote: > >> I saw a question on this list a week or so ago, along the lines of > >> "Why does a good, free product need to marketed?". This is a good > >> question. I hope I have a good answer. > >> > >> I'd start by invoking the "awareness ladder". Some of you are > >> probably familiar with it. You look at your prospective "customers" > >> and put them in one of the following buckets: > > > > Marketing an Open Source product is always about "Brand Awareness", > certainly > > it is true for OOo. Our goal is always about Brand awareness, that's > why I > > was so pissed about losing the name. It may have been seemingly clumsy > > although the new one is arguably clumsier, but it was ours, it was > unique and > > it was recognisable in it's most visible form: Text > > > > The present and future are slightly different now. Or even more than > slightly. When there was only one significant brand in this space, > OpenOffice.org, the choice for users was easy. It was OpenOffice or > nothing. Now there is more than one choice in this area. This will > tend to leave solution-aware and product-aware users in a state where > they want to be persuaded to use one product or a other. Even with a > free product there is an angst to pick the "right one". So they'll be > looking at reviews, comparisons, articles, etc. In addition to the > kinds of things we did before we need to now account for this > > >> > >> 1) Unaware -- does not know about your product or even the problem it > solves > > > > Brand awareness solves the former, the latter is education > > > > So the example here would be a Microsoft Office user. The use Office > at work. They occasionally want to work on documents at home. So > they naturally look for the best price they can get for Microsoft > Office. Or they try to install their work copy but fail on > "activation". They don't know there is such thing as an open source > office suite. They don't know there is an alternative to Microsoft > Office. > > So it is education, but it is a hard nut to crack, because they are > not looking for us. They are looking for something else entirely. > > We might be able to get some traction by designing a custom "landing > page" that appeals to their concerns and does the initial education. > By designing the landing page with the right keywords in mind we would > aim to get good placement for the kinds of search queries that this > kind of user would be executing. Maybe several such pages, one for > each segment, like home individual user, school user, enterprise/CIO, > etc. > > If we had an advertising budget we would have other approaches > available, but the landing page / SEO approach is a good free > approach. > > >> > >> 2) Problem aware -- knows about the problem, but not that there are > >> solutions, or that your product is a solution > > > > This is a biggy, but is more at the advertising end than marketing: Our > > opposition has managed to convince the customer that some big problems > that > > OOo solves are not really problems at all, just a cost of doing > business. The > > biggies are purchase cost, license management and upgrade cost. > > > > I think we own advertising as well, though of course we have funding > limitations. So advertising would need to focus on what we can do for > free via social media campaigns and similar. So trying to reach the > "friend of a friend" and pushing that out over time. > > >> > >> 3) Solution aware -- knows that there are solutions, but does not know > >> about your solution > > > > Brand awareness > > > > Yes. > > >> > >> 4) Product aware -- knows about your product > > > > Which is where need to get to and what our marketing focus should be on. > > > >> > >> 5) Fully aware -- is using your product, recommending it to others, etc. > > > > Which is where we want to be, but getting from 4 to 5 is sales. We > should > > (and do) provide collateral for people at the sharp end to use. > > > > Yes. The difference between 4 and 5 is 4 might be an iPad user and 5 > is the person who sits outside the Apple Store at night waiting to be > the first one to buy. We need to enable our fans to help promote > OpenOffice. > > > > [....] > >> > >> Note that the competitive "my product is better than your product" is > >> mainly at levels 4 and 5. Until then you are not so much selling a > >> product, but selling an idea, the idea that there is a problem that > >> has solutions. > >> > >> So what does this mean for open source like Apache OpenOffice? What > >> problem are we solving? I've sketched out some possibilities on the > >> wiki here: > >> > >> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Why+OpenOffice > >> > >> Most of them are variations on "I need an office suite for X but I > >> don't want to pay for Microsoft Office". Some people know that have > >> that problem and are looking for a solution. (They are "problem > >> aware"). But others don't even know there is something like a free > >> office suite. Others know there is a problem and that there are > >> alternative solutions and want to know what the advantages of Apache > >> OpenOffice are. > >> > >> So even with free, open source software, there is still need for > >> marketing, especially with the earlier steps on the awareness ladder. > >> > >> We might think that OpenOffice is one of the most prominent open > >> source brands around -- and indeed it is. But I recently commissioned > >> a brand awareness survey of US internet users and only 24% of them had > >> heard of the OpenOffice brand. > > > > You did? Cool. Actually that's quite a bit higher than I thought would > have > > been the case for a "US only" demographic which actually has a very low > user > > base in proportion to population, I'd call that a positive result > > > > Yes. This was done via Google Consumer Surveys, a new service they > started a month or so ago. The results are weighted to match a US > demographic model. So they try to get the right distribution of ages, > sex, region, urban/suburban and income to match the US national > averages. Unlike surveys that we trigger from our home page, this one > was not self-selected and biased toward existing users. It was more > representative. > > > > >> So beyond the relatively small circle > >> of open source enthusiasts, we're still unknown. > > > > In Europe the numbers would be considerably higher. > > > >> Of course, this is a > >> huge opportunity for growth. > >> > > > > This is gold, are we able to access more info about the survey? > > > > Here it is: > > What is your familiarity with the software application called "OpenOffice"? > > > I have never heard of it > 75.7% > > I am aware of it but have never used it > 9.1% > > I use it only sometimes > 6.1% > > I use it on a regular basis > 4.7% > > I have tried it once > 4.5% > > Where it gets interesting is when you transform this data into "pass > through" rates, thinking of this as a funnel: awareness -> trying -> > adopting > > So 24% have heard about OpenOffice. Of those who heard about it, 63% > have tried it. Of those who tried it, 71% continued to use it > (sometimes or on regular basis). > > So you can think of overall market share as a product of these three > factors: Market Share = Awareness * TryRate * StickRate. > > IMHO this is quite good, especially in the high rate of those who > continued use after trying it. That shows we have a good product. > > So to improve overall market share, we can increase any of those three > factors. > > > 1) Make more people aware of OpenOffice > > 2) Make more people try OpenOffice once they are aware of it > > 3) Make more people remain with OpenOffice after they have tried it > > Factor 3 is mainly a Dev task, I think. As the product improves that > number will naturally increase. Our main task, as a marketing effort, > is to increase the first two numbers. > > (Btw, I did a similar survey for LibreOffice as well. Their results > were abysmal.) > > > >> So yes, OpenOffice needs marketing, even though it is free. But the > >> emphasis probably should focus on enlarging the universe of potential > >> users who are aware of this product category and of that OpenOffice is > >> the premier solution within that category. In a sense we're the > >> ambassadors of open source to the wider consumer market, the first > >> open source product that many users learn about. > > > > Firefox is of course the most commonly used user space OSS product but > I'd be > > interested to know what proportion of those users associate it with Open > > Source, or even know what "Open Source" is. > > > > In the old "Must, Should, Could" knowledge divisors it's always been my > > opinion that the fact that it is Open Source is in the "Should Know" > category. > > The question is around the marketing value of the term Open Source. > Will the > > Open Source message increase brand awareness? There is good argument to > be > > made that it is more likely that someone being aware of the term > OpenSource > > would be aware of OOo so therefore there is little need to push the Open > > Source message. > > > > However, having said that, corporate clients specifically looking for > Open > > Source solutions to solve licensing problems could see that as an > attractor, > > especially under an Apache license. > > > > One group that we should be marketing to are the small to medium software > > development and support businesses. "Build your own Office suite and > package, > > sell and support it!" One advantage of this group is there is likely a > higher > > awareness of the brand already and could also be a a source of dev > > recruitment. Some proposals in this direction would be excellent. > > > > So what would be the best way to reach them? Is there a particular > magazine they tend to read? Maybe someplace where we can get an > interview? > > -Rob > > > Thanks for this Rob, good stuff. > > > > Cheers > > GL > > > > > > > >> > >> Regards, > >> > >> -Rob >
