Title: Introduction to Marketing Notice: Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at . http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 . Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License. In this orientation module you will be introduced to Marketing within the Apache OpenOffice community. You will learn about many of the ways in which we can do marketing, as well as some of the constraints we must keep in mind as an non-profit organization. After completion of this module you should be prepared to jump in and assist with ongoing marketing activities. To complete this module you should read the following material, along with associated links. But first, please subscribe to our [Marketing Mailing List](http://openoffice.apache.org/mailing-lists.html#marketing-mailing-list), and then [send a note](mailto:marketing@openoffice.apache.org?subject=Starting Intro to Marketing Module) to introduce yourself. Note: You may also want to review the [Level 1 and Level 2 Orientation Modules](http://openoffice.apache.org/orientation/index.html) which give an overview of the project as a whole, and a perspective on working on open source at Apache. ##What is Marketing? There are many definitions, and most of them are right. Heidi Cohen has a nice blog post with [72 definitions](http://heidicohen.com/marketing-definition/) which you should browse through. From the perspective of Apache OpenOffice: *Marketing is the set of activities our volunteers undertake to communicate the value and benefits of the OpenOffice product, as well as the OpenOffice project, to potential users, to the press and to potential project members.* In practice we don't have access to a large Madison Avenue advertising firm. We don't have a huge budget. We don't have a *New York Times* editor on our speed dial. So our marketing activities are by necessity grassroots, technically savvy, viral and therefore more exciting. ##Why does a good, free product need to marketed? Short answer: To increase awareness of OpenOffice and its benefits. Even a free product needs to be known. Read more [here](http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/openoffice-marketing/201212.mbox/%3CCAP-ksoi_pc4FU3_zikB3oy+G+kjfonurbFxzZ5q_QtFusB=EEw@mail.gmail.com%3E). ##Why Help with Marketing? As a volunteer why would you want to help with OpenOffice Marketing? A few things to consider: - OpenOffice is one of the best known open source brands, up there with Linux, Android and Firefox. Your contributions to our marketing efforts will potentially be seen by millions of users. - We're a fun, international group of volunteers, with a range of skills and experience, dedicated to free software and spreading the word about OpenOffice. - This is a good way to learn about marketing, or one if its sub-disciplines, and gain practical experience. - Helping with marketing is a good way to "give back" to the open source community, something that can be done without requiring special technical skills. - We have tasks for volunteers with a range of experience levels and interests. From copy writing to event planning to graphic design, we need volunteers in many creative and business-oriented disciplines. ##Marketing Activities Marketing activities within the Apache OpenOffice project include: - Planning and participating at local and international conferences, giving presentations or staffing booths and answering questions about Apache OpenOffice and the project - Monitoring and contributing to our social networking presence - Writing and reviewing project blog posts and press releases - Answering questions from the press, or being interviewed about the project - Designing new marketing collateral, such as brochures or CD cover art - Working as a team to refresh the product's brand and visual signature - Surveying users to understand their needs and concerns - Creating a YouTube video to show the highlights of an upcoming release - Working as a member of a core marketing team to enable a much larger group of volunteers and users promote OpenOffice. ##Brand and Trademark Our brand is the set of attributes and associations that distinguish Apache OpenOffice from other applications in the market. The brand includes the name, of course, but also logos, colors, text, look & feel, etc. A good overview of some of the primary brand elements for our current release can be found in our [Branding Style Guide](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Branding+Style+Guide). A subset of these elements are strongly associated with our brand and we therefore treat them as trademarks and claim the legal protections that are given to trademarks. This includes our name and our primary logo. It is important that we, in our public-facing marketing communications, treat these trademarks properly, referring to Apache OpenOffice™, using the [trademark symbol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_symbol). And in equal respect it is important that we acknowledge any 3rd party trademarks that we mention in our publications. The Apache Software Foundation owns the trademarks for its projects, and they have defined a [trademark policy](http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/), including some FAQ's that are worth reviewing. ##Tools for Communications - Mailing Lists: Our project-wide mailing lists are listed [here](http://openoffice.apache.org/mailing-lists.html). From a marketing perspective, the two most relevant are the dev list, which reaches the "core" team, and the announce list which reaches 9000+ users. - Website: [http://www.openoffice.org](http://www.openoffice.org) and [http://openoffice.apache.org](http://openoffice.apache.org). The former gets 750K+ visits/day. We have the ability to add news stories to the front page as well as a banner message on all pages. - Events: Our events page is [here](http://openoffice.apache.org/events.html). - Project Blog: The Blog is [here](http://blogs.apache.org/OOo/). New posts are easily cross-promoted. With a new post, the blog easily gets 4000+ visits/day. - Social Networking: A list of our accounts is [here](http://openoffice.apache.org/social.html) - Word of Mouth: Along with other occasional programs we have a ["Get it here!"](http://openoffice.apache.org/get-it-here.html) logo that we encourage users to put on their websites. - The Press: Our press contact page is [here](http://openoffice.apache.org/press.html). As you can see we seriously need some work there, and any volunteer who can make a more meaningful page here, with most-requested information, would be most welcome. - Surveys: We have the ability to poll users via surveys both informal and formal. - Statistics: We maintain a variety of product and project statistics [here](http://www.openoffice.org/stats/). ##Marketing Collateral These are the items, typically written material, that support our marketing activities. These range from product brochures, to white papers, to interviews that we can redistribute, to video demos to CD covers. You can see some of our existing collateral [here](http://www.openoffice.org/marketing/marketing_where.html). This is an area where we are currently weak. The renaming from "OpenOffice.org" to "Apache OpenOffice" has not been yet reflected in the materials. This, along with the upcoming branding refresh for Apache OpenOffice 4.0 means that there is a lot of work here to refresh our collateral as well. Help here, especially from volunteers with graphic design skills, is most welcome. ##Marketing in a Non-Profit Organization We need to make an important distinction between marketing in a non-profit organization like Apache versus marketing in a commercial context. Most of the tools and activities are the same, as you may have noticed. But the orientation is different. Although users have alternatives, we don't think of these alternatives as competitors. If a user decides another product serves them better, we have lost nothing. We count our wins, not our loses. Along with this orientation, and the ASF's [charitable mission](https://www.apache.org/foundation/faq.html#why), we place a high premium on: - Honesty - Integrity - Serving the Public Good - Focus on our strengths, not on others' weaknesses - Marketing != Competing against ##End of Module Congratulations! You have completed this Module. Please send a note to [marketing@openoffice.apache.org](mailto:marketing@openoffice.apache.org?subject=Completed Marketing Module) so we all know you have completed this level. This is also a good opportunity to send along any feedback or questions you might have on this Orientation Module.