First steps to seed global Mozilla marketing communities

In last week's post, I wrote about our general plans to seed Mozilla marketing communities around the globe. This week I will go in to a few more details: marketing platform goals, marketing locale goals and the timeline/priorities for the locales.

Marketing platform goals:
SpreadFirefox.com- this central platform for Mozilla marketing community should launch this summer and will incorporate the goals below (except support and mozilla.com):
PR- put Mozilla and Firefox messaging, faq’s and press releases online for localization
Events- engage locales in Mozilla events program
Metrics and Analytics- develop dashboard of key metrics that is accessible by community
College reps- Support college outreach efforts globally
Mozilla.com/getfirefox.com- develop scalable CMS solution that allows for localized version of Mozilla.com and getfirefox.com using best practices and analytics
Firefox Support- initially provide knowledge base content for locales to use in support efforts. Eventually, provide platform (knowledge base, forum and chat) that can be localized based on needs of communities.

Marketing locale goals:
These goals should be viewed as a checklist. For some locales, many of the goals are already accomplished (localized version of Firefox); while in some locales, goals may not work with our high level goal to move quickly. That said, this should give you a good idea of what we think is important in building marketing communities.

Priority 1
Localized version of Firefox
PR- establish local PR agency/contact
Establish baseline metrics and methods for measurement
Identify and develop where needed local marketing leaders and marketing community

Priority 2
Live version spreadfirefox.com or equivalent for locale
Develop relationships with traditional partners (colleges, open source groups, etc.)
Community driven marketing campaign (“New York Times/Crop Circle” style)
Outreach to top websites in locale to ensure compatibility with Firefox

Priority 3
Localize best practice version of Mozilla.com and getfirefox.com
Establish and train local volunteer spokespeople
Localize top add-ons
Live local support
Low-touch partnership with top search/sites
Leverage partners for marketing efforts

Rough timeline for marketing community development efforts:
We can’t do all this at once! Below you can see a rough timeline of when we will begin to focus on the priority one goals for each locale. Priority two and three goals will follow over time (with obvious deference to locales with potential for highest impact). It is important to note that while we will be focusing our efforts on certain countries, once the marketing platforms are live (many are live now), all locales should have access to Mozilla marketing support.

In my next post, I will describe our plan to make a more focused effort to spread Firefox. To get a quick idea at where we will focus, check out the timeline above and the list of internet users by country .

Mozilla Brazil-- Community building events (Join us)

As Asa mentioned, we will be in Brazil for community building from June 21-28. More detailed info on the trip will be posted soon.

Here's a quick schedule of trip:
Rio de Janeiro: June 21-24
Sao Carlos: June 26
Sao Paulo City: June 27-28

We do want to highlight that we will be hosting Mozilla community gatherings in Rio and Sao Paulo. The goal of these gatherings is to help identify and develop the Firefox evangelism community in Brazil. They will be part social and part informative, so please help us spread the word to current and potential volunteers. More info on the exact time and location of the event are on the way.

Rio de Janeiro- Friday, June 22 evening
Sao Paulo City- Thursday, June 28 evening

If you want to help out or have any questions, please contact me at jt at mozilla dot com

Seeding Mozilla around the world

When prioritizing Mozilla’s efforts to increase Firefox adoption, our ability to scale is very important. We have a small team for a product that about 100 million people use worldwide. Firefox’s amazing growth to more than 15% market share has been a result of the hard work of the entire Mozilla community, but we still recognize that continued growth is vital for our goals of a free and open web.

As John mentioned in his blog post earlier this week, the majority of Firefox users are now not in the US and that the fastest growing segment of Firefox users is the “long tail” of the languages (marked “other” in the chart.) My post today (with more to come over the next few weeks) is on how we help the non-US localizations grow faster.

Mozilla currently has a presence (and by that, I generally mean a Mozilla office) in the United States, France, Japan and China. We also have PR agencies in the UK, Germany and Poland. But Mozilla employees are not the only—or even the main—drivers of Firefox marketing. We are fortunate to have very strong marketing communities, particularly in Europe. For example, our community in Italy has driven almost 16% market share by attending conferences, localizing Firefox and providing user support—all things they have done since the early days.

Currently, communities close to Mozilla offices are better able to take advantage of Firefox marketing efforts than those who are not. That must change. We also haven’t been able to support our most vibrant communities to the extent we would like—and they deserve. That too must change.

This doesn’t mean Mozilla will be able to “run marketing programs” in new countries, but that Mozilla will develop scalable marketing platforms as well as identify, support and help build marketing leaders who can in turn leverage these platforms to evangelize Firefox.

We have lots of great resources at Mozilla: pr, events program, brand efforts (community t-shirts, Mozilla store, etc.), user education and Firefox support, spreadfirefox.com, college reps program, in addition to many others (and some that need to be developed). We need to make those programs and platforms available to communities worldwide and do it fast.

Looking at the chart below of the top 20 countries by Internet population and Firefox’s market share, you can see the many growth opportunities.

(WorldInternetStats.com and Xiti.com)

High Level Goals:
-Don’t mess things up!
As I mentioned before, we know there are already awesome communities evangelizing Firefox all around the globe. How do we help you do your job better and more easily? We also know there are communities with limited to no marketing community. How do we help build marketing community there? Mozilla can’t and shouldn’t “run” a global marketing program, but Mozilla can and should support and seed global marketing communities.
-Identify and support existing communities and develop where they don’t exist
See “Don’t mess things up!”
-Build platform for localized community marketing based on best practices
With shared resources, we can learn from each other. If Poland tries a new program that is very successful, other communities should be able to know about it and decide if it will work for them.
-Develop and publish global metrics and analytics
Everyone likes to know whether stuff works or not, we aren’t any different. When things do work, we want to be able to fund more of them.
-Promote healthy competition between marketing communities around relevant and fair metric
A little fun rivalry never hurt anyone!
-Establish tools for effective communication with community members
Communication is key for collaborative and efficient worldwide evangelism community

My next post is on what we think are the first steps are to better empower our communities to spread Firefox and the timeline of this project.

Future discussions:
1. First steps and timeline to seed communities for global marketing efforts
2. More focus, more impact: prioritize efforts in locales with biggest possible impact
3. Brazil: what we know, what we don't and what our early plans are
4. India: what we know, what we don't and what our early plans are

Your feedback is an important part of this process. I look forward to a very open discussion about how we can accelerate the growth of Firefox adoption worldwide by seeding marketing communities.

Want to get involved? Email me at jt at mozilla dot com