Marketing for IT pros - goat bayan?

A year ago, I began to read marketing to the masters of the St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University “LETI” as part of the course “IT Product Management”, then I expanded the audience to attend commercial and open courses on IT marketing .

More than once, my friends (mostly developers) asked: “Why should IT professionals give a course on marketing? After all, they will code, test or maintain the IT infrastructure, units will go to project and sales managers. Why do developers need to know what marketing and PR are? ”
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I immediately respond with a series of questions: “Have you been looking for a current job for a long time? Are you satisfied with your salary and ongoing projects? Do you know what your employer expects? Do you do anything to improve your professional level / image? "

Whatever the answer, these are all classic marketing and public relations tools that IT professionals often have to use for their professional growth and development. The fact that without marketing it is impossible to promote software products or services of the company, in this article, we do not even talk.

One of the objects of research conducted in my seminars is the student himself. Here are just a small list of parallels that I draw to explain the relationship between IT and marketing:

IT	Marketing
IT specialist resume	Unique selling proposition
Jobs of employers	Consumer market research (preferences)
Other IT Pros Resume	Competitive analysis
Interview	Product / Service Presentation
Meeting / Travel Report	Press release
Article on Habré	Article on Habré
Etc.	Etc.

In search of truth, I found a rather curious article by author Romi Mahajan, who worked as Director of Digital Marketing and Research at Microsoft. The article is called “IT Management: IT's marketing problem” , I bring to your attention its translation ( and here is the original ).

The perception of the IT sphere by most people is mostly a myth and very far from reality. Below I will talk about some of the most common misconceptions and clarify how things really are.

In the field of IT there are serious problems with marketing. When I tell someone about this, I usually encounter two reactions. The first reaction looks like this:

- IT and marketing? Yes, these are completely different things!

The second reaction is reduced to a close in meaning, but somewhat more complicated statement in the form:

- No kidding! ITshniki - geeks, and geeks do not care about the image.

Both reactions are understandable; and they are also based on a too simplistic vision of the real state of affairs. Marketing problems in IT for the naked eye are hardly noticeable. And you should not look at IT professionals as residents of some alternative universe, where ambition, image and influence do not matter.

We destroy myths

There are a number of allegations about IT professionals that it’s time to recognize the myths that have little to do with reality:

• all “IT people” are boring nerds, and therefore everything is very bad with their communications;
• “IT people” - introverts that cars love more than people;
• "IT people" - a special human population; even within one organization, they speak their own, special language, completely incomprehensible to employees from other departments;
• "IT people" do not understand customers.

We will try to discard all these myths and look at things with an unbiased look. The alternative view was formed, firstly, due to many years of communication and collaboration with the staff of IT departments, and secondly, due to the fact that I represent the interests of the largest and most influential software company on the planet.

Let's start with the myth number 1. The fact that communication between IT professionals is not properly debugged is nothing more than a delusion. My own experience shows that IT people are the most concise, understandable and specific people from all the employees of the organization. Marketing professionals are usually expressed in ornate phrases and rarely say what they really mean. For "IT people" this is not observed. One should not confuse directness and inability to communicate as such - these are completely opposite things.

We now examine the second myth - the myth of introversion. Let's face it: introverts make good workers. You may agree or disagree with this statement. However, in fact, among IT professionals there are both introverts and extroverts. But everyone has one thing in common: they know their subject well.

In our era of Twitter, multitasking, mobile Internet and constant online presence it is very difficult to focus on one thing. Any focused person gives the impression of an introvert. However, it is impossible to obtain new knowledge without concentration, which, in turn, implies loneliness and tranquility. Concentration is the antidote to pathos. We were formed in an era whose culture and economy are based on pathos - that is why we consider IT people as introverts and misanthropes. However, we are mistaken.

The basis of the myth number 3 is the opposition of IT and business. Much has already been written about this mythical division. In the modern world, technology has penetrated into a business to the extent that it is out of the question to oppose IT and business. They interact and form a whole. Reliance on such outdated views does not benefit the enterprise as a whole.

Having got rid of all the previous myths, we will see that IT professionals understand clients perfectly. Often, they communicate with customers more than any other member of the organization. Of course, the clientele of "IT people" may consist of "internal customers" - employees of other departments of the same organization.

Build bridges

How to overcome the established stereotypes of perception of IT people? The answer to this question lies in solving a marketing problem, which can be formulated in the form of the following provisions:

• IT professionals need to be more active and more talkative.
• IT professionals must remind everyone that the very existence of a business is possible thanks to information technology.
• IT managers should pay close attention to communication with other employees in the organization.

These are all marketing problems. The first two problems are internal, and you can easily solve them on your own.

Solution # 1: Be active and speak louder about yourself. Yes, the statement that “a good IT person is a quiet IT person” is very widespread. But there is one argument against this position: if you keep silent, then you will be perceived accordingly. In addition, it is silence that causes ignorance of the specifics of the work of IT specialists. IT professionals should be as open and understandable as possible when it comes to what they can do and what they do. Salespeople always trumpet about their successes, and marketers, too. The "IT people" also have the right to everyone to trumpet about their successes, if necessary. The indisputable fact is that the effective work of the business is largely possible thanks to IT people.

Solution # 2: Business is IT dependent. Any more or less large business cannot exist without information technology. IT departments should regularly conduct special campaigns to explain how their work makes possible the activities of other departments. In the end, many of us take the normal functioning of corporate information systems for granted.

Of course, the initiative of all changes comes from managers. But it is the IT specialists who are taking this initiative, and this report of this fact to a wide audience should also be the goal of marketing work.

Decision number 3: let the manager contribute to increasing your popularity in the organization. A study conducted by Microsoft in 2006 showed that IT professionals would like to interact more with other employees of the organization, but they spend too much time on other activities.

Do not take this state of affairs as a matter of course. Every day you need to spend time analyzing the priorities and requirements of other departments of the organization. It is necessary that “IT specialists” attend meetings with representatives of other departments that are far from them. "IT people" will learn a lot of new things, learn to better understand and feel other employees. All this will allow you to create in the organization such relationships that can become the basis for excellent marketing.

Here are three simple solutions to the problem of forming the image of IT professionals in an organization. You may need to do much more to ensure that your organization’s IT community has a proper reputation. The steps above are a good start.

Afterword

Not with all the ideas of the article I can agree, let's discuss. And, of course, interesting experience habrachiteli:

• What do you think about sabzh article - the relationship of marketing and IT?
• Do you use these marketing tools to build your IT career?

Questions for sweets :

• Does your company have a separate marketing specialist or are all tasks in this area distributed among several employees?
• If so, whom does he involve in marketing work (writing press releases, articles on Habré, making presentations, etc.)?

I would be very pleased with different opinions, suggestions and, of course, new contacts.

Many thanks to my colleagues Emelyanov Andrei AndreiYemelianov for the prompt translation and Stanislav Kim staskin1 for thoughtful reading, proofreading and a wonderful illustration.