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Published on 03 April 2014

Whether it was pitching perspective business customers using homemade music videos, holding a Music Meets Tech live music event at South by Southwest (SXSW) in weird Austin, TX, or creating a summer geek camp at its headquarters, there's no madness to Dyn Inc.'s innovative marketing methods.

Inside a crowded market segment - and outside a major tech hotbed in Manchester, N.H. - the Internet performance products vendor made a name for itself a few years ago in video industry circles by harnessing video and music to acquire and retain business customers.

Building on this creative marketing approach, Dyn continued its multi-year relationship with - and presence at - SXSW with an invite-only, concert event at the wildly popular gathering last month that featured several live bands. Events are core to Dyn's strategy.

"People ask us why we invest so much in our Music Meets Tech events," said Kyle York, Chief Revenue Officer at Dyn. "The answer is because they're a celebration of who we are: people who love technology, their customers, and thinking differently. This event is more than a party. We've always been able to take things that seem different and combine them into something special."

Winning Combos

Taking things that seem different is a hallmark at Dyn, which initially created music videos using employee musicians and creative staff to up the ante in engaging prospective business customers for its Internet performance packages. In this case the "things" are music and technology products, delivered via video. And because this innovative outreach strategy used in-house talent and homegrown resources, the return was impressive, and the music video pitch engaging.

But now the innovator has taken video to the next level. "We're using video as an educational tool," explained Dyn's Corporate Communications Director Adam Coughlin. "We have a series of videos called DynEdu, in which we explain some of our core technologies. Video is still definitely the best way to get (and keep) someone's attention."

Summer Camp for Geeks

Dyn has also held a two-day, music-enhanced user conference, dubbed Geek Summer Camp, at its headquarters in Manchester, N.H. last August. In addition to several keynotes, leaders from companies like Box, Etsy and Red Hat led a series of panels on topics covering: Innovation; Speed and Optimization; Scalability and Redundancy; Security and DDoS and Managing/Controlling Infrastructure.

"We wanted to bring together some of the key players within the industry to discuss some of the biggest issues of the day," said CEO Jeremy Hitchcock. "We made it a summer camp because New Hampshire is a great destination that time of year."

While there was be a lot of information to learn, the conference will stayed true to its summer camp name. That is why the first day of the conference will conclude with a Music Meets Tech DynTini. The concert will be headlined by The Parlotones, the multi-platinum-selling South African rock band.

"Dynstock"

The recent Music Meets Tech event at SXSW, the fourth for Dyn, featured a slew of live bands including headliners Deer Tick, J. Roddy Walston & the Business and The Felice Brothers. In addition to the three headliners, the show will include performances by The Palotones and STRNGRS with Baskery and Tan Vampires playing in a separate VIP area.

For SXSW Dyn personally invites customers and prospects to the VIP area, as a thank you for their current or potential business. "We know people do business with people they like and so we bet that people would like us if we loved what we do and had some fun doing it," said Coughlin. "In the past, we had a general admission section, as well, since we like to host a good time."

Dyn Internet performance packages span traffic management, message management and performance assurance. The company is neither a startup nor an upstart as Dyn incorporated during the tech industry's toughest time ever, in 2001, and now boasts a global presence having grown through 10 acquisitions. It services more than four million enterprise, small business and personal customers.

Past Practices

While other companies focus their marketing dollars on email campaigns, sponsored ads on Facebook, other social media sites, direct marketing pieces and expensive TV and radio ads, Dyn has focused on putting the creative in creative marketing by directly engaging current and prospective customers with video outreach combined with direct connect live, in-person events.

Regardless of the size of their marketing budgets, CMOs and their agencies would be well advised to study Dyn's continued efforts and think beyond ad buys regardless of media outlet or social media site in order to effectively expand their brands.

For decades, countless vendors and service providers spent tens of millions of dollars on gigantic, oftentimes multi-story, fully-staffed exhibits on a year's full of top tech and industry conferences and shows to bring leads to them, only to typically struggle to locate an ROI for these expenditures.

Much of this unjustified and wasteful spending gave way to social gatherings where exhibitors and attendees met in an entertainment venue and discussed business and pleasure in a relaxed setting, leading to more engaging and effective interactions.

Seeing Value

Other vendors, typically top players in their markets, have chosen to hold their own events at their own headquarters in order to directly engage business users with a blend of education, production direct & strategy, access to top execs and customer presentations - all enhanced with networking events. Dyn did that and more, adding live music and an alluring summer venue in scenic New Hampshire.

Music – the common thread in Dyn's customer outreach, engagement and retention efforts – provides an affordable, effective and enjoyable approach that succeeds by expanding beyond just plain tech marketing and messaging.

"We didn't want a rubber chicken, name tag networking event," recalls Coughlin. "We wanted to turn that notion on its head. We wanted people to get pumped for a Dyn event. We did that by throwing these Music Meets Tech events. So it was a very natural move for us to combine these two things - music and tech - into an event that our customers, prospects, friends and heck, even ourselves, would want to attend."

MTV proved in the early 80s that music combined with video can be more captivating than powerful lyrics, or lack thereof.

For those vendor CMOs and agencies that have missed out on the value of video and music, it may be high time to jump into the hot tub time machine and revisit that Members Only jacket-wearing and big hair-rocking decade, or just simply learn from fast forward thinkers like Dyn.