My client Software Secure has a small but very satisfied client base of educators and educational technology specialists at schools and universities across North America that have adopted campus-wide laptop programs or made a significant investment in ed-tech, often in a CMS like WebCT or Blackboard.
The company wanted to find a way to give voice to these happy customers – let them share their experiences with others, and in the process, get the word out about Software Secure. More brand awareness combined with a great product equals more customers, more revenue.
In the “old days,” our marketing strategy probably would have been to develop case studies for the Web, collateral and PR, and try to obtain speaking engagements for our client evangelists.
Well, we will still do all that, but as we were doing our marketing research, we discovered that there weren’t many online resources that focus specifically on developing a secure learning and testing environment. There were lots of big general sites, with lots and lots of information. Sometimes too much information.
We also found lots of blogs by educators — from superintendents of schools to professors to instructional technology managers – that were already creating vibrant conversations in the educational community.
Since we knew that our customers had great stories to tell, which could start a great online conversation about the issues of online learning and testing, we decided to fill this information gap with a collaborative weblog written by our customers and other educational experts.
The people who really know the scoop are the ones on the front lines. Their experiences and stories are far more valuable, and interesting, to other educators than anything we could write. And preaching to the choir here on the Roadmap, but we chose the form of a blog because it offers two-way communication, which makes it a meeting place for educators tackling security issues, versus a static resource page.
Educators speaking directly to educators. About issues faced by educators when integrating technology in the learning and testing environment – technology evaluations, practical advice on holding faculty workshops, information about new tools that might be useful etc. etc. Not just information about Software Secure.
And so you have Multiple Choice:
Multiple Choice brings together educators who are leading the way in building secure online learning and testing environments at schools and universities across North America
Our sponsor is Software Secure, developer of technology that secures the computing environment from cheating and digital distractions.
The sponsorship is clear, the bloggers will be posting directly to the blog (no company review) and they can write about whatever they like within the topic of secure online testing and learning. I certainly hope they will mention the company once in a while but even if the educators NEVER DO, it will be fine.
The company will post from time to time, mostly news roundups and company news, and just by being there, more people will learn about Software Secure and its products.
Once I get the word out, that is. Which is the stage we are at now. Our contributors will all be starting next week, all the infrastructure stuff is done (for now), so there’s nothing left but to get the word out about Multiple Choice.
Like in this post J I do hope my Roadmaps readers will check it out and let me know what they think. And of course, please do tell your friends and family in the educational community all about it!
Susan:
Thanks for the insight into starting Multiple Choice. It will be interesting to see how it grows and changes over time, especially as your contributors gain a larger share of posts.
This seems like a great model for other companies to follow — a sponsored blog that includes customer voices. Please keep us updated! – jw
Nothing Like Being Out in Front Lines
When MSM (that’s mainstream media) ventures into blogging, they’re savvy enough to know it doesn’t simply mean that their reporters and journalists scurry to whip out blogs. Sure, it can mean that too. Typically (and importantly) it means readers become