Last session of the day - a panel discussion on breaking through the noise in the marketplace. The panel:

• Craig Fairfield - VP Of Marketing for QlikTech (BI)
• Michael Salerno - In the CRM group at Oracle. Also associated with the BPMA (Boston Product Management Association)
• Paul Zengilowski - Director of Product Marketing at DataCert.
• Paul Gannon - Senior Director of Corporate Marketing for TMA Resources

Paul Gannon: his firm is business to business, but they've found some success acting like business to consumer. This has been something of a tough fit culturally at the firm. What does that mean? They've started doing more "fun" stuff (example: jugglers in a trade booth) to get attention.

Paul Zengilowski: they realized that they weren't big enough to play the same game as everyone else. They settled on two sales channels: direct sales and their existing customers (who were driving perceptions of the company). They focused on "Thought Leadership" as a way of driving authority. They did that by creating a client advisory board (made up of clients and partners who they do business with). They got a lot of traction out of setting up these directed events. They are now starting to see their clients and prospects calling them to get meetings set up in their locales. They aren't using blogging/podcasting.

Michael Salerno: There is a lot of noise that you need to cut through in order to differentiate yourself. A few things to develop:

• What is your message? What problem do you solve?
• Once you know what your value is, identify who your audience is/should be
• Execute with conviction. make sure that the content you deliver has real value - do more than "phone it in"

Craig Fairfield: Two things: What are you going to say, and how are you going to say it? Be truthful - don't try to push BS. If your business isn't at the C* level execs, don't craft your message as if you do. Likewise, if you do sell there, make sure you do craft it that way. Put more simply, keep it real. Don't change marketing strategies quickly: Stick with something consistently for a period of time (at least 6 months). One other thing: this is the software industry: demos are king. Craig is amazed at how many people he runs across who cannot do a useful demo of what problem their product solves. How do you get that message across? Try to get other people pushing your message - customers especially. A poorly articulated message from a customer beats a great message from the CEO. No one believes your CEO.

"Go big or go home" - if there are 10 trade shows in your sector, find the most relevant one and make a big splash, instead of going to all 10 and going small. Along those lines, less is more. Talk to one analyst instead of trying to talk to 20 of them.

In an answer to an audience question, demos should be quick and to the point - they need to convey the key pain point that the product solves quickly. If your demo drives a prospect into a feature comparison conversation, you created the wrong demo. You should get into the product within 5 minutes, and out of the demo quickly as well. Don't waste a lot of the precious time with the prospect/customer in powerpoint.

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