Marketing 101 – Separate yourself from the digital noise in the IT industry

Creating disruption within a marketplace isn’t easy.

As the competition intensifies for resellers to showcase the latest technology solutions and provide tangible business benefits to customers, one area that many need to modernise is their marketing behaviour. As much as we love our e-marketing, direct mail, landing pages and events, that isn’t marketing (or at least not the total picture of it).

It’s a channel to which you use for your marketing, to get your messaging and content to your current customers and prospective ones. With the rapid advancement of digital platforms and technology now though, how do you cut through[mH1] to generate new business and interest through your marketing I hear you ask?

Well you’re in luck as I’m about to divulge some key areas that can help you differentiate yourself from the vast sea of resellers out there all plugging the same advantages/benefits/reasons to end-customers.

Before we start, I will make a disclaimer – I apologise profusely in advance about the acronyms and ‘marketing lingo’ that is to follow in this article. Like Neo in the Matrix, the marketing “0’s and 1’s” will make sense I promise. Also, marketing is a subjective matter – everyone has a particular ‘school’ they align to but in the end collaboration and engagement internally is the key to driving measurable, profitable and intelligent marketing.

Do the legwork and get the business intelligence – How?

Why? What? When?

The majority of the resellers I have met with have anecdotally informed me that many of their current customers have been lifelong or historical and that’s the reason they chose them. My question normally results back in

‘So how do distinguish why new customers have come on board with you?’

It’s at this point I either get faced with a silent pause or the general response is ‘down to our great working relationship and trust’. Whilst this may be true, there are intrinsic reasons for the entire process of why that prospect became a customer. A quick situational analysis I like to carry out is:

• HOW did they find out about you and your capabilities and expertise?

• WHY did they decide to let you through the door and showcase what you can deliver?

• WHAT was the key deciding factor or factors that made them choose you?

• WHEN did they decide you were the right partner for them in the sales cycle?

By gaining the answers above from your customers, you’ll be able to leverage your differentiators within the market to and develop specific marketing campaigns that highlight your expertise and business acumen.

What do you want to achieve with Marketing? – Set your objectives and develop a strategy

Marketing can perform many functions, both tangible and intangible but it’s imperative that you develop objectives and a strategy as to what your marketing hopes to achieve. To simply say ‘generate leads’ isn’t enough and won’t be utilising the expertise that sits in your marketing.

A fine balance of building your brand equity, marketing communication and ROI activities will provide you with a strong base to launch campaigns, generate new business and achieve your marketing objective outlined in your strategy. With customers almost being 54% down the sales decision process before engaging with companies* according to Gartner, it’s imperative you ensure you have the right content, information and buying tools available to prospective customers and effectively transport these prospects through the marketing and sales conversion funnel.

Don’t rely on one channel

Your customers ingest information and content at different rates, different times and through different platforms. Touchpoints can vary from a conversation at an exhibition to a blog post created by one of your tech experts. With the explosion of social media platforms, native mobile apps and automated marketing CRM platforms and constantly changing Google algorithms on SEO, it’s very easy to miss communicating to your customer target base.

Google coined a term ‘Micro-moments’ to describe when an individual turns to a device to enable an act. Without going into much into detail, these have been categorised into 4 ‘game-changing’ moments

• I-want-to-know moments – exploring/researching but not necessarily purchasing

• I-want-to-go moments – looking for local business or considering buying a product at a nearby store

• I-want-to-do moments – looking for help completing a task or trying something new

• I-want-to-buy moments – ready to purchase and may need help in deciding what or how

In these moments, consumers are drawn to brands that deliver to these needs. Whilst this draws mainly to a B2C environment, there is reason to apply this to a B2B as well.

Developing an omni-channel approach when doing your marketing activities makes sure your proposition and campaigns are seen and experienced by your customers through the channels they normally and prefer to engage with. It also allows you to connect all of your customer channels (online & offline) together and potentially unify your business units all together to understand, analyse and engage on the right level.

Segmentation, Profiling and Personalisation

We all know how quickly market dynamics and environments and structures change. The buying process within the IT industry differs for many verticals and can involve one decision maker to seven or eight (or even a panel).

Take the time to segment your customer base – are you strongest in the Finance sector? If so, how many DMs (decision makers) or KIs (key influencers) are involved? Do they all fit the same profile? We know that business priorities are different in each department so its invaluable to ensure you develop your campaigns to resonate with ALL persona parts of the purchasing funnel.

Take the time to develop your marketing campaigns to target different profiles and personalise the content. By leading both DMs and KIs down the route to understand the business advantages and benefits of your solution(s), it not only allows the sales cycle to become more efficient by ensuring that no segment is left unaware and not bought in to your proposition, you can also address any barriers of entry to that customer and vertical before heavy investment.

Analyse, measure and adapt

Before anyone points out, yes, the above does sound like a line that Bear Grylls would use but here’s the reason why I finish this blog on the above.

Without adapting, changing and tweaking your marketing campaigns and strategy to the results and insight you are gaining through them, your ROI and marketing effectiveness will diminish over time (in some cases rapidly if your competitors catch on to the same tactics).

Customers engagement and buying criteria changes over time, new influencers enter and decision makers come and go, so whilst your marketing campaign might’ve worked last time around, don’t take it for granted that it will work this time around. Take a learning from the popular sino-Japanese term ‘Kaizen’ used in business to continuously improve your tactical plans and adapt your strategy to deliver the outcomes you expect.