There is no question that when it comes to blogger relations, Nokia is the undisputed heavyweight champion. No other handset manufacturer is as proactive in maintaining a good relationship with bloggers; in fact, no other company even comes close. Nokia recognizes that value that bloggers pose and as such, it offers multiple programs that provide open lines of communication, special event invitations and even trial handsets to bloggers. What’s more, these programs are hardly reserved exclusively for influential bloggers. Nokia values small and emerging blogger opinions as well and tries to include them as much as possible. All that having been said however, Nokia missed a real opportunity with the release of the E71. Sure, the company took its standard route and placed demo handsets with all of the usual Nokia-centric bloggers big and small. There was even a slight stray from convention with an unannounced and unpublicized “release event” at the Flagship store in Manhattan. The problem is that the audiences of all of these blogs have already been excited about the E71 for months. In fact, they had likely already made up their minds as to whether or not they’ll be purchasing one as well. The E71 is the perfect opportunity for Nokia to think outside the box and actually make a splash with the E71, especially here in the US. How? By specifically targeting BlackBerry blogs. Sure we gave them a taste and likely sent plenty of new customers Nokia’s way, but why should we do all the work? The E71 is the closest thing Nokia has to a BlackBerry competitor and coincidentally, BlackBerry fans recently learned that the highly anticipated Bold has been pushed back to September. Window = open. Do we need to keep spelling it out for you? Hit the BlackBerry blogs get them trial handsets. Get them writing about the E71 and get BlackBerry fans reading about it. Of course they’re not going to sing it praise entirely, but a Nokia handset would get great attention amongst new audiences and it might even boost sales a bit. Beyond that, Nokia would get some terrific feedback in terms of where the handset is lacking as compared to BlackBerry devices – beyond reception issues of course. Instead, Nokia is doing what seems to be par for the course here in the US and hoping that consumers do all the work themselves. /Marketing 101
