Why do some companies get disproportionately GREAT analyst relations results on less than a $150K TOTAL (combined staff salary and contract) spend …and others spend several hundreds of thousands …and even $1M+ per year and have little to show for it? Here are the top 10 time (and money) wasters guaranteed to needlessly bleed your bottom line:

1. Iffy vs. Pithy Meetings: “Pithy” is a wonderful, frugal little word that uses just 5 letters to convey a profound concept. Unfortunately for tech marketing, it’s more rare than hen’s teeth (as my grandpa liked to say).  Pithy is defined  as “having substance and point:  tersely cogent”  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pithy.  Pithy meetings last 60-90 minutes tops;  Iffy meetings are half- or full-day marathons that scream “my value prop is not tersely cogent.”    Don’t schedule marathons unless you are: a) completely blowing up your business model; b) acquiring a company of your size or greater; c) going public; or d) seeking to be acquired.   Limit or eliminate your “inquiry” spend unless you are in one of these situations.
2. Road-to-nowhere inquiry meetings.  The large analyst firms get serious ‘ching for selling companies “inquiries” – or dedicated time blocks with their analyst teams to answer your questions.  While these inquiries have value for important matters  like determining SPECIFICS for new architectures or shortlisting potential acquisition/partner candidates…most research today is as cheap and easy to get as an internet search.   Save your money.
3.  Lightweight (PR versus Product/IT/C-level) Interfaces:   Unless your point of contact is completely conversant on the subject matter, don’t front him or her into the analyst.  These are busy, intelligent folk with short fuses for timewasters and lightweights.   They’ll stop taking your phonecalls and responding to your e-mails:  guaranteed.
4. Vaporware Launches:  Also filed under stuff that didn’t /doesn’t/won’t happen. “Vaporware” was coined by a Microsoft engineer in 1982 to describe the company’s Xenix operating system, and first published by computer expert Esther Dyson in 1983. Fair game:  pre-launches within an 18 month window of projects that are fully funded, architecturally mapped, have dedicated teams and are substantially complete with minimum risk of actual DELIVERY.
5. TMI:  Unless you want this to happen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeFxUIADiKU – shorten it up and button it up.  Yes,I’ve seen analysts snooze at event briefings when executives depart from the script…or worse, have scripts that tell all but their shoe size.
6. The Opposite of TMI - Withholding Information is a nasty little practice that will short circuit any good AR strategy.  This doesn’t mean you have to divulge your private sales figures, by vertical, by region, by quarter, etc. (though you have to give some reasonable guidance comparable to the rest of the industry). However, intentionally withholding important information that is critical to a story, immediately pegs the executive as a power manipulator, and the company as having “a lot to hide.”   This is a permanent path to burning analyst bridges.
7. Absentee Customers – If your company is ready for prime time and products are “any good”, it has customers who will say so.  Put them in front of the analysts.  If you don’t have any successfully installed customers because your company is a start up – don’t begin your analyst relations efforts.  Once your company is pegged as “having nothing yet”…it takes 18 months or more to erase that perception.  Conversely, I’ve successfully launched start ups with just a dozen clients and had them named Gartner Cool Vendor of the year in their category.
8. Research for the sake of Research –There is no quicker trip to analysis paralysis than paying for hundreds of thousands of dollars in analyst reports….without an express specific tasked purpose for doing so.  Most of the information you need is on the internet. More of it can be had for a free phonecall on a “built” analyst relationship.   The balance can be had by getting the report (for internal reading only) through back sales channels.  This is an unnecessary margin-busting spend.  Don’t do it.
9. Roll-Over-and-play-dead Reactions to Bad Reports – Want to get stomped on around the head as a small vendor?  Do all of the above things AND don’t push back with knowledge/facts when the analysts give you short shrift or get it wrong.  While I personally have a reputation for feistiness    http://www.jrocketmarketing.com/GE10-lyrics_judith.html … Your AR team had better have (or grow) a spine if you want to break through the mega-vendor noise.
10. Long Distance Languish – No face time = no results.  In affairs of the heart or business…extra TLC is required to inspire the type of durable passion to avoid the out-of-sight, out-of-mind trap.   That means daily/weekly contact on multiple levels, walking the balance between fun vs. pesty.  Get to know the analysts hobbies, family details, priorities…meet with them 1-2x year, and in between remember the little things that matter in their lives.

Want great AR and FAST Results?  Sign up for JRocket Marketing’s 12-month Nitro Analyst Relations service  http://www.jrocketmarketing.com/nitro.html and have the world’s leading analysts know WHO you are and WHY your business matters.