Canalys, the UK-headquartered specialist in channels to market, is following a number of other analyst firms in launching newsletters and other tools that allow direct marketing of reports and events. The Canalys Voice drives readers towards buying its research, and it cannot be accidental that the newsletter comes from Rita Chaher, who runs the firm’s events business. Similarly, PAC‘s SITSI Insider is a key tool in marketing its webinar events and reports.
It’s an interesting reflection on the last few years, in which larger analyst firms have churned away clients with smaller transactions in order to focus on large contracts. As a result, there’s a layer of under-served firms – especially those that might avoid overheads like subscription schemes.
If the growing use of e-CRM methods like these is any reflection, we are seeing a partial move back to the marketing methods that I knew back in the 1990s: in which selling single reports was a dominant revenue stream.
