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“Peter possesses a keen sense and insight for turning telecom services and products into customers and dollars. He is passionate about this industry, his work and the people he serves. Visit his site, read his blog and sign up for his newsletter at marketingideaguy.com and you will discover what makes Peter a sought after marketing consultant.”

Cynthia de Lorenzi, CEO, Patriot Computer Group
Some Stuff Happened While I Was on Daycation
On Rad's Radar
Monday, 23 April 2012 10:23

I was taking today and tomorrow off to visit with some pals but the news won't quit.

In the I-can't-stand-it zone, the University of Florida decides that TD's are more important than IT and cuts the Computer Science Department. Just when Florida is playing host to the Rupublican Convention and is looking to make a name for itself, that name becomes DUM or MUD. In a time when we need more science and computer nerds, the state U decides to go a different way.

In Tampa, the former CEO of Savvis has closed his e-commerce company, Savtira, after a flurry of promises to hire 200 people and a number of odg and pony shows about the hot future. Apparently, he has done this before.

Cbeyond has decided that traditional agents are not its future. The Cloud has different demands and demands different partners.

Coresite bought Comfluent to enter the Denver market. "Comfluent plays a vital role in the interconnection community in the western U.S., serving more than 75 customers and managing the Rocky Mountain Internet eXchange (RMIX), the region's largest Internet exchange with access to more than 25 networks. Comfluent currently leases two sites that total approximately 9,300 NRSF," according to the SunHerald

Verizon Wireless wants its deal with the cablecos / SpectrumCo to go through, so it promised to sell off some spectrum. T-Mobile and others think that is just smoke and the deal should still be axed. [see here and there]

Tucows, a domain registrar and fellow ISPCON standard, runs an MVNO called TING.

Vodafone is bidding $1.7B USD to buy Cable & Wireless, according to Rueters

Linux talent will be important in 2013, especially in data centers, reports the Channel Insider

Alex Doyle left Broadsoft for Polycom. Good luck at the new position, Alex!

from Tony: An Insider's Guide to Technology Analysts

Dean Parker, CEO of Callis in Mobile, AL, has been selected in the top 12 finalists for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Alabama/Tennessee/ Georgia region.
Read more... [Some Stuff Happened While I Was on Daycation]
 
Pieces of Advice
NSP Strategist
Friday, 20 April 2012 07:45

Here are small pieces of advice for you in marketing.

Are you using social media? Another way to look at it is: Are any of your customers and prospective customers on LinkedIn, Facebook or twitter?

Social media is for interacting, building relationships, and customer service. Many telcos and cablecos use twitter to solve customer problems (and do reputation management).

“Other ways small businesses can achieve in a competitive market is to offer improved customer service, set the bar higher in all aspects of the company, be innovative and creative and don’t quit in the face of competition, according to Mueller." Up the ante for customer service with twitter (like so many ILECs and XO have done). Another way is live chat. Live chat has proven to increase sales too.

Note that: Email drives more purchases than Facebook & text combined, according to this article. Where;s that monthly or quarterly email newsletter from you?

Not only is Comcast pushing Hosted PBX, they are now offering Exchange and Sharepoint – unified messaging and collaboration. See it here.

This just in: "Data from the comScore Video Metrix service shows that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in March, while video ads topped 8 billion for the first time on record. Video ads reached 51 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 53 times during the month....Average viewer watched almost 22 hours of video online in March, 2012." That's a lot of video bandwidth!

Peter Radizeski is a telecommunications consultant and analyst with RAD-INFO INC. Service Providers have called on RAD-INFO INC for assistance building a channel, improving sales, managing online marketing efforts, and overall company strategy. Contact RAD-INFO INC at 813-963-5884 or http://rad-info.net

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Why PR Is Important
On Rad's Radar
Friday, 20 April 2012 06:51
On a call today talking about the value of different CLEC's and ILEC's and why some are trading so low and some so high. For the most part, it comes down to Wall Street's perception of the business. Actually, a large part is what the stock traders think the business is.

For example, Cincinnati Bell is an ILEC with declining wireline revenues like  Frontier, Fairpoint and TDS. Like TDS, CinBell has been buying up data centers. Via acquisitions and the public relations that goes with those actions, CinBell is changing the way Wall Street looks at their firm.

Public relations plays a big part in stock price, especially when you consider that most people have very little idea about the World of Telecom. Throw in cable and cloud and you have confused not just Wall Street, but even people in our own Industry.

When I work with master agencies and service providers on their online marketing strategy, the discussion is generally around, "How do we make what you do concrete and easy to understand?" or "How do we tell a story that describes it picture perfect so that it can be repeated?"

To take that another step, PR is about who your clients are, who your employees are, and who the company is (in terms of the marketplace). With so many CLEC's, VoIP Providers and Cloud companies, PR is one way to differentiate yourself. For example, if you close a deal with a school system, a government agency, a retail chain, you want to describe that sale - who, what they bought, the benefits of the purchase, and maybe why they bought from you. Like a mini case study.

If you look at something like a softswitch manufacturer, you can tell from analyst calls that Wall Street doesn't really have a handle on what they do - mainly software licensing.  And because of all the hype with Cloud, cloud stocks are doing well despite most folks not knowing what the heck the cloud is! Amazing isn't it?

One last point: PR helps telcos out because the PR machine props up the stock price which in turn lowers their debt payments which can be tied to a stock price (or other financial metric).

There are a few avenues for PR: press releases, case studies, social media, executives speaking at conferences, media interviews, and more. So many ways to get the message out and yet so few do it (well).
Read more... [Why PR Is Important]
 
Tampa Bay 1000
Marketing Idea Guy
Thursday, 19 April 2012 15:38
The Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce held an Innovation discussion today. One idea was to recognize 1000 very small businesses (let’s say less than 7 employees). I am starting the list here.  Add to it in comments or by sending me an email at peter (at) barcamptampabay (dot) org RAD-INFO INC Carvoyant (formerly AutoIQ) Dropost.it [...]

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Execution Not Ideas
Marketing Idea Guy
Monday, 16 April 2012 16:15
Thomas Edison says Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. Tony Francisco says, “10% Idea, 30% Execution/Implementation, then 60% growth/scale/build/improve”

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What is the Value Prop of VoIP?
On Rad's Radar
Monday, 16 April 2012 12:51

"It is happening and no one seems interested in stopping it - that hosted voice services are rapidly becoming a commodity service," Dave Michels

"According to the Telecommunications Industry Association, wireless has become the preferred voice-services option. Wireless revenue in 2012 is forecast at $335 billion, while all other forms of fixed network voice revenue will only total $176 billion ($132 billion for wireline, $38 billion for broadband access and $6 billion in cable/television revenue)," blogs David Byrd of Broadvox.

Those are interesting numbers. And there is more interesting numbers when you look at VoIP.

"Zeus Kerravala estimates penetration [of SIP Trunking] is right around 5% in the United States," reports Razorsight. Just 5%! The blog continues with: "In some cases, it is argued, SIP trunks do not save money." This statement flies in the face of an imperative in our industry. If a SIP Trunk isn't saving money, why not sell and install a TDM PRI that has known stability and quality? This would certainly be the reverse of where the Industry is heading: all IP. But if we are heading all IP in a move to save money - more for the carriers than the customers, I think - and SIP Trunks are not a big cost savings, where does that leave the sales proposition?

According to Insight Research, Hosted PBX is about $500M now. That's not a lot. I figure with 1000 service providers running around yelling "I'll save you money" while cutting pricing to close any deal, that figure would have to be greater than $1B.

Revenue is dipping in everything - GigE ports in a data center, T1's, MPLS, DIA, broadband. The only rates going up are cellular and TV.

Scary stat: "In 2010, operators made on average only $13.21 per user per year from mobile VoIP services."

There are reasons that the Hosted PBX revenue is small: VoIP is sold as cheaper than TDM, so on the conversion from TDM to VoIP the bill declines. Also, there is no way to accurately report the Hosted PBX industry with its 1000+ providers out there with everything from an Asterisk box to a Broadsoft suite. Also, switched voice traffic is migrating to other avenues like chat, IM, SMS, and cellular. That's why Unified Messaging and Hosted UC should be huge - but sadly are not.

One reason is that the sales pitch has been so loud for so long on I Will Save You Money that we have trained the marketplace to buy it that way. Sure, you can blame the Agents and the Direct Sales folks, but at the end of the day -- going back to the pin drop in 1986, we have been working on giving away margin and revenue. Oh and neglecting Value.

"The cable industry, without a doubt, is the main purveyor of VoIP in the United States. An industry strategy is to bundle video, VoIP voice and data. The approach is to offer a good deal on the three services....The bundling strategy has served cable operators well and has been embraced by telephone companies," reports Carl Weinschenk. This bundling has even resulted in a Price War. Again no Value, just commodity price shopping.

The thing about VoIP that most companies don't get is that it is just an app - Google Talk or any chat app that adds voice; gaming consoles that let you chat with your peers; Skype; MagicJack; mobile apps on your cellphone; audio conferencing; and now Hosted PBX. The Value of VoIP is that it can be attached to other apps like email or a computer we call a PBX or on another computer we call an IP Phone. The Value isn't in the dial-tone. The Value is in how it is applied and used.

Hosted PBX (and its complicated cousin, Hosted UC) take VoIP to a different level. Therein lies the problem though. Now it's tougher to sell!

The value of VoIP is in a click-to-call button or a Speak Live app on your website that converts prospects into customers.

The value in VoIP is allowing the medical office scheduling to be completed by the computer and not a human to save time, be efficient and let the office manager do other tasks.

With debt piling up and revenue waning, it's time for the carriers to change the way they sell. It's time to sell on Value. It's also time to realize that Layer 7 of the OSI model - Apps - is where they break-away from the ILEC's.

I've written before about what EarthLink should do, about niche marketing and about bundling. No is listening yet. But I will keep trying to drive this point home.

Another way to look at it:

People would pay more for Voice if we would sell it in a non-traditional way. Stop selling it like a POTS line.

Look at what Jon Arnold writes, "Building off that base, [ShoreTel] understands the voice 2.0 value proposition - it's all about the applications and the experience - not just cheaper, reliable connectivity. With VoIP, dial tone quickly becomes a commodity, and their view is that high value applications are the best way to differentiate against low priced competitors. One example was their Live Answer demo - a simple cloud-based diagnostic tool that shows what percentage of calls is being answered live. This basic piece of information has inherent value not just in the contact center, but for any business where phone inquiries can lead to sales."
Read more... [What is the Value Prop of VoIP?]
 
It's Not Just About Price
On Rad's Radar
Monday, 16 April 2012 12:17
This article in the NYT article about Amazon is about the book publishing industry. Amazon is waging a battle against book publishers over price. As a book buyer, I often wonder how an e-book can cost almost the same as the printed version. In this article, the publishes yell about the way Amazon undercuts their other sellers and demands lower prices - like Home Depot and WalMart.

Reading the comments, I think most people miss two points: books can still be published without publishers (although they may be inferior products) and Amazon is more about ease of business - easy to order, easy to get delivered.  Most websites do NOT have that. Yesterday, during a pitch at Startup Weekend Tampa, one company mentioned the online shopping cart abandonment problem - 65% on average - it is about ease of use and transparency. On Amazon, you know what shipping and taxes (zero) will cost before you get through the cart. Not so on most other sites. You get shipping sticker shock (maybe because we are used to almost free shipping and no taxes from online retailers). There is also the matter of filling in all the forms. So folks just say Good bye. Wasn't OpenID supposed to help with this problem?

easy.jpgEveryone blames it on the pricing model. Doesn't matter the Industry - books or telecom.  It isn't just price.  It's Value, Trust and Ease.

Value is something that needs to be communicated. If you can't deliver a product - book or telecom service - as cheaply as the giant, you have to accept a smaller market share. You have to deliver Value first and last. You have to build Trust. And you better be easy to deal with from the sale to the end of time. Or you lose. The difference between cost and price is Value. Not everyone sees Value.

There's a number out there - 1000, 2000, 10K, 100K, 1M - the number of customers that you need to have a healthy business selling at your price and delivering your value. It's called a Tribe. Go build it!

When the authors talk about publishers, not all publishers give value. And they do take some control. To self publish (or use Amazon), you have to market your books yourself. In other words, you have to build your Tribe. Some authors do this well, some don't.

In the article, they talk about Amazon being all that is left. That's unlikely, with Apple, Barnes & Noble, Independents and the Big Book Houses. And as much as I rail against WalMart, there are alternatives.

This makes me say look at how Target competes against WalMart. One way is talking about design and the exclusive stuff they offer. It's still clothes, just Bundled better. It's a nicer, cleaner store (User Experience).

So when you are competing against the Giant, think about  these factors: What is your Value? Are you building a Tribe? How are you Bundling your product? How Easy are you to buy from and deal with? Do they Trust you? These are the hallmarks of success.
Read more... [It's Not Just About Price]
 
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