My earlier post was intended as an answer, but it somehow got posted
as a request for clarification instead, so here it is again:
Hello, good luck with your venture; I hope this will be useful but, as
you probably already know, you are facing an uphill battle.
Because of the difficulty contacting or approaching the executives of
a company like this with a new idea, particularly when they already
have a procedure in place to make deals with “partners” that you wish
to bypass, I recommend you attack the task from several angles
simultaneously.
Send mail directly to each of the executives I have listed below, as
well as one simply addressed to “Product Development.” A day or two
after you send the mail, fax messages to all of these top executives
at the corporate fax number by name and title. You might even attempt
to go through the PR department as a very last resort. Since this
isn’t their usual job I would suggest that you use the general PR
address: pr@macromedia.com rather than direct it to any of the
specific PR contacts listed on the press page:
http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/proom/contacts/
This is not the usual job of any of the people in the press relations
department but they try to be helpful and that approach may succeed
where others fail. At a minimum I believe they will definitely read
your message. In that regard, I would make any e-mail query to PR a
very brief request for a corporate contact, outlining the nature of
your proposal in a sentence or two at most.
I would recommend against approaching through PR except as a very last
resort and only after all other attempts to go through proper channels
fail. Those proper channels include attempts to make personal contact
with executives, either physically visiting the offices after making
an appointment or informally at trade shows which, after all, are just
big, informal business meetings.
As for contacting the executives by e-mail, that would almost
certainly not be a good approach. Despite the fact that this is a
high-tech company with relatively young executives, a business
proposal of the nature you describe requires that you approach them in
the traditional business fashion which means a formal letter. Since
you are looking to make a rather high-level deal, you don’t want to
start off on the wrong foot by attempting to contact them via e-mail.
You should supply your own e-mail address and correspond that way if
they contact you directly.
The faxes should also be relatively brief but can contain more
information than you should send via e-mail. As for the letters, I
would send a brief letter at first, then follow up in a few days with
a separate mailing outlining your proposal in more detail. Make it
clear at the very opening of any dialog that you are seeking a
personal, face-to-face meeting with someone who would be willing to
look at your software or hear your proposal. Since the executives
often travel this should not be a major problem for you if they are
willing.
In my dealings with Macromedia I have not heard of any specific
process for doing what you want, so a bit of guerrilla marketing, as
outlined above, will probably be required.
I’ve also found it useful to tackle executives directly at trade
shows. Here is a link to all events in which Macromedia will be
participating worldwide:
http://www.macromedia.com/v1/company/events/
Here is the general contact information for the company. Although home
addresses and contacts for most of these people are available, it
would be against Google policy for me to supply them and, in any case,
it would be a terrible idea to try to contact any of these people
outside a strictly business setting.
I have provided a link to biographies of these executives as well as
board members below. It would probably a good idea to read through
them just so you know who you are dealing with.
Macromedia
600 Townsend St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-252-2000
fax 415-626-0544
Corporate Email: it@macromedia.com
Chairman and CEO: Robert Burgess
CFO, Executive VP: Corporate Secretary: Elizabeth Nelson
Executive VP: Brian Allum
Executive VP: Kevin Lynch
Search Strategy:
Search term: MACR at
http://quote.yahoo.com
General company profile.
http://yahoo.marketguide.com/MGI/offrdirs.asp?rt=ratio&target=/stocks/companyinformation/officersanddirectors/offrdirs&Ticker=MACR
Links to biographies of the above-listed executives as well as the
Board of Directors.
http://yahoo.marketguide.com/MGI/offrdirs.asp?rt=ratio&target=/stocks/companyinformation/officersanddirectors/offrdirs&Ticker=MACR
I hope this advice is useful and that the information is what you were
looking for. If not, please post a request for clarification and I
will try to provide more information.
For example, I have a good working relationship with Macromedia’s
public relations staff and have already sent a query to one of them
about your question. If they provide useful information I will add
that here as a clarification message. Understand that I cannot take
any steps to recommend your idea; I am only asking my contact for her
contact procedure recommendation which I will pass along to you. But,
even if she does provide another way to contact the right people I
would still send off the mail and fax queries directly since that is
the correct business procedure. |
