If you are marketing technology, here is another reason why your sales team needs you to focus 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 contacted.
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. CMOs, are you experiencing this at your organization? This can be solved with marketing. The sales force cannot do it alone and needs 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 it’s relevant, your approach to ensure delivery of your message in channels that your target trusts, and your follow through to successfully nurture and establish these relationships with key decision makers.
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