Operations as marketing makes back-end technologies the hero.
It’s been busy here lately, not much time to put together a coherent thought let alone a blog post. Too much stuff swirling around in my head. However, the one thing I’ve been meaning to write a bit about was our recent co-presentation with Microsoft on operations as marketing.
The format was a 1-1/2 hour presentation from us and MS to some of their clients here in the Twin Cities. We kicked it off with a short deck that explains the concept of operations as marketing, then we handed over to Microsoft for an discussion of technologies that enable this kind of marketing and finally we finished with some case studies of work we’ve (ZJ and Microsoft) done to show how it can work in practice (sorry I can’t share the deck at the moment, maybe later). All in all we thought the presentation was a success. We had some good discussion afterwards and heard that a lot of the attendees rated it very highly. (Importantly, we have some good follow-ups too!)
What was most interesting though was while we had rehearsed a bit beforehand, we didn’t really know what Microsoft was going to say (nor they us), and to be honest, we were a bit nervous about that. However, when it finally came down to it, our talks were surprisingly consistent, because while operations as marketing is a great marketing story it’s an even better technology story.
As you know, the idea behind operations as marketing is to find some internal aspect of a company’s existing business, something that they’re already doing, that can be modified and made transparent in order to also serve as marketing. Because customers generally respond better to businesses who are better run, the best way to run your business can also be the best way to market your business. This is the definition that makes sense to a business or marketing person, but to a technology person, the way they’d translate that is that it’s about exposing one or more of your internal, back-end data feeds to the public.
For example the brilliant Hertz Freerider example that Beata shared, is enabled by exposing inventory data to the public. Dell Swarm is enabled by exposing sourcing data to the public.
As you can imagine, this is a particularly great story for a company like Microsoft to tell as its software powers the back-office of most of the world’s largest companies these days. In addition, products like Sharepoint are tailor-made for providing controlled access to vital back-end business data. What’s interesting about this is that this makes Microsoft a better partner for many agencies like us than traditional front-end players like Adobe or even web-based companies like Google!
I’ve been saying this over and over to a bunch of their people but I don’t get the sense they find it as interesting as I do. What do you think? Am I nuts here?
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Tags: marketing, operations as marketing, technology, Zeus Jones
Pros and Cons of PPC | Internet Marketing Says:
June 10th, 2009 at 3:21 pm[...] Operations as marketing makes back-end technologies the hero. [...]
malbiniak Says:
June 10th, 2009 at 3:53 pmas someone who was traumatized be a bad sharepoint experiences, i'd have to say you're nuts, except for this incredibly on point observation:
“customers generally respond better to businesses who are better run, the best way to run your business can also be the best way to market your business.”
eureka. as a customer in the market, i can't say how warm this makes me feel inside knowing that agencies are helping customers embrace this mentality.
as always, great post, and looking forward to the next one.
rock on,
-mla
adrianho Says:
June 10th, 2009 at 4:56 pmThanks Matt although not happy to hear about your experiences with Sharepoint. We'd love to chat with Nerdery folks about that at some point, maybe I can have Dave put something together. Would love your guys POV on this.
charlesfrith Says:
June 10th, 2009 at 5:04 pmI”ve been thinking about they MSFT people I've come across and all in all I'm inclined to think that the defensiveness of MSFT (from excessive criticism) despite being the de facto operating system of the world has stymied their ability to play, experiment, explore. Keep at it. They've got everything to win by viewing their business the way you do.
I also keep telling their people they are one of the few companies that could change the world if they so chose…again. Which is quite remarkable.
malbiniak Says:
June 10th, 2009 at 5:13 pmFortunately, those horror stories are from lives past, not anything at
the Nerdery. In fact, I've heard our guys have actualy done some
pretty cool integration work with sharepoint, so I might make friends
with it, yet.
-matt
adrianho Says:
June 10th, 2009 at 8:10 pmI think you're definitely right with the defensiveness. Not surprising in some ways but still debilitating.
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Hertz Freerider « Run, Motherfucker, run Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 2:20 pm[...] hertz, zeus jones É por essas e outras que eu reverencio o Adrian Ho. Tava lendo um post lá no blog da Zeus Jones e fiquei [...]
authorityseo Says:
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:17 pmI find the idea of operations as marketing a unique approach especially as people are competing using the same old song and dance every time.
Jim Novo Says:
June 24th, 2009 at 11:47 pmI don't think you are nuts, I've been living this idea my entire career, see:
Large Company
————–
Marketing through Service, with Finance Assist
http://blog.jimnovo.com/2006/12/31/root-cause-t...
Marketing through Product Development
http://blog.jimnovo.com/2008/01/17/listen-up/
Marketing through IT / Telecom
http://blog.jimnovo.com/2008/06/12/optimizing-t...
Marketing through Distribution
http://blog.jimnovo.com/2009/01/23/seo-for-cabl...
Small Company
—————
Marketing through Distribution
http://blog.jimnovo.com/2007/03/12/new-customer...
Marketing through Product Development
http://blog.jimnovo.com/2007/01/25/lab-store-ma...
For those interested in this kind of cross-silo work, which often improves the results of *all* your Marketing efforts:
“Get Started” for Marketers
http://blog.jimnovo.com/2009/01/16/time-for-mar...
BreslowAaron Says:
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:19 amYou are not nuts at all. We live in the 21st century which means that technology and information are primary concepts that any business should work with. Operations is a process that involves both of the main concepts i told you about and you handled it well. Congrats!!
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