Marketing Firefox

Mozilla.HackWe’ve got a simple goal for the year.

We want to significantly increase the number of people using Firefox, so that more people can experience the benefits of having a choice in how they get on the Web.

If we can do this, we’ll be doing our part to ensure the Web is accessible the same way to everyone, regardless of the browser or operating system they happen to be using.

Part of the reason Firefox has grown from zero to tens of millions of users is the marketing we’ve done to date. The grassroots, word of mouth marketing led by our community of users has helped introduce millions of people to Firefox.

Take a walk through the recent past of Firefox marketing:

There’s no doubt in my mind that the marketing we’ve done to date has been effective because it’s been rooted in the goodwill of our community.

As we gear up to market Firefox in 2006, we need to tap into this goodwill again, to reach a much bigger potential community for Firefox. As part of this, reaching those people and organizations who share Mozilla’s philosophy of doing work for the public good. We also want to figure out how Mozilla can actively help these groups. Details to come soon on this approach.

A core premise in reaching out to these new groups of potential users is that the methods that have worked for us in the past need to be augmented. We think there’s some fundamental work we have to do to make people aware of who Mozilla is, and why a choice in Web browsers matters.

So we plan to launch several educational campaigns about Firefox over the next few months.

Some of these campaigns will take shape as new community-based marketing projects. Others will take the form of broader outreach campaigns that will feature both Mozilla and Firefox. The goal of both the community marketing and broad outreach campaigns is to help people understand what Mozilla stands for as an organization, and what Firefox is.

We’re going to integrate both of these efforts. The broad outreach we do will connect in meaningful ways with the new set of community marketing we’ll be doing. We’ll also incorporate operating principles from our open source development process into the ways that we plan, implement and measure the success of all our campaigns.

We have a lot to learn on the marketing side of the house from the folks on the development team.

Open source development shifts the nexus of value creation from ownership of a proprietary set of bits, to the creativity you bring to harnessing the potential of a common asset. As open source software has come into maturity we’re seeing second order benefits that are directly impacting the Web. Startups can get from idea to delivery that much more easily because they are building upon the freely available work of the Linux, PHP and MySQL development communities. And the innovation that’s resulting from this path is everywhere you look on the Web today.

Where is the similar innovation in marketing? How do you shift the focus of marketing from branding, slogans, feature/benefit discussions, and onto the direct communication of who you are? And do it in a way that is additive to the lives of the people you’re reaching, rather than just another distraction in the mental environment?

At the end of the day, we’re going into this effort with a clear understanding of what’s made us successful to now. A clear understanding of what our strengths are as an organization and a community. And a clear understanding of the challenges we face this year in reaching our goal of a much bigger community of Firefox users.

The spirit of what makes Firefox great is that it’s made by people who are passionate about making the Web experience better for other people. We’re going to honor this spirit in the marketing that we do in 2006.

Let us know how we’re doing.