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List:       kde-promo
Subject:    Re: [kde-promo] A Preliminary Abstraction of the Target Groups
From:       "C.M.Lotion" <cmlotion () wanadoo ! nl>
Date:       2005-11-21 1:34:27
Message-ID: 200511210234.30059.cmlotion () wanadoo ! nl
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Hi Mihnea,

On Saturday 19 November 2005 22:43, you wrote:
> --- "C.M.Lotion" <cmlotion@wanadoo.nl> schrieb:
> > I had a different approach, namely, what are the
> > needs of people that can be
> > persuaded to use KDE?
> 
> I have also classified them according to needs, but
> I've multiplied this classification with one according
> to their current realtionship to KDE and/or Linux. I
> suspect this is important to do, because
> 
> - promotion always involves communicating some sort or
> another of information, which means that the messages
> should be customized according to what the target
> already knows/doesn't know about KDE
> 
> - the attitude of the target (when there is such a
> thing at all) tremendously influences our chances to
> persuade the target.
> 
> > Marketing does not help if
> > people already have their
> > minds made up.
> 
> Precisely. As a matter of fact, next to nothing helps
> in this case.
> 
> > I divided our target audience into the following
> > groups, based on their
> > needs/demands in a certain roll:
> > - home/private user
> > 
> > 
> > - corporate office user
> > - government user
> > - educational user (teacher and student/pupil)
> 
> These three types are rather curious. What does the
> promo team mainly want, to get them to use KDE, or to
> get them to enjoy KDE? The point is that the decision
> is not the decision is not theirs to take. It probably
> doesn't make much sense to market KDE directly to the
> corporate office user or to the student/pupil.
> 
Actually, I think they do influence that person's decision, since the person 
that selects the desktop should and most probably will first investigate 
their needs. This may not correspond exactly to what the user actually wants, 
but at least to what that user needs to get the job done.

> This does not mean that their needs shouldn't be taken
> care of. As a matter of fact it would be quite
> desirable to get them to like what they see at
> work/school and switch their home machnes to KDE. But
> this is probably a matter of features, usability,
> looks and overall meaningfulness, none of which can be
> directly influenced by a promo team.
> 
> This is why I suggested a finer grained
> classification, although it probably needs better
> naming than IIBa1 etc :)
> 
> > - participating community member
> > - developer
> > 
> > These groups all need/demand their desktop to
> > provide a basic to advanced
> > solution for their daily activities:
> > - personal information management
> > - communication (IM, VOIP, etc.)
> > - file management
> > - webbrowsing
> > - multi-media
> > - office suite
> > - group-specific activity, e.g. playing games,
> > working with hobby or work
> > dependent environment (IDE, design tool, scientific
> > tool, artistic tool,
> > etc.)
> 
> Most of these are tasks, not goals. Communication is a
> goal, but IM or VOIP is already a method towards the
> goal. Working with an environment is almost always a
> task, few people work with an IDE in order to work
> with an IDE, they actually want to develop a program.
> 
This is just a rough sketch and I did not want to mention a specific tool to 
complicate matters.

> What I mean is that we probably won't get too far with
> messages focused on methods. Flooding the target with
> information like 'you can stream yahoo webcams with
> kopete' won't cut it.
> 
> What we need to do is
> 
> - first get them interested. In a way or another, make
> them feel that they found a harbour. 'KDE enables you
> to work and feel good' was my suggestion for this,
> although it's just an example. Actually I'm not 100%
> satisfied with it and I'll try to come up with
> something good. But this should be the message:
> 
> "You have found a harbour"
> 
> (Not in this pathetic words, of course)
> 
> - _after_ this make them feel that the harbour is
> safe. 'Do I have MS Office?' etc. These are already
> tasks that the target feels compelled to accomplish.
> Let them know that they can reach their goals with KDE
> (even if the tasks change, i.e. no MS Office, for
> example)
> 

> Unfortunately I'm getting long again, and the stake of
> what I'm saying is not necessarily clear. I'm trying
> to resume:
> 
> Don't throw feature lists at the potential user.
> Address his/her goals.

> 
> Example:
> 
> being virus-free is one of the strongest goals that we
> can use to our advantage.
> 
> 'Oh, you constantly have to reinstall Windows? But on
> KDE and I never need to reinstall! Maybe you should
> try it too.'
> 
> This way we have offered the harbour. Next (and only
> next) come questions like 'will I still be able to
> read my email?' etc.
> 
> This strategy is especially powerful and easy to apply
> in word-of-mouth situations, but I sincerely hope that
> we can apply it on KDE.org too.
> 
I think we're saying the same things in a different way. However, I do think a 
poster showing the user group and some pictures/icons of applications, will 
also help attract people, and immediately answer some of their obvious 
questions instantly. Especially for people that don't fall for smooth 
marketing slogans and don't have a clue what KDE is. A lot of people don't 
care about KDE technology or *nix/Windows/etc. 

> > Of course, given a certain roll, these groups may
> > overlap. The first six items
> > are kind of a basic desktop, depending on the level
> > of customization that the
> > user demands. The user wants a desktop environment
> > tailored to his/her needs
> > _and_ added value _and_ competitive advantage for
> > _his/her_ daily activities:
> > "Just give me a very good reason to give up whatever
> > I'm using and invest
> > time and efforts in switching from a familiar and
> > comfortable environment,
> > not just for now, but for at least x years."
> > 
> > Knowing this, our promotion should be focused on how
> > KDE not only meets a
> > particular user's needs, but provides that added
> > value and competitive
> > advantage: KDE is very user friendly as a desktop
> > _and_ a community.
> > 
> > Let's see whether Wade will let us help write the
> > KDE marketing plan. It does
> > not have to be a hundred page book, just a brief
> > overview of how we are
> > planning to go about our marketing by addressing the
> > following matters:
> > - Concrete statement of KDE's core
> > activities/technology. E.g. KDE, we know
> > how to create _your_ portal to the world/universe,
> > or KDE, we know how to
> > create _your_ desktop. (Or some fancy slogan kind of
> > statement. KDE, creating
> > your portal to the world. An example: Nikon, we know
> > how to image. )
> > - Target audiences, as discussed above. [1]
> > - Analysis of our competitors and partners on the
> > different markets. Our
> > users, contributors and developers, our own experts,
> > already know who they
> > are. We could ask them to provide the data for such
> > an analysis. Most
> > application websites already state this information
> > and what sets the
> > application apart.
> > - The most important demands/needs of these primary
> > markets, and KDE's
> > superior/competitive answer to _their_ needs. For
> > example, a home user would
> > like to know our solutions for browsing, mail,
> > newsfeeds, basic office work
> > and multi-media. Our answer: Konqueror,  Kontact,
> > KOffice and
> > Kaffeine+amaroK+k3b, and show our superior
> > technology that makes their life
> > easy, such as sophisticated drag-and-drop Kontact
> > functionality, kio-slaves,
> > podcast handling, dvd-ripping, etc. Key issue: only
> > expose our audience to
> > whatever it is that _they_ want to know and do.
> > - Our marketing strategy for our primary markets:
> > show KDE's value and
> > competitive advantage tailored to that market's
> > needs and communication
> > channels. Again, one of our best marketing tools
> > would be the fantastic
> > supporting KDE community. [1]
> > - Concrete marketing goals, also expressed in
> > measurable quantities, e.g.
> > targeted userbase/community size after a certain
> > period of time to see how
> > effective our marketing strategy has been
> > - Financing plan for marketing activities on our
> > target markets. Sponsors,
> > partners, users, etc. can donate monetary and
> > material contributions to the
> > KDE project.
> > 
> > [1] KDE already has a fantastic supporting
> > community, and I think we should
> > use this in our marketing. A page such as my-kde.org
> > would be a great way to
> > provide something as a 'personal kde community
> > portal', of course customized
> > to your own needs/roll e.g. for private users,
> > corporate users, contributors
> > and developers. The added value would be that KDE
> > users could directly start
> > participating in the KDE community, in whatever way
> > they like, and that it
> > would unite the KDE project and (officially)
> > affiliated community pages,
> > while enabling them to keep their identity.
> > 
> > For example, we could offer users one-stop
> > management of:
> > - subscriptions for KDE (related) mailing lists
> > (example format:
> 
> http://www.suse.com/en/private/support/online_help/mailinglists/
> 
> > ) ,
> > - community memberships(local kde, kde-look,
> > kde-apps, etc.),
> > - news feeds, even from their KDE app and favourite
> > distro,
> > - personalized search options,
> > - status of my-kde-projects,
> > - access to my-kde-forums,
> > - get more involved: current junior, intermediate or
> > advanced jobs
> > - etc.
> > What if we could let people do all this from within
> > kontact or by browsing to
> > my-kde.org (extra options with konqueror) when they
> > don't have access to or
> > don't use Kontact?
> > 
> > KDE marketing would benefit from such a personalised
> > portal for:
> > - keeping track of the size and type of our target
> > audiences (datamining),
> > - obtain valuable feedback about the needs of our
> > target users,
> > - provide customized information about KDE,
> > - more effectively target our marketing using this
> > portal,
> > - gradually get people more involved in the
> > community by exposing them to
> > the KDE community one step at a time and based on
> > the interests that _they_
> > have indicated.
> > 
> > Kind regards,
> > 
> > Claire
> 
> These ideas all sound great (and I'm hatching at least
> two more ones, but for the moment I'll focus on the
> homepage)
> 
> Some of them need developers. Maybe they would help.
> 
Of course, we'll need developers. Let's see whether we can get them interested 
when we have some kind of plan. Apparently, others are also thinking about 
this.

> But the data gathering part seems the most difficult
> of all. 
It probably will be, and processing it, too.

> Is there actually a right way of doing it? 
> 
Honestly, I don't really know. That's probably something to look into, discuss 
and try.

Kind regards,

Claire
 
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