Who is attending the Forrester AR Council meeting next week? IT Forum?

SageCircle strategist Carter Lusher is heading to Lost Wages on Monday to attend the Forrester events. If you are going to either IT Forum 2008 or AR Council meeting and would like to meet, please let Carter know.  Carter will be on the “Analyst Relations 2.0″ ARC panel at 10 AM on Tuesday the 20th and attending the IT Forum [...]

Best practice for responding to analyst draft research

This best practice comes from guest contributor Gerry Van Zandt (Twitter handle), AR manager with HP Services.
Often (as you know) analysts will provide drafts of research notes or event-reaction pieces to vendors to review for inaccuracies.  You have a limited opportunity to provide a response or comment and need a process for action. Here are [...]

How does one become an analyst? [AR Practitioner Question]

At a recent client meeting we got an interesting question: How does a person become an analyst? Is there certification? A test?
At this time the requirements for becoming an analyst consist of ownership of a laptop, cell phone, business card and an opinion. A website and / or blog are nice, but not required. There [...]

So, have you started planning and executing your Fall Symposium campaign yet?

Hmm, let’s see, Gartner’s Fall Symposia series kicks off on October 12 with Europe, Japan and Australia following through mid-November. That is what, five months away? I’m sure that many folks are thinking that there is plenty of time to worry about educating the Gartnerians.
Alas, if that is your impression then you will not like [...]

Incorporating social media into your measurement program

A critical success factor for best-in-class analyst relations (AR) programs is an appropriate measurement program. A measurement program can help AR managers demonstrate the business value of AR, generate information to improve day-to-day operations, and harvest intelligence valuable to the Sales organization. As social media matures into a regular part of the business communications environment [...]

AR-Sales Partnership [part 6]: Action items to launch a project

In the past several posts we have discussed key ideas of building a bridge to sales and how to start a pilot program.  Now that you have decided to launch your own AR-Sales Partnership program, you need a plan that lists the action items you need to complete.
SageCircle Technique:

Educate yourself so you know all your [...]

AR-Sales Partnership [part 5]: Use edu-marketing to drive participation

Ok, you have successfully launched your AR-Sales Partnership Pilot Program. Now you sit and stare at the phone waiting for these selected sales reps to call you asking for help. And you wait. And you wait. And you…
A fact of corporate life is that sales representatives are completely interrupt driven and often will not remember [...]

Gartner Q1 FY08 Earnings - No decrease in research growth

This analysis does not look at areas of interest to investors, but seeks to pull out insights that are relevant to clients and prospects as well as communications and IT vendor analyst relations (AR) teams.
Press release summary: Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) reported results for first quarter 2008. Contract value, a key leading indicator for Gartner’s [...]

AR–Sales Partnership [part 4]: Take baby steps by rolling out a small pilot phase

AR teams can impact company revenues directly through assisting sales representatives, either to overcome negative - or leverage positive - analyst commentary and research to close deals. However, AR managers often shy away from supporting Sales because they fear it will ‘open the floodgates’ to hundreds or thousands of requests. To prevent this deluge, AR [...]

AR-Sales Partnership [part 3]: Creating the plan

Working with Sales to leverage the analysts’ position in the marketplace to drive sales takes both processes and time. Therefore AR departments should generate a plan that looks at both the long term issues and day-to-day activities. The plan should clearly define goals and outline the programs and execution steps that will be taken to [...]

Random notes on Twitter

The Analyst Twitter Directory is now up to 60 entries with more analysts added every week. It is interesting that this is one of the most visited pages on the SageCircle blog.
Edelman’s Jonny Bentwood (Twitter) has done another crackerjack piece of research with Top analyst twitters / micro-bloggers. He has come up with an interesting framework [...]

AR-Sales Partnership [part 2]: Building the bridge to Sales

The first order of business for an analyst relations (AR) team launching an AR-Sales Partnership Program is to sell Sales on the idea. Without buy-in from sales management, AR will not be able to execute a successful partnership and merely waste time. Getting Sales management buy-in will not assure success, but it will certainly provide [...]

Social media should not be a “special” activity for AR, just part of the overall AR plan

You do have an AR plan, don’t you?
Your strategic AR plan, the one with the charter and objectives, lists of all interactions types to be used for each purpose, service levels by analyst tier, calendar and priorities?
Ok, unfair question as many AR teams are so under the gun that a plan is often considered a [...]

The initial analyst briefing for a startup (Startup Saturday)

As part of our Startup Saturday series we have suggested that AR should be a significant investment for emerging companies and how analysts can play a role in building market awareness.  We offered techniques for introducing yourself to an analyst - so let’s be practical about the presentation you use for your first briefing.
The most [...]

Call for case study volunteers - How the analysts impacted a sales deal

One of the most powerful tools that analyst relations teams have to convince their companies’ executives about the business value of AR is a case study on an impact that an industry analyst had on a specific deal. For example, when we published “SageNoteTM AR107 — Case Study: Rapid Response by AR saves a $35 [...]

Commercially available systems - The ROI of an Analyst Relationship Management System (part two)

This is the second in a series of posts that will explore the resources required and the advantages gained in using a formal analyst relationship management (ARM) system.  In this post we look at some of the commercially available products.  Upcoming posts will suggest some best practices in using a system, and look at the [...]

What is the definition of “analyst”?

Over on Twitter, there is a conversation starting about the definition of “analyst.” This post is to provide a place to gather ideas and see if we can come to consensus. Please leave comments with your thoughts.
There is almost no barrier to entry for someone to call themselves an analyst. All one needs is an [...]

AR’s turn - How industry analysts can come to briefings better prepared

After we published Research consumer’s turn - How industry analysts can be better prepared for inquiries we received several suggestions about how we should give AR managers’ their turn. In this case, the AR managers wanted to give the analysts a few friendly tips to the analysts about how the analysts can come to briefings better [...]