Consumers now more than ever expect ubiquitous access to information. If there’s a singular takeaway from the ‘Next Generation in Cloud’ session hosted by Phil Wainewright at SIIA’s All About the Cloud Conference in San Francisco, then that is it.
Phil asked the question in so many words, how do you educate people to use your products?
Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale shared his perspective,
“We’ve focused on trying to provide content of value in one or another forms. It’s stating the obvious that if you have a SaaS offering, your customers are on the web, so you are offering the product on the web and that’s where you need to reach them.”
He proclaimed, “The product really is the marketing”
The point seemed to suggest that it is a good idea to give users exposure and educate them at the same time. Using free trials or free offerings to get new users in the mix has a profound significance in delivering value, while allowing a risk-free surface impression of the product. The conversation shifted onto the use of education tools like webinars. Mr. Crandell continued regarding this medium that the following rule should be in effect, ‘stay low on the salesy part, and high on the content part.’ He went on to share that using other tools like forums, knowledge bases and wikis have proven to also bring ‘content of value’
-some other good stuff from GoodData:
CEO of GoodData, Roman Stanek summarized the state of innovation this way. He indicated it used to be innovative companies had innovative IT people bringing innovation to companies and now its all about the innovative consumers themselves. He also said in reference to their philosophy, “we don’t just deliver bits and bytes, we deliver the whole experience.”
Phil asked the question in so many words, how do you educate people to use your products?
Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale shared his perspective,
“We’ve focused on trying to provide content of value in one or another forms. It’s stating the obvious that if you have a SaaS offering, your customers are on the web, so you are offering the product on the web and that’s where you need to reach them.”
He proclaimed, “The product really is the marketing”
The point seemed to suggest that it is a good idea to give users exposure and educate them at the same time. Using free trials or free offerings to get new users in the mix has a profound significance in delivering value, while allowing a risk-free surface impression of the product. The conversation shifted onto the use of education tools like webinars. Mr. Crandell continued regarding this medium that the following rule should be in effect, ‘stay low on the salesy part, and high on the content part.’ He went on to share that using other tools like forums, knowledge bases and wikis have proven to also bring ‘content of value’
-some other good stuff from GoodData:
CEO of GoodData, Roman Stanek summarized the state of innovation this way. He indicated it used to be innovative companies had innovative IT people bringing innovation to companies and now its all about the innovative consumers themselves. He also said in reference to their philosophy, “we don’t just deliver bits and bytes, we deliver the whole experience.”
