Archive for the ‘Lead Nurturing’ Category

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15 Ways Marketing Can Support Your IT Sales Success

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

Just as suicide bombing has become popular in recent years to draw attention and cause horrific damage to both life and property, forced selling in the IT industry without due marketing has also gained popularity, based on the false notion that marketing is a waste of money, and the secret to higher sales is just hiring higher number of more aggressive salespeople who are willing to go through concrete walls to meet buyers.

But it has turned out to be a big belly flop, and as a result of that retarded approach, most IT companies are forced to compete on price as replaceable vendors. The status of the respected industrial authority, even if it’s ever existed, is dead and gone.

So, IT companies either carry on competing on price and duking it out in bidding wars, responding to RFPs, or pull their stubborn heads out of their arses, realise that times have changed and start changing with the times.

And this is what we discuss this month’s toe-curlingly exciting episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, 15 Ways Marketing Can Support Your Sales Success.

Hope you find it valuable.

Enjoy!

Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Market Positioning | View Comments

“How To Segment The Marketplace For Your IT Business

Friday, November 25th, 2011

Imagine a thoroughbred race horse that is locked up in a small stable.

The horse feels something is wrong but doesn’t know what. He wants to run in the fields, but his owner denies him the privilege. The owner, who knows nothing about horses, is frustrated because the horse is acting up by kicking the door or the walls of the stable.

Then on race day, after six months of confinement and lack of training, the owner brings the horse out for a race.

Of course, the horse loses, and the owner is now thinking about turning the horse into sausages.

Now, I don’t say that you should turn your bad clients into sausages or show negative feelings against inappropriate prospects. All I’m saying is that in all your dealings, favour prospects with “great client” potential and emotionlessly walk away from problematic prospects.

Note that it is your market that defines your branding, positioning, packaging, pricing and even the claims you make.

You must know your market’s size, growth rate, demographics, psychographics, technographics (technical sophistication: abacus vs. computers), needs, purchasing habits, and many other factors. Different companies segment their markets differently, but this segmentation method you’re about to read about applies to every industry.

There are two attributes to consider…

And this is what we discuss this month’s mind-menglingly splendid episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, “How To Segment The Marketplace For Your IT Business”.

Then come back here and voice your thoughts.

Enjoy!

Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Market Positioning | View Comments

17 Common Direct Mail Mistakes IT Companies Make Part 2

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

Have ave you heard that in a desperate effort to win the Second World War, British scientists had come up with the brilliant idea of feeding Hitler with female hormones, so over time, he would have become docile and submissive just like his younger sister, Paula Wolf.

This great strategy, as explained in Professor Brian Ford’s book, “Secret Weapons: Technology, Science and the Race to Win World War II”, was that British spies would mix oestrogen into Moustache Dolfie’s meals, and slowly but surely he would “calm down”, so the Allies could reason with him.

The other piece of British warfare imbecility to win the war was by putting glue onto Nazi soldiers’ boots and sticking them to the ground.

So much fuss for nothing. Or as good ol’ Will wrote a few years ago, “Much Ado For Nothing”.

And the interesting thing is that this is happening in so many IT companies as well. They hire the big fancy advertising agencies to come up with new slogans, but nothing significant happens. Lots of smoke but no fire.

And this is what we discuss this month’s brain-fryingly exciting episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, 17 Common Direct Mail Mistakes IT Companies Make Part 2.

Enjoy your reading and share what you think.

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17 Common Direct Mail Mistakes IT Companies Make Part 1

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

Have you heard that every year 13 people are killed by vending machines? Yes, that’s correct. Machines fall on them and literally squeeze the living daylights out the poor bastards. It usually happens to people who raid vending machines and try to pry the goodies out of them.

By a mind-menglingly staggering coincidence, similar fate is waiting for IT marketing managers who try to pry too much out of their direct mail campaigns without doing the necessary preliminary work to prepare their campaigns for best performance.

They haphazardly put their packages together, and then equally haphazardly roll them out to their markets. And quite often, the highly anticipated marketing campaign performs a spectacular belly flop and falls flat on its arse.

After this little incident, campaigns are often abandoned to their fate, and die a slow and agonising death.

In this article we look at 15 ingredients that are often missing from direct mail campaigns and undermine their overall performance.

And this is what we discuss this month’s mortifyingly mesmerising episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, “17 Common Direct Mail Mistakes IT Companies Make Part 1”.

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Are Your Follow Up Messages Too Aggressive?

Thursday, March 24th, 2011

Being an avid reader and learner, I sign up for many online programmes to learn new bits and bobs. I do this in spite of knowing that as soon as the presenters get my email address, most of them will start bombarding me with follow-up sales pitches to get as much of my money and as quickly as humanly possible.

And while I understand and agree that the purpose of sequential autoresponders is to stay in touch with interested people who one day decide that our stuff is valuable and buy something from us, I also believe that the purpose of the process is sharing valuable information with these people and in doing so PRE-selling our stuff in a dignified and professional manner.

Now, I know that at this point some people may say that I’m a useless salesperson, and they are 100% right. If I had to sell my services without properly marketing them first, I would rather lie down, pull a paper bag over my head and let a tree grow through my body.

Actually a while ago Bob Bly wrote a a great article about this issue, entitled Are You in Marketing Because You Can’t Sell?

You can drastically reduce your sales effort by beefing up your marketing. And doing the marketing bit is much more enjoyable and less confrontational. When you communicate with a captive audience, there is not much rejection.

Anyway…

So, follow-up messages and attempts to sell more are fine and dandy. We all want to make money in our businesses. However, what bugs me is the methods some of the so-called gurus use to exhort money from their victims. One of these methods is using aggressive and pushy but otherwise worthless messages.

And this is what we discuss this month’s conspicuously exciting episode of Tomicide Solutions, mysteriously entitled, “Are Your Follow Up Messages Too Aggressive?”

Posted in Lead Nurturing, Marketing | View Comments

How Can Marketing Automation Replace IT Salespeople

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

Legend has it that Oscar Wilde’s last words were…

“My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go.”

And although he fought bravely, the wallpaper eventually won. And good ol’ Oscar unceremoniously kicked the bucket.

Today, the same duel is taking place in many IT companies. History is forcing new sales and marketing practices on them, but they are bravely fighting for keeping the old practices.

They are still doggedly chasing after buyers with authorised and signed purchase orders in hot pursuit of the quick buck.

And one by one, those salespeople get their noses smashed by the brick walls buyers erect to keep salespeople out of their lives.

This proverbial wall is the purchasing department whose single most important task is to find tolerable IT service providers and beat them up on price.

And, as a result, IT companies are falling like flies. Here today, gone tomorrow.

But…

If you do “respected authority” type marketing and join your prospects’ buying cycles early enough, then what you find is that some 97% are not ready to buy when you make first contact with them.

And this is what we discuss this month’s neuron-itchingly exhilarating episode of Tomicide Solutions, cunningly entitled, “How Can Marketing Automation Replace IT Salespeople?”

Posted in Lead Nurturing, Sales | View Comments

The Three Sides Of High Leverage IT Business Development

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Greetings on Sally Ride Day (26 May),

Sally Ride Day honours the first American woman in space, Dr. Sally Ride. She pulled this off as a mission specialist aboard STS-7, the second flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger on June 18, 1983.

And now for something completely different…

Do you know that blond people have the most hair? While the average human head has 100,000 hair follicles, blondes average 146,000 follicles. With about 86,000 follicles, nature is the stingiest to readheads, although, based on various psychological research studies, they make up for their follical shortcomings in temper.

While this is a bombastically splendiferous fact, especially considering that I’m a blond. Physically I used to be, in spirit I still am. Does that count? But the comforting part is that when it comes to business development, we have only three major aspects of business development to deal with, not thousands.

Yet, sometimes even these three aspects are too much to work on, and many IT companies choose to simply increase their raw efforts and leave the other factors alone. It’s like the fertility clinic encouraging the eunuch to gobble down more Viagra in order to start a family.

And while the clinic makes good money on the Viagra, the poor bastard’s resilient Viagra-munching keeps producing pretty soft results. And the soft results remain, even if he decides to attend a few personal development seminars with some of the best motivational speakers.

Similarly, when IT companies’ main strategy to beef up their business development is merely doing more of the same in a more resilient fashion, the end result can be pretty nasty.

And this is what we discuss this month’s stupefyingly exhilarating episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, The Three Sides Of High Leverage Business Development.

Enjoy the article and then come back here to discuss your thoughts.

Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Sales | View Comments

Setting Marketing Budget For Optimised Client Acquisition

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Do you know that more people are allergic to cow’s milk than any to other food?

The reason why I mention this hair-raisingly (your hair not mine) interesting fact is that in many small and medium-sized IT companies’ executives seem to be more allergic to setting their marketing budgets than anything else. Actually there is only one topic they are more allergic to: Setting their fees and prices.

Therefore budget-setting becomes guesswork, and very often this guesswork creates pathetically small marketing budgets, which, in turn create pathetic bottom lines in the following year.

Many small and medium-sized IT companies invest only a mere 1-3% of their gross revenues in marketing.

Why so little?

Hell knows?

But they do.

And this is what we discuss this month’s brain-fryingly exciting episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, Setting Marketing Budget For Optimised Client Acquisition.

So, go and and read it. You may even learn something new, or at lest have a good laugh.

Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Marketing | View Comments

Eccolo Media’s New Report On Using White Papers In Business Development

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Eccolo Media has just published a report on the validity of white papers in the business development cycle, entitled, Eccolo Media 2009 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report.

Some of the main conclusions are that…

White papers are here to stay in B2B business development. 84% of decision-makers rate white papers as moderately or extremely influential in the decision-making process.

White papers are considered as the most viral form of the most viral collateral materials.

White papers  nicely differentiate respected experts from fungible vendors.

White paper consumption by decision-makers has increased from 68% in 2008 to 77% in 2009.

The larger a company the more likely its executives rely on white papers. I reckon, many owners of smaller operations are chronically busy, that is, lost beyond comprehension.

Audio and video white papers are becoming more and more popular too.

The quality of writing sets the perception of the white paper. Based on the writing, the white paper issuing company can be perceived either as a proverbial Miss. Universe beauty queen or a $20 hooker.

And this perception sets the tone of the ensuing communication between buyers and sellers. 51% of respondents believed that that high-quality writing is either very important or extremely influential.

So, grab your copy of Eccolo Media 2009 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report, and read the details.

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When IT Business Development Goes Broke

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Oscar-winning actor, Nicolas Cage who’s made a pretty penny over his career now claims he’s dead, flat broke as a result of his business manager’s incompetence. He’s actually suing Samuel Levin for $20 million for leading him to financial disaster.

Cage claims that Levin handled his money irresponsibly, took unnecessary risks and failed to pay taxes on several properties, so now Cage owes the IRS some $6 million in back taxes.
Interestingly, this is the exact dynamic I’ve seen in so many smaller IT companies.

Executives don’t wants to get involved in business development because they regard it as substandard activity to their highly developed technical minds, so they hire armies of salespeople on straight commission and clearly communicate to them the key message…

“Your job is to bring us signed contracts and purchase order. Do whatever needs to be done but don’t disturb us with the details. We’re extremely busy, and we’re not interested in it anyway. You get clients and hand them over to us for further work.”

I bet my bottom dollars that this mentality has led Nicolas Cage down the doom loop too.

“Look, business manager. I’m an actor. I don’t care about the dirty details like money or business. I’m an actor. I’m an artist. You take care of the business but leave me out of it.”

In this dynamic two strong factors work in favour of salespeople…

First, salespeople can do whatever they want to do in order to get clients, and since they work in isolation, no one can really supervise what they do and no one in the company knows what’s happening around business development.

Second, salespeople have no rules for their work. Since the company doesn’t care about the details, salespeople focus on 1) what’s good for them and then 2) what’s good for the company. One thing they don’t focus on: What’s good for clients. So in the process of maximising their personal earnings, shoddy often practices raise their ugly heads.

By shoddy practices I don’t mean nasty practices but that can happen too. One areas of shoddy practices is short-term vision.

The company may be interested in landing long-term repeat and referral clients, but due to their compensation model, commissioned salespeople only care about the “right here” and the “right now”. And we can’t even blame them, since they have to eat too.

And we haven’t even mentioned the huge attrition of salespeople in the IT industry. Again, due to their archaic compensation model, they keep looking for greener pastures.

And when that happens and they decide to move to the competition, they take all their clients with them.

And executives get pretty pissed off for this “stealing” act.

But let’s see the other option of not “stealing” clients

Fred salesman leaves the company where he worked on a “Do it and spare us from the details” basis. The company has no built-in business development.

So, what happens to the prospective clients and past clients after Fred’s departure? These are the people the company should stay in touch for future business. And they get neglected.

Here is why…

These prospective and past clients have relationships with Fred not with the company.

Fred has his own stay-in-touch system but the company has none.

So, it’s only fair to say that the company’s haphazard stay-in-touch programme will soon go down the toilet and these prospective and past clients will be unceremoniously abandoned.

And what are the executives doing in the meantime?

They are probably naval-gazing in the boardroom about executive compensations, website colour schemes or the latest management fads that have just come out of one of the Ivey League business schools.

And what happens when the company runs out of money due to lack of clients?

Simple…

Bring on the next round of venture capital.

And when no more money is to be had, the company quietly goes tits-up.

The way I see it, unless business development is a centralised organisational function, it’s not a business but a glorified hobby.

Yes, salespeople may be needed, although I doubt it, these salespeople have to work on executing the company’s business development strategy not merely doing their haphazard work to get clients here and there.

Message to IT companies: If you want to hire great salespeople, show them that your company actually has a business development strategy.

Message to IT salespeople: Ask you would-be employer about the company’s business development strategy. And when the recruiter says that you just go out and hunt for clients on your own, you’d better run because the end can be near.

What do you think? Is this a reasonable perspective on business development?

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