Melissa's Marketing Minute

I've decided to write a series of marketing pieces for my connections in the industry. Many of you are not marketers by trade, but have grown your presence and your voice in such a way that you are taking some form of marketing upon yourself, often without formal training.

I hope to give you the insights and the tools you need. I have a hunch that if you work in the data center industry, your business is growing right now regardless of your marketing efforts. But you know as well as I do that how you market still matters, because the ways in which you share your story could help you grow even more. Because you care to do this work to the best of your ability and take pride in seeing it done well. And because you genuinely care about the customers you're trying to reach and the message you're reaching them with.

In the past, some of you have called to ask my opinion about different publications, events, and even agencies within the data center space. I'll not do that in writing here, but please know, my line is always open for us to benchmark and discuss what we've experienced in the past, as well as what we predict for future efforts. At our heart, we are an industry based on connection; we have collaboration built into our core. We love to celebrate each other's successes and applaud the impressive efforts we witness, then use them to build our own best practices.

But I know some of you are frustrated. Without having a seat in marketing, or with a limited marketing department/budget to rely on, you can't get the message out in the way you believe it needs to be communicated. You know what your customers want and what the industry needs to hear, but you aren't getting the support you need to do it. These posts are really for you. Nothing I write should come as a shock, but my hope is that these short posts give you the data, examples, and patter you need to build your case. They won't be more than short-form pieces, but with some likes and shares to back them, I'm hoping we can begin to change the ways we do this industry marketing "magic."

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Melissa Reali-Elliott has spent over 15 years marketing digital technologies. Her marketing efforts have supported organizations specializing in gaming software, IoT, RFID, supply chain, and power distribution to utility markets, including smart grid and microgrid applications, as well as industry verticals such as data centers, oil & gas, metal refineries, and food & bev. She is accomplished at developing and implementing innovative marketing, branding, and messaging programs that improve market position and drive demand generation, as well as inspire customer and industry engagement with a brand.

If you are just landing on this series, this is the first post that provides the background for its creation. The gist is that the data center industry where Melissa specializes does not have many formally-trained marketers dedicated to it and those that actually are are newer to industry. She wants to use her years of experience to help bridge the gap between industry influencers and technical marketers.

A general closing note from Melissa: In my efforts to share experiences and data that help others in the data center space to improve their marketing efforts, I often use both positive and negative examples, some of which will be from companies I have personally worked for or done business with. No anecdote will reveal proprietary information that can be tied to a company. Neither will I cite an organization I have worked for by name. While none are perfect, these companies have been fundamental to my success and have provided my life’s work. I respect them too much to attribute public criticism to their brands, though it is inevitable that those who have worked alongside me will pick up on certain references.