March 3, 2009
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Featured Articles

It’s Time to Rethink Thought Leadership

By Chris Koch, ITSMA

Thought leadership is in the eye of the beholder. Everyone has his or her own idea of what constitutes new and innovative. And frankly, few of our companies have much new to say on a regular basis.

To compensate, we focus on trying to make everything we do sound new and innovative. But that just leads to jargon and fluff. Worse, it alienates our customers, who consistently implore us to speak clearly and focus on business issues.

They want us to offer insights about things that matter to them. This is the essence of good thought leadership marketing. It doesn’t need to be particularly new or innovative (a controversial view, I know), but it does require a strong point of view, supported by research and case studies, that mobilizes the audience to think and act.

All too often, we fail to put all these pieces together. At the top, we have broad research surveys; at the bottom, we have case studies of customers implementing particular solutions. But what’s missing is the point of view to take the customer from that broad research down to the case studies, the proof points. There needs to be a link. In a complex world, people are looking for clarity. Having a strong point of view is what provides that clarity.

Marketing Needs Help

But developing a strong point of view takes work, and we can’t do it on our own. Thought leadership should be managed by marketing, but it can’t be sourced from marketing. We need an internal thought leadership content development network to generate ideas and to test and validate points of view. (ITSMA program clients can read about how to create a thought leadership content development network here.)

Out of that content engine comes the raw fodder marketers need to develop thought leadership marketing—the white papers, Webinars, and events that will stand out in the minds of customers and prospects. Done right, thought leadership will have these four characteristics:

1. Relevant business issue
2. Strong point of view
3. Research support
4. Case examples

I recently gave a brief presentation that goes into more depth on these issues, which you can view for free here.

For more discussion about what constitutes good thought leadership—and to read some dissenting views and add your own—please visit my blog.

How to Balance Reuse and Customization in Marketing

By Jeff Sands and Ajit Maira, ITSMA

Reuse. It should be a mantra for us all in these tough times. Good marketing content can and should be reused across multiple verticals. The 80/20 rule applies. For example, to get the proper mileage out of a good white paper, lead with some vertical-specific advice that feeds into core thinking that can be applied across all the verticals that you serve.

But reuse seems paradoxical when it’s applied to Account-Based Marketing (ABM). The premise of ABM is that you should treat each account like a market of one. Yet ITSMA research is showing that ABM is also a prime candidate for reuse. Here are some areas where marketers can be efficient while still giving customers and prospects the levels of individualized attention they seek. (We’ll be looking at reuse as part of our in-depth series of workshops on ABM coming up later this spring; get more information here.)

1. Central governance. Having some kind of central governance or coordinating authority for ABM is critical to building a strategy for using resources across multiple accounts. The central authority shares time-saving best practices, replicates effective processes and account structures across the organization, builds and maintains top executive support and resources, and resolves conflicts and roadblocks inside the organization.
2. One-to-few approach. Though some accounts will require a pure one-to-one approach in which marketing content and research are highly customized, our research found that many accounts would respond just as well to a one-to-few approach that requires less customization. Central governance is helpful for determining which accounts should get this type of treatment.
3. Vertical. In-depth research on the target company’s vertical is an important part of ABM. Though the analysis will be specific to each account, the primary research can be reused with other companies in the vertical.
4. Geography. There’s no reason that the structure and processes for ABM can’t work in multiple regions around the world. For example, companies in our research have piloted ABM with accounts in a particular region and then gathered up those practices and successes to fuel pilots in other regions.
5. Account subsets. Some ABM practitioners have engaged with accounts at a global level and then reused the research and analysis to approach different divisions within the global account. Divisional and regional accounts tend to have fewer product and service lines and less complexity. Smaller accounts also require fewer marketing resources to maintain the relationship.
6. Role. ABM views accounts as collections of individuals. But those individuals have common interests, concerns, and needs across multiple accounts. For example, CFOs face some of the same challenges no matter which company they work in or which vertical they serve.
7. Business need. The high level of customer intimacy that comes with ABM sometimes reveals a business need that can’t be filled by the marketplace (including you). Chances are, that need exists in other accounts, providing an opportunity to create a new offering.
8. People. Our research has shown that few companies have dedicated ABM resources. Most have a handful of full-timers at the management level, but at the field marketing level (where ABM implementation takes place) nearly everyone is on part-time duty. They can still do their day jobs, as long as the ABM program is well designed and governed.

Jeff Sands is a vice president and leads ITSMA’s ABM practice. He will be leading a series of ABM workshops this spring. Ajit Maira is a senior vice president at ITSMA.

The Next Frontier in Differentiation: Know Your Clients

By Julie Schwartz, ITSMA

Buyer priorities are changing—and not just because of the plunging economy. A decade ago, client priorities for selecting IT services providers hinged almost exclusively on qualifications and experience. Customers wanted to know: Is there a methodology? Assets? Tools? A pre-engineered solution? Reference accounts?

When the competitive field based on qualifications leveled somewhat, attention turned to relationships. Can everyone work well together? Do service provider and client cultures match?

Over time, however, even these soft skills also became table stakes. Indeed, in the 10 years that we have been tracking IT professional services brands, the bar for providers has risen consistently.

So, how high is the bar today? So high that providers can afford few mistakes. They must deliver on the promises they make and they must demonstrate a clearer understanding of a client’s business. It goes beyond knowing an industry segment and instead requires an appreciation of a client’s business issues, challenges, and opportunities. Buyers are receptive to trusted partner relationships, so they are likely to commit to a reciprocal investment with providers to make the union work.

Marketing has an important role to play in building these trusted partner relationships. Marketing is best equipped to do the deeper research necessary to reveal and understand client issues.

Based on nearly a decade of study, ITSMA’s IT Professional Services: 2008 Brand Tracking Study also found these other trends:

• Differentiation is an endless challenge. In tough economic times characterized by shrinking customer budgets and longer sales cycles, seeking differentiation makes intuitive sense. Professional services firms differentiate by being the best at something and having proof. It is harder for services firms because of the intangibility of what they provide.
• Market positions morph slowly. Often, clients associate service providers with what they have purchased from them in the past—services and product alike. Therefore, transformation takes time and requires persistence and consistency. Migrating market positions is a good thing, but services providers need to do it with full knowledge of their starting point. They need to map a journey that will take time (even years), monitor progress, and make sure they have permission from the market to move into new territory, with proof points along the way.
• Service provider preference is less tied to awareness and more tied to impact. Over the years that ITSMA has been doing these studies, a noticeable change has occurred in the correlation of awareness and preference. Once, they were tightly linked; today they are not. Buyers are more sophisticated now and have access to more information than ever. Therefore, the companies with the highest awareness/mindshare are not necessarily the most preferred.
  Further, in this market there are clear leaders and followers. The leaders stay the same year after year. The followers shift, reflecting changing strategies, intensity of their marketing programs (many do not sustain marketing investment), and buyer needs/market trends. Buyer needs are certainly driven by trends such as enterprise infrastructure, security, business intelligence, and so on. It behooves service providers to stay attuned to buyer wants and needs and to plan their business and marketing strategies to best maximize their brand positioning.

As ITSMA’s brand study demonstrates, strong brand, based on succinct messaging and proof points, plays an indisputable role in moving clients through the buying cycle. And marketing is a critical component of building a provider’s reputation in an industry that trades on intangibles such as reliability, collaboration, and client understanding. ITSMA’s IT Professional Services: 2008 Brand Tracking Study helps services providers understand buyer attitudes and beliefs as well as their brand equity, current and/or aspired market positions, and perceptions of performance.

If you’re curious about how the top IT professional services companies scored versus their competitors, click here to download a free summary of ITSMA’s IT Professional Services: 2008 Brand Tracking Study.

Ask ITSMA: How can marketing make it easier for happy customers to spread the word?

By Julie Schwartz, Senior Vice President, Research and Thought Leadership, ITSMA

Each month, ITSMA receives a number of queries through Ask ITSMA, a resource designed to give program clients a quick and easy way to get insight on important services and solutions marketing questions they face. In this column, we will publish some of our favorite questions along with excerpts from our replies.

I’m sending out a survey and would like to gauge my response rate. What is the industry average?

Though it may be tempting to reach for benchmarks to judge response rates to surveys, marketers should avoid it. There are so many variables that affect response rates that any averages are highly suspect. These variables include:

• Is this a mail survey or a Web-based survey?
• Is this a survey of customers or a target audience?
• Is it a blind study, or are you identifying yourself as the sponsor?
• Do you have a good in-house list with contact information, including names, or is this a purchased list with incomplete information?
• Was the survey invitation addressed by name?
• Will your survey invitation (if online) be assumed to be spam?
• Are you sending the survey out during a holiday period? The summer months?
• What is the incentive for the respondent to fill out your survey?
• How interesting/relevant is the survey?
• Is the survey long or tedious to answer?
• Will answering the survey provide any direct business benefit to the respondent?

Examining each of these variables against your survey plans will help you maximize your response rates.

	Do you have a sales or marketing question? Visit Ask ITSMA to access our experience, insight, and research results.

Upcoming ITSMA Events

To view all events, please go to http://www.itsma.com/aspfiles/events/calendar.asp.

Optimizing the Marketing Organization Spend and Structure
Executive Roundtable
March 4, 2009
12:00 - 4:30 pm ET
The Westin Copley Place, Boston, MA
http://www.itsma.com/Events/event_desc/09RT02N03.htm

Marketers are under pressure to get the best return from existing resources. Rethinking the structure of the marketing organization can help. Dave Munn, President and CEO of ITSMA, and Ajit Maira, ITSMA Senior Vice President, will offer survey data and best practices and lead a discussion on topics that include ways to optimize marketing structure, the right blend of marketing programs and activities to get the best return, and which metrics offer the best evidence that marketing is indeed optimized.

Setting the Agenda for 2009: Optimising for the Downturn
ITSMA Inner Circle Meeting
4 March 2009
18:30 - 21:00 London time
Elena's L'Etoile, London, UK
http://www.itsma.com/Events/event_desc/09DM03E06.htm

There are strong arguments to support the view that, in an economic downturn, marketing is more important than ever. Yet faced with tighter budgets and closer scrutiny, marketers are having to make tough choices. Using ITSMA research, Richard Seymour, Managing Director, ITSMA Europe, and Jerry Dixon, Associate Director, ITSMA Europe, will lead a discussion of what leading companies are doing to weather the storm and demonstrate the value of marketing.

Driving New Business Through Effective Client Referral
ITSMA Roundtable
31 March 2009
12:00 - 15:00 London time
London, UK
http://www.itsma.com/Events/event_desc/09RT03E09.htm

This roundtable event will explore how to enhance the sales and marketing life cycle of value-based case studies and create strong propositions and programmes using client referrals to drive sales. Attendees will improve their ability to evangelise client success, strengthen value propositions, and deliver effective client referral programmes.

Creating Marketing Programs and Content That Sales Will Actually Use
Breakfast and lunch briefings

April 2, 2009
12:00 – 2:00 pm PT
Santa Clara, CA

April 15, 2009
7:30 – 9:30 am ET
Newton, MA

April 22, 2009
7:30 – 9:30 am ET
Vienna, VA

http://www.itsma.com/aspfiles/events/calendar.asp

Join ITSMA’s Jeff Sands as he offers best practices and case studies describing ways in which marketing can provide sales with highly targeted content and programs that can be used to move prospects closer to selecting you as their preferred solution provider. You will learn how to help sales choose the accounts in which they have the greatest likelihood of success and how to get prospects to engage in conversations with sales earlier in the buying process.

Increasing Growth in Target Accounts: A Practical Approach to Account-Based Marketing
Workshop
29 April 2009
London, UK
http://www.itsma.com/Events/event_desc/09WS04E15.htm

As the economic turmoil intensifies, more and more companies are increasing investments in marketing and sales programs that target individual accounts and prospects. In this one-day workshop, you will learn how to identify the most appropriate criteria to select the best accounts for your program, determine an appropriate funding model, create an ABM Governance model to effectively manage your program, and design your ABM workshops to create your integrated ABM sales and marketing campaign plans.

Recent ITSMA Research

Services Marketing Budgets and Benchmarks: 2009 Budget Allocations and Trends
This research is free to anyone from participating companies
http://www.itsma.com/research/abstracts/B020.htm

In a tough economy, companies do more than make cuts; they make choices. A down economy affords the opportunity to fine-tune marketing initiatives by reallocating the budget to invest in high potential programs and eliminate those that deliver subpar results. This research provides detailed data on services marketing budgets, budget allocations, and marketing priorities from a range of companies across the technology and consulting industries.

Marketing Analytics
This research is free to anyone from participating companies
http://www.itsma.com/research/abstracts/SV4436.htm

ITSMA’s analytics survey revealed that it is critical that marketing improve its ability to analyze data to inform decisions, predict buyer behavior, and forecast trends. Included in the report are best practices for analytics gleaned from the results and from ITSMA research.

Recent ITSMA Thought Leadership

ITSMA's 2009 State of the Marketing Profession Address:
Making the Right Choices in Uncertain Times
http://www.itsma.com/Events/event_desc/09OB01G01.htm

When times get tough, the traditional response of most companies is to increase sales resources while cutting marketing. That thinking is outdated. In this online briefing, ITSMA’s Dave Munn and Julie Schwartz explain how marketing can improve the efficiency of sales better than simply putting more feet on the street to sell.

What You Need to Know About Marketing Analytics
http://www.itsma.com/research/abstracts/olb081216.htm

It’s critical that marketing improve its ability to analyze data to inform decisions, predict buyer behavior, and forecast trends. This requires a foundation of quality data, collaboration between marketing and finance, and a willingness to experiment before making big commitments to programs and campaigns. In this Online Briefing, ITSMA’s Chris Koch, analytics guru Pat LaPointe of MarketingNPV, and Samir Bagga, Vice President, Global Marketing & Communications for professional services company Satyam, reveal highlights from ITSMA’s survey on marketing analytics and provide insights and best practices in marketing analytics.

Two Extremes That Will Clarify Your Launch Strategy
http://www.itsma.com/research/abstracts/V0045.htm

Product and service launch strategies are framed by two extremes: blow open the market right away with a big marketing push or build awareness slowly over time. Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader calls these extremes “penetration” and “skim.” In this Viewpoint, Fader explains how marketers can use skim and penetration as guidelines for developing the most appropriate campaigns.

Marketing in a Downturn
http://www.itsma.com/research/abstracts/SV4320.htm

ITSMA members are beginning to feel the effects of the financial markets crisis. Although pipelines remain strong in the fourth calendar quarter, companies are issuing cautions regarding 2009. There is little to no visibility for 2009 customer demand. In response, marketers are changing their strategies and tactics.