Community Based Marketing in Technology Services

An Early Pioneer:

Sponsored (as opposed to Organic) Community Based Marketing in the technology services industry has a rich history. I saw it first hand in the ‘90’s at the game changing technology consulting and services company Cambridge Technology Partners, where I led field marketing in North America and Central Europe. Cambridge, or CTP - later acquired by Novell - certainly utilized traditional marketing communications tools such as advertising, promotion and PR. However, it was the company’s innovative use of Community Based Marketing  that stood out.  A pioneer, the company used it creatively to support its brand expansion, demand generation and customer "stickiness" goals.

CTP's program combined somewhat traditional community building tools with an innovative online platform to achieve its goals.  The Cambridge Information Network (CIN) was a free Web-based service that provided CIO’s and other senior technology executives with an interactive forum to discuss business and technology issues. Participants included technology executives from Federal Express, Microsoft, Cisco and other leading corporations. CIN, essentially an early social networking platform for like-minded senior technology managers to meet and interact, gave CTP exposure to potential customers while increasing loyalty (stickiness) from existing customers. By 1996, over 100 IT executives that mattered were registered on the site. 

CIN didn't invent a community.  Instead it provided the means for an existing community - one that Cambridge Technology Partners was eager to influence and sell to - to more usefully come together online.  IT executives needed a place to interact that augmented the traditional physical world of conferences, user groups and associations.  A place where they could interact with peers that didn't require them to get in a car, fly in an airplane or stay overnight in a hotel.  A location they could access from their desks.  CIN provided them with a Web platform to do just that.

In parallel with CIN, Cambridge Technology Partners' CIO Forum program created a physical companion to the company’s effort to increase customer loyalty and influence potential new customers. The program involved educational partnerships set up between CTP and major universities such as UC Berkeley and Stanford that targeted IT executives; both from among its customers and potential customers. The CIO Forum format involved:

1. A multi-hour classroom setting at university facilities featuring subject matter experts from within CTP and without, presenting on topics important to IT executives,

2. A classroom setting that was highly interactive, supporting peer communication, a “safe” environment without overt selling by CTP or other vendor sponsors such as Oracle, Siebel Systems, Peoplesoft and Sun Microsystems,

3. Tie-in to an end of class cocktail hour and/or sponsored dinner that further promoted networking, community building and customer loyalty,

4. About those other sponsors: CTP invited important technology alliance partners of the day - Oracle, Siebel Systems, Peoplesoft and Sun Microsystems - to co-sponsor the event. The co-sponsorship benefits were substantial when measured in CIO Forum budget share; access to a larger pool of presenter SME’s; co-branding with industry, technology and education leaders; and lead generation (the partners invited their own customers and prospects to attend).

Neither CTP’s nor the partner's sales representatives were allowed to attend the classes, but were permitted, with limitations, to attend the end of day cocktail and dinner networking. There, in a tightly scripted manner they could meet with existing customers and key contacts at related prospects.  Program managers from CTP acted as "facilitators" -introducing customers and prospects to attending sales representatives at the after class networking event.  It was effective.

Cambridge Technology Partner’s Community Based Marketing program brought measurable benefits to the company’s sales and branding efforts by providing bi-directional communications with customers supporting increased feedback, better understanding of customer needs, and support for new service development and launch; reduced communications barriers supporting targeted message delivery to customers and prospects; increased advocacy through word of mouth; and trusted advisor status.

The program, particularly CIN, was an obvious forerunner to today’s wildly successful social networking leaders like Facebook and Linked-In. In fact, CIN was later sold for $8 million to the company EarthWeb.  Many Clean Technology start-ups are successfully employing Community Based Marketing tactics today, cleverly tapping into existing communities representative of their customers and prospects who are passionate about sustainability.  And, in so doing gaining the brand and sales benefits that result.