February 9, 2010
If you are marketing technology, here is another reason why your sales team needs you to focused on nurturing your target audience with a fully integrated effort.
The CIO Executive Council, recently interviewed 277 senior IT executives in October and November 2009 to gain a better understanding of vendor solicitation. Although the full ” Field Report” results are to be published in February, the first look at the results solidify general thinking in the market. Over 50% of unsolicited cold calls by your sales force are found to be the most annoying first contact method listed by the senior IT executives. I don’t think this is a surprise since logic suggests that the target should have some understanding of your solutions and organization before they are contacting.
More importantly, these senior IT executives found that the caller was not prepared and had little knowledge of the targets organizational needs in half of the contacts that actually connected.
The list goes on in terms of unsolicited contact strategies deployed by technology marketers. Unsolicited emails, email content that added no value, voice mails that had no clear message were also stated in the survey as being ineffective in a first contact strategy. CMO’s are you experiencing this at your organization? This can be solved with marketing. The sales force cannot do it alone and need your marketing team to lay the ground work for more successful interactions with the It buying target.
When these senior It executives were asked how a vendor should differentiate themselves when contacting CIOs , they listed off the basic content a marketing team is expected to create and distribute using a variety of marketing communications materials and tactics.
Name references that are relevant to our own company and known/respected by me
How their product cost or feature set is tailored to companies of our size
How their product fits with our current IT implementations or standards
How their product cost or feature set is tailored to companies in our industry
How their product is competitively different and superior
What they are already providing to companies like ours
How their product could help us accomplish our specific business or IT goals
The results outline the simple fact that CIOs and non-incumbent vendors find that establishing a relationship for the first time is hindered by inadequacies and difficulties inherent in the approach for first contact. A smart marketing plan or even an account specific plan developed with your sales force can better prepare your content to ensure its relevant, your approach to ensure your deliver of your message in channels that your target trusts and your follow through to successfully nurture and establish these relationships with the key decision makers.
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Posted by Tom Jacobs
February 5, 2010
It’s a given that today’s CIOs must use information technology to support and enhance business goals. Organizations continue to raise expectations towards how the CIOs will create value for the organization while enhancing business processes and containing IT costs. This is a tough challenge and puts quite a lot of pressure on the CIO audience. But here lies the opportunity for technology marketers. By developing messages that are relevant to this current CIO mindset and demonstrating how your technology solutions will create the value sought by the CIO, you become more effective in your marketing efforts.
Marketing your technology solutions with messages focused merely on cost reduction will not breakthrough in today’s economy. Almost every marketing message is talking about cost reduction, so how can your message standout? Map your message to demonstrate how your solution will extend across the entire value chain of the organization like streamlining internal processes, restructuring operations, innovative ideas to make the business more agile and responsive, integration of the partner ecosystem such as suppliers, customers, service providers etc. These can all be messages that prove out your organization’s innovation, and how the CIO can bring value to their organization.
The role of the CIO has transformed to a value creator and an innovator, rather than being a mere ‘techie’ in the organization so your messages need to support this shift in thinking to get on their radar and be considered. Try to rise above the routine and mundane cost-saving messages and specific IT function and align your messaging to the CIOs need to create value for their organizations.
Of course this will take a few meetings with your sales team and product teams to gather the raw information needed to create relevant messaging. So I have included some starter thoughts about the top CIO priorities for 2010 as gathered by Gartner. Use these to map your messages that relate toward overall business value and you may have a better shot at getting to the table.
Top 10 Business and Technology Priorities in 2010
| Top 10 Business Priorities |
Ranking |
Top 10 Technology Priorities |
Ranking |
| Business process improvement |
1 |
Virtualization |
1 |
| Reducing enterprise costs |
2 |
Cloud computing |
2 |
| Increasing the use of information/analytics |
3 |
Web 2.0 |
3 |
| Improving enterprise workforce effectiveness |
4 |
Networking, voice and data communications |
4 |
| Attracting and retaining new customers |
5 |
Business Intelligence |
5 |
| Managing change initiatives |
6 |
Mobile technologies |
6 |
| Creating new products or services (innovation) |
7 |
Data/document management and storage |
7 |
| Targeting customers and markets more effectively |
8 |
Service-oriented applications and architecture |
8 |
| Consolidating business operations |
9 |
Security technologies |
9 |
| Expanding current customer relationships |
10 |
IT management |
10 |
Source: Gartner EXP (January 2010)
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Posted by Tom Jacobs
February 2, 2010
Last year a majority of the VARs slowed their marketing spending during the down economy. As we move into this new year, I would argue that many VARs are following the same plan and perhaps rightfully so as the economy still remains a bit shaky. But spending less money doesn’t necessarily mean reduced marketing — Now is a good time to review your brand.
I am encouraged to see a growing trend that I have not seen in many years among the VAR community. Many VARs are making an effort to brand and promote their own unique value above and beyond any vendor affiliation. Creating this differentiation within a landscape that could easily be described as a commodity can only have a positive affect. With long term goals in mind, VAR marketing must go beyond the very common messages focused on vendor certifications and the perceived benefit of associating with these multi-billion-dollar brands. A reliance on provided vendor messaging will only hamper the ability of a VAR to communicate its point of difference in the crowded marketplace.
Tech buyers have consistently suggested that it’s more important for a VAR to align tightly to its organizational needs by communicating more relevant expertise than to promote the Platinum, Gold or Silver level of certification they may have with any vendor. VARs can strengthen their customer relationships by highlighting the value they deliver, communicating their deep vertical expertise or by providing above-and-beyond services for more basic infrastructure issues. Of course, these are only a few general thoughts that demonstrate a path towards more unique messaging and must be underpinned by the VAR’s ability and not necessarily the vendor’s marketplace message.
The economy has forced many VARs to simply become better business people instead of relying on vendors for marketing differentiation and business expertise. VARs have to work hard to identify what their unique position is within the marketplace and develop their own brands to ensure they can stand out among the crowd.
The smart ones will understand that the canned messaging and marketing programs provided by these vendors…. is not a VAR identity.
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Posted by Tom Jacobs
January 28, 2010
There are a lot of great thoughts and opinions on how to use content to further a potential technology buyer down the sales pipeline. Tech marketers have done a great job of developing content that is relevant for the various buying stages and it looks like the tech buyers appreciate the information. In the early phase of their buying stages these tech buyers are consuming content at an accelerated pace. This is good news.
But what about the later stages of the buying process. Many technology marketers struggle with how content can address the buyer’s issues when they are in the final decision-making process. More often than not, there seems to be a hand off to sales at this point with marketing stepping back a bit and allowing the sales person to “close the deal.” However, tech buyers want more detailed information at this stage and may not feel comfortable bringing in the sales person during the end stage of their decision-making process.
So tech marketers, if you want to influence this end stage buyer, you should have some content built around relevant details for the buyer to contemplate. Take a risk….try providing a vendor comparison document.
Many of you in the tech marketing field are not comfortable comparing your solutions to your competitors due to the perceived risks involved, but buyers have expressed the desire for this information (as noted by many tech buyer reports). Let’s face it, these tech buyers are going to compare your solution anyways, so why not make sure that they have the right detail and benefits to compare with. By offering up this content, you can hep the buyers out so they are not searching for the information themselves, and perhaps your company will be seen as a more trusted and transparent partner.
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Posted by Tom Jacobs
January 26, 2010
CMO’s at tech companies need to ensure their team is focused on strategy first. I have had recent discussions with many marketing departments at technology companies that cause me a bit of concern. Often, the conversations among these marketers tend t0 focus on what marketing vehicles should be used. I can’t count how many times I heard ‘let’s do a direct mail’ or ‘we should look into social media,’ without a mention of the objective, audience, or – for that matter – the desired result. This concerns me greatly as I believe these marketers have the talent and the know how, but seem to be so focused on the tactical efforts due to heavy influence of a sales team or perhaps their senior management to get something out there.
A common trap inside these corporate marketing departments assumes that when you talk about marketing, you’re automatically talking about tactical marketing – placing ads, generating leads, sending out mailers, attending tradeshows, creating brochures, implementing a follow-up system, and so forth.
There is a failure to realize that the strategic side – what you say, how you say it, and who you say it to – is always more important than the marketing medium of how you deliver it.
The distinction between the two is critical and these marketing folks need to stay focused on their strategies without undue influence from other departments. Now, I am not suggesting that the sales team input is not important. I do believe in alignment, but the conversations seem to shift to marketing tactic versus the bigger objectives. Tactical marketing is the execution of your marketing plan, such as generating leads, placing media, creating marketing tools, and implementing a follow-up system. In other words, it’s the medium in which your message is delivered.
Strategic marketing has to do with the content of your marketing message and starts with understanding your customers and the issues that are important to them, understanding why they buy or make a decision.
Just putting a marketing message in an appropriate medium for your target audience to hear or read is not good enough. The strategy must derive from an understanding of what’s important to to the target audience. Otherwise, this tactical part of the marketing process will be much less effective, resulting in ads that under-perform.
Many companies simply try to craft their sales pitch more before they find out how to provide a solution to their consumers’ needs.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant, the true intent is to remind all of your busy tech marketers to stay focused.
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Posted by Tom Jacobs
January 21, 2010
When developing your content to build credibility for your tech solution it makes common sense to include data to back up your claims. Let’s face it, we are taught throughout our educational years to demonstrate and prove our intended results with documented evidence. There are so many technology solutions competing for share of voice, that incorporating proof data to build credibility in your marketing message should be automatic. Without the backing of data to support your claims, you leave your prospect simply wondering if they should take a chance on your solution.
But how much data? With technology solutions, I have reviewed many “pitches” that incorporate pages and pages of data to prove out their thinking. Marketing teams at technology companies that have adopted the content approach are gathering and analyzing data toward developing their proof points. Certainly they are demonstrating their commitment to content development which is quite necessary for their marketing initiatives. But I am often surprised by the results of this activity. Most often this content is delivered through heavy white papers and elongated sales brochures, powerpoints that can go one for days, all filled with mounds of data and proof points to back their claims.
I am not a tech buyer, but I read a lot of this content and am amazed at the quantity of data and the quality. There are some messages that have an overwhelming amount of data to support their claims, and causes me to become suspicious of their claims. It is almost too good to be true.
We can only comprehend so much. Our minds have limits in our ability to digest information and too much knowledge can undermine the intended message, greatly diminishing the intended credibility.
Developing content should be a critical component to your external marketing initiatives, but balancing the amount of benefits and proof points included within your messaging should consider the audiences ability to comprehend and digest your message. If you are truly attempting to build credibility for your tech solution, limit your messaging to four or five data points that can prove out your claims.
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Posted by Tom Jacobs
January 18, 2010
As a CMO or marketing person at a technology company, I have to believe you are well into understanding the need to develop relevant content and its value toward driving leads, building credibility and differentiating your brand. With more and more content available to tech buyers both on-line and off-line I am beginning to question whether speed to market vs. production values will emerge as the crucial consideration for businesses and brands as they create and distribute new content.
Developing content can be quite laborious and requires a full marketing team effort. Listening to many CMO’s communicate the concern for cost and time necessary to develop and produce quality content has me wondering about the process and the budget necessary to achieve an organizations content goals. While one of the key issues in enterprise technology is cost optimization, I would suggest that this line of thinking can be applied to content development as well. Is there a tipping point with content development? How much production value should be embedded into the process to best serve your audience ?
As I think about video and audio content-creation for a technology company, I tend to focus on the basics. The content’s purpose will directly impact the tolerance (or lack thereof) that your audience will have for the quality of the finished content. The speed to deliver the content should reflect the audiences need for the information. With a fast paced world out there, I would lean more toward content relevancy and speed versus a high production value.
As an example: If you are reporting live from an event and the purpose of the content is to give your audience a feel for the event as it happens, speed is valuable and you can get by with little to no editing. In fact, the “in the moment” feel of almost-raw video helps support the purpose of the video and communicate the essence of the event.
However, if you’re putting together a reflection on the same event, with the goal being to provide a solid overview of the event as a whole and to draw larger conclusions, I would suggest that you have to balance time and quality. You have a little more time and you’ll need to more thoroughly edit your available footage to tell the bigger picture.
I believe web-content can follow the same measure of content purpose versus production value. Users expect different things from a post created as part of a live blogging activity vs. even a daily post on a thought-leader’s blog. Live-blogging is rawer but is immediately timely. A daily blog is still timely but should have the benefit of a little thought and at least a read-through before posting. If you are developing a white paper, Web site, or learning content, a plan and more substantial editing are called for to truly support the purpose of the content.
Bottom line is you should review your content development with cost optimization in mind. Match your resources against the audience, identify the purpose of the content and measure the added value you may receive from the extra time and budget spent to deliver versus delivering the message faster.
What do you think?
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Posted by Tom Jacobs
January 13, 2010
There’s a fundamental shift happening in technology marketing around the globe today, as the formerly adversarial relationship between sales and marketing is being replaced by a new level of collaboration driven by the need to achieve shared goals. Marketers face increasing pressure to provide sales with content that meets a specific need at a specific point in the sales cycle and at the same time marketing departments are challenged to reduce customer acquisition costs. This means that marketers need to shift from supporting, to enabling the sales team.
CMO’s at many technology companies are implementing more refined sales enablement programs to better the alignment of these two departments. But here is the bottom line, these sales enablement programs, no matter the intention of both sales and marketing are only going to be successful with the appropriate leadership in place. Too often, marketing and sales attempt to align with each department head calling the shots and driving the strategy with their department needs in mind. This tends to cause confusion and hampers the process.
ITSMA’s most recent study
Sales Enablement Practices and Trends: Increasing Marketing’s Impact suggests sales enablement needs to fall under a unified leadership in order to be the most effective. It helps assure that the burden to improve performance will be shared fairly between marketing and sales. It also creates a single point of authority and accountability for improving the processes that marketing and sales share. Julie Schwartz, from ITSMA details six reasons as to why sales and marketing need to share the accountability and leadership for effective sales enablement efforts:
- Integrate a split buying process. Many companies still treat the buying process as having two separate and distinct pieces, with marketing generating leads and then handing leads off to sales. But marketing and sales should collaborate to move the customer/prospect through the entire customer buying process, not just hand off leads.
- Create a single system for tracking leads. One of the best ways to encourage collaboration between marketing and sales is to integrate a marketing automation system with sales’ CRM system to track lead generation and nurturing. But that kind of integration requires leadership.
- Reduce indirect selling activities. Shared leadership would also help eliminate the inefficiency that’s occurring right now in the sales process. Salespeople spend 23% of their time on indirect selling activities (lead generation and tracking, planning, account management, creating presentations, customer research, after-sales service, etc.). This is time that could be better spent in front of customers.
- Make marketing accountable for that reduction. If sales enablement is all about reducing the cost and effort to move a prospect through the buying process, marketers need to be taking steps to reduce the time that salespeople spend on activities that marketers could be doing more efficiently. But until more marketing organizations become accountable for reducing the time sales spends in indirect selling activities, improvements are less likely. We found that just 11% of marketing organizations are held accountable for doing this now, whereas 37% are in the planning stages. A strong, shared marketing and sales leader could convince the other 51% to get started soon.
- Help marketing improve its most effective programs. In our survey, marketers told us that the three most effective sales enablement activities are reference programs, ROI/price justification tools, and client briefing centers. To be effective, all these programs require close collaboration between sales and marketing.
- Know what the other hand is doing. We found that companies that are succeeding at sales enablement use quantitative metrics to gauge the impact of sales enablement activities, such as:
- Number of closed deals influenced by marketing
- Number of opportunities in the pipeline
- Number of sales-ready leads generated
If we are going to close the gap between marketing and sales and truly reduce the cost and effort to move a prospect through the buying process, it’s time for marketing and sales to get together.
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Posted by Tom Jacobs
January 11, 2010
I have a constant internal debate over the use of Facebook as a B2B marketing tool. I truly believe in social media as a B2B marketing channel. LinkedIn, Twitter and other popular sites relevant to technology have proven to be quite effective as listening devices, and communication channels. But when it comes to Facebook, I have some comfort issues as I perceive Facebook as a more personal oriented forum. This may be due to the fact that my family uses Facebook to communicate with their friends and other family members. Most of the activity is very much oriented towards their organization and coordination of personal activities.
So when I step back and think about Facebook as a B2B marketing vehicles, I start to question how B2B content is going to be relevant in this type of environment. Perhaps if you are a smaller business, this may be a valuable social media choice, but when you think about enterprise based technology, even though your tech buyers and clients are probably on Facebook, are they there for personal reasons? Do they want to participate in business banter or is Facebook more of a respite from their busy work day?
But here’s my observation– most of the really good examples out there are of B2C companies using Facebook to reach their target audience. There are far fewer concrete examples of successful use of B2B companies using Facebook. And I’d caution that it’s not a very good tool for B2B companies to use – as least not right now, anyway.
Why? One simple word: blocking. Those of us who dabble around in social media all day from our laptops, iPhones, or the comfort of our Web 2.0-crazed agency jobs can easily forget that many people work for companies who block Facebook at work. For B2B companies, their target audience is usually (obviously) other companies, but more specifically, it’s the decision-makers within those other companies. This could mean purchasing managers, marketing managers, IT managers or the C-suite. You can have the coolest Facebook fan page in the world for your business, but if none of your target audience can actually access it during the day while they’re at work (and making those decisions about whether to use your company’s product or service), then it’s probably not the best way to engage your potential customers.
It’s not as easy to see how Facebook might be useful in the business-to-business marketing context beyond personal connections and networking. That’s in part why the B2B answer to social networking is often “We are all on LinkedIn (or Twitter)”
What do you think?
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Posted by Tom Jacobs
January 6, 2010
One of the great benefits of developing and implementing a fully integrated marketing plan is the efficiency of re-purposing your content throughout the various marketing vehicles. As we know tech buyers are continually seeking information about their desired subjects and tend to rely on multiple forms of media consumption to obtain this information. Certainly re-purposing content not only saves time to market and has efficiencies by lowering your development time and cost, but can also ensure your messages remain consistent in all forms of delivery.
As you start the new year, add a goal to review all of your existing content. Like any other marketing asset, you should have all of your content in an organized fashion and at minimally categorized by subject, date created, and how the content is delivered by vehicle. Although re-purposing content can extend its shelf life, you want to ensure that your content is current and relevant to the conversations of your targeted audience. Use this exercise to weed out old information, up date your point of views and create more compelling messages.
Most important your content should be measured based on its ability to create a conversation. The true value of all of your marketing efforts be they on-line or off-line is the opportunity to initiate the conversation among your target audience. Let’s face it, a smart message that can initiate the conversation creates behavior like clicking to a link, referencing the point and perhaps picking up the phone.
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Posted by Tom Jacobs
