- I. The technology story behind this new phenomenon
- II. The emergence of Godless Barbarians
- III. The nature of Godless Barbarians
- IV. The traits of companies marketing to Godless Barbarians
- V. How these companies market to them
- Impatient – refusing to operate at the corporate pace of four to five versions behind current software.
- Competitive – feel the heat of peers and competitors from inside and outside their business who take the liberty to use better tools, sanctioned or not.
- Frustrated – acutely aware that their means of working is poorly served by the company’s slow-moving support structure.
- Sceptical – suspicious of any corporate diktat regarding the sanctity of the enterprise space, or its security.
- Confident – believe that they are software and IT-literate enough to manage their tools and their security, or demand the support for it.
- Liberated – prefer that the enterprise let them grab the tools they want and build teams and partnerships freely, but they’ll do so anyway.
The long tail possibility of delivering functionality via a consumer-like marketplace that still gives the enterprise control over security, data flow, and what enters but provides new consumption and licensing models has the potential to massively accelerate the delivery of functionality while increasing the lock-in of the platform. It also provides a safe/secure way to bring cloud delivered functionality into the enterprise.He’s called for a revolution: “It’s time to write a new manifesto. This is the Consumerprise Era, where consumer simplicity meets enterprise power.” He’ll be exploring this in depth at SXSW this year. The Jive Softwares, the Dropboxes, the Yammers and the Skypes may be able to expedite their marketing within the enterprise by gaining IT’s blessing. But there will be thousands of other SaaS products able to either use one of these bigger companies as a conduit, or forgo IT’s blessing altogether. Intuitive UI is just the start. It’s like a membership fee; if you haven’t paid up, you’re out. Traditional enterprise apps often…haven’t. Thus the enterprise software “buyers are not the users” trope that has inspired a generation of hackers and entrepreneurs.10 The earliest winners among godless barbarians have been the enterprise equivalent of Napster or Facebook in that they have built-in virality: comms apps like Skype, file-sharing like Yousendit or quick and dirty visualization tools like gomockingbird. V. How these companies market to them The market’s getting broader and more and more apps are making a successful go of it through a variety of strategies combining social media (including content marketing, reviews, forums and the big social channels) and online PR. As Morace of Jive Software goes on to say in the same Quora response, companies that have preceded their marketing to Godless Barbarians by winning IT’s blessing will move faster. “Anyone can build a point solution; today you need to be truly disruptive.” But disruption’s quickly becoming de rigeur. Newcomers among those marketing to Godless Barbarians are evolving quickly in terms of how they market themselves – some may even be showing a nascent playfulness akin to big consumer brands. Another big tactic is thinking email as a viral promotional tool, and offering incentives to people who invite others. There’s more to this godless barbarian marketing formula, but I’ll leave that to subsequent posts. VI. Conclusion Target not the classic B2B buyer/emperor; target the godless barbarian. Or at least prepare yourself for rivals who are marketing to this groundswell of buyers. If you don’t have a single license play, maybe it’s time to build one. At least prepare to combat all the competitors who will (or already have). Some questions any tech CEO or CMO should be asking himself about now:
- Are you relying on the protectionism of IT departments to preserve your business model?
- Do you allow Godless Barbarians to pick up and use your software? Do your competitors? Are you prepared for upstarts who will?
- Are you making a product that looks and feels sexy enough for someone to smuggle into their job?
- Does your technology work on the kinds of devices that do get smuggled in (like an iPad)?
- Are you marketing your technology towards a Godless Barbarian-like persona (such as the one sketched out above)?
- Will you survive a consumer-driven paradigm in the enterprise market?
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Comments
Roger Warner March 6th, 2012
Great post Ryan. Hello prosumer : ) I think it’s also a case of heuristics. People try stuff for themselves now because it’s cheaper (free), better designed, and very, very easy. And if they like what they try then they just get on and use it…. and adoption spreads from there. The product and the marketing just needs to be ‘good enough’ to pass the first use test.
That said, there’s as much innovation in product design/UI and pricing and distribution models as the technology itself. Dropbox is a classic. It’s like a nice virus. We use it, but I (MD) didn’t authorise it… Now I’m looking atr and enterprise licence because we love it so much…
A very different marketing challenge, as you say.
Doug Kessler March 6th, 2012
“We have met the Godless Barbarians and they is us.”
I know I’m much more likely to just look for an app that will meet a need rather than go through the old channels of research and consensus-building.
It’s a massive change for the old ‘command and control’ IT department and definitely has implications for just about every enterprise software vendor (even the massive ERP-style ones that may feel safe).
Ryan Lunka March 6th, 2012
Great post. My only qualm is that the term “Godless Barbarian” has kind of a negative connotation, though I admit, I get it. I’m relatively young in my career, so I look forward to this “barbarianism” to provide some really cool opportunities over the next few years.
Looking forward to follow ups.
Ryan Skinner March 7th, 2012
Thanks, guys.
Godless Barbarians may still be a view from “inside of IT”. The real deal would probably not call himself or herself a godless barbarian.
But it’s a whole new and exploding market; a few years ago, the only guys who kitted themselves out with all their own software worked from home in Birkenstocks and didn’t shave. They were hobbyists and obsessive DIY’ers. Now more and more people are doing it.
So what are the triggers for this activity? What does it demand of companies in terms of marketing? That’s where I hope to go with the idea… Hope you’ll follow along.