For PR practitioners in the technology world, industry analysts are a vital audience.
These firms continue to directly guide and influence corporate IT purchases, drive market trands and help end-users make sense of the ever changing technology world – where if pure marketing was to be believed, every firm solves every problem.
As a result, successful analyst relations (AR) is key to the success of any technology firm.
I wrote previously about Forrester’s new initiative the ARM Council. It aims to provide a network for analyst relations staff at subscribing vendors and it’s a fantastic program which has real benefits for the vendor. It provides a forum for practitioners to share ideas and request advice and guidance on any problems they are encountering in the analyst arena.
The ARM council also organizes conference calls where Forrester analysts and AR folks can come together to discuss issues and learn more about how each other works.
I attended one of the sessions last week and it was excellent. Three Forrester analysts outlined their preferences, highlighted areas to watch out for and took questions from the AR people on the call. This kind of first hand interaction, from a marketing perspective, is hugely beneficial for both parties.
The big take away from the session is that every analyst is different, even within the same firm. Some prefer PowerPoints, some prefer whiteboard sessions, some like e-mailed updates, some will use anonymous customer references. In short, you need to understand each analyst’s specific preferences and make sure you cater for them.
In the aftermath of the session, I suggested to the council specialist that it might be useful to convene a session without any analysts present, so that the vendor representatives could discuss AR-related issues away from the analysts!
One of the major issues facing AR is the hired gun analyst. These are firms who accept payment to promote vendors regardless of their merits. Just like our unethical PR brethren, these firms are a tiny minority of the analyst community, but they are there.
One of these firms recently told me that unless we paid them a retainer ($20K minimum) that they would not accept briefings from us and that under no circumstances would they discuss our company or products with the media, partners or customers. Their reason for this was, if we’re not briefing them, they couldn’t possibly make and educated analysis!!! Huh? So if we pay you, then you’ll say we’re wonderful regardless?
Of course the problem here is that the firm in question are fantastic at PR. They are regularly quoted and regularly polled for their opinions by the media. Where analysts at the larger firms are focused on client enquiries, these rogus firms spend their time pitching to the media.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. I remember the same issues arising back in the mid-nineties. It’s also prevalent across technology sectors and in my opinion it is worrying.
It’s clear that the media don’t know that these “analysts” are about as independent as the typical staff member of a vendor’s marketing team. After all, at least a vendor’s marketing team has a clear agenda – these analysts don’t.
My one small contribution in combating this deception is that I do make my feelings on their practices clear to journalists with whom I have a relationship. However, to the rest of the market they are “experts”.
Fighting this deception, which reflects badly on the analyst community as a whole, would be a very worthwhile result from any gathering of PR practitioners. In fact, the analyst community should be looking to address this practice themselves….
Invite interested organizations to post reasons why they would like to participate in such a project. We should have some guidelines, like: 
Murphy's Law 