IT Services Marketing Association » Tool

How to Create a Services Development Process

ITSMA Research — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:30:57 +0000

Given the poor odds of success with new product and services introductions, it is important to find ways to minimize the risks of new services development. ITSMA believes that a well-designed
services development process helps weed out the less worthy services product ideas and strengthen the ones with greater potential.

Key Takeaways

A formal process can reduce time, cost, and risk in developing new services
The process must be flexible to allow for the added complexity of services development
Reserve the right to develop new services outside of the process if they represent a dramatic departure from current ways of doing business

ITSMA Marketing Framework

Steve Hurley — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0000

The new ITSMA Marketing Framework explains the four processes necessary for marketing to help drive business results and highlights the three foundations of marketing that cut across all processes and all stages of the buying process. Has your organization developed the necessary expertise in all the key marketing processes? Find out!

Go to the Marketing Framework

How to Format White Papers for Readability

ITSMA Research — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:39:26 +0000

B2B marketers sell complex products to highly educated people who expect at least some degree of intellectual rigor in their reading materials. That’s not a formula for brevity. So we need to find
ways to make readers more comfortable on their long journey through our content.

Formatting is critical for pulling readers in and imparting value, even when they don’t read every word. Here’s how.

How to Create a Thought Leadership Network

ITSMA Admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:16:38 +0000

Marketers can’t do thought leadership on their own. They can do the research, package the information, and deliver it, but rarely can they come up with the ideas and strong points of view that customers and prospects are looking for. What’s missing is an engine for developing the ideas and points of views that then feed into marketing’s dissemination supply chain of Websites, white papers, conferences, and other delivery channels. In this ITSMA Tool, we offer a model for creating that thought leadership content engine.

Inside or Outside: A Marketer’s Guide to Sourcing

ITSMA Admin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:00:28 +0000

With the average tenure of CMOs reportedly being about two years, new CMOs often are brought in as part of a change agenda. Under such circumstances, they must rapidly introduce a new marketing vision and improvements. One way to do that is to develop a framework for sourcing some of marketing’s most important processes, programs, and tasks. With this approach, CMOs can make quick decisions about how to get their team’s work done faster, better, and cheaper.

In this Marketing Tool we list some of the most important processes and programs and offer advice on which ones should be held internally and which ones should be sourced externally.

The First Task of a New Marketing Leader: Assess the Business and the Market

Julie Schwartz — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:00:00 +0000

Whenever a marketing leader takes a new job or gains responsibility for marketing a new product or service, the leader should conduct a comprehensive research investigation to assess the business and the market. The goal is to use this research to inform a world-class marketing program that will help the company generate profitable revenue.

Bob Baginski, ITSMA’s senior vice president, has laid out a five-step framework to help marketers acquire broad and deep knowledge of the state of the business and market. Most marketers understand the importance of these questions, but having a rigorous approach to answering and updating them on a regular basis is less frequently the case. Marketers need to know the business as well as or better than anyone else in the organization—and be ready to discuss its possibilities from multiple perspectives. This knowledge will not only enable more effective marketing strategy and planning; it will also help position marketers as peers at the management table.

Getting Everyone on the Same Page: The Solutions Taxonomy

Ajit Maira — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:00:00 +0000

One of the first key mileposts on the journey to solutions mastery is the creation of a common taxonomy of solutions and services. Without a universally shared nomenclature for the solutions business, solutions transformation initiatives are likely to fail.

A common taxonomy replaces multiple definitions housed in each of the various operating units (OUs), such as sales, manufacturing, and service and support, and business units (BUs), including geographies, horizontals, verticals, and product brands. A solutions taxonomy is a tool that not only creates a common language across BUs but also helps the BUs see how to integrate their individual contributions into the solutions whole. Further, a solutions taxonomy is vital for facilitating alignment with external business partners.

This ITSMA Marketing Tool presents ITSMA’s Solutions Taxonomy, including the industry-standard definition of solutions and the solutions offering model.

How to Develop and Deliver Thought Leadership

Chris Koch — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 06:00:00 +0000

Too many organizations focus on the distribution of thought leadership without questioning whether the content is truly unique, insightful, and practical. To have true impact with clients, thought leadership content must be built from four foundational timbers, according to Terry Corby, head of Global Thought Leadership Marketing for consulting firm Accenture.

This ITSMA Marketing Tool describes Accenture’s approach to thought leadership, outlined in two 4-step processes:

Developing Thought Leadership Content

Develop a position statement
Gather proprietary evidence
Build powerful examples
Elicit trustworthy testimonials

Delivering Thought Leadership

Make it personal
Make it relevant
Pick your media targets
Integrate thought leadership with mass media

ITSMA Brand Equity Index

Lori Weiner — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:00:00 +0000

The ITSMA Brand Equity Index (BEI) is a tool that gauges brand strength. Used by dozens of companies that participate in ITSMA’s Annual Multiclient Brand Tracking studies, the BEI can be applied two ways:

To measure a firm’s brand equity at a given point in time against competitors
To monitor the trend of a firm’s brand equity over time

This ITSMA Marketing Tool explains how to calculate BEI and what your BEI score means.

More Information

For more information about ITSMA’s Brand Equity Index (BEI) tool or about branding in general, contact Lori Weiner, ITSMA associate vice president of research, at +1-781-862-8500, Ext. 42, or lweiner@itsma.com.

ITSMA Marketing Tools provide guidelines, checklists, tips, and other applications to help improve marketing programs and organizations. They are available to ITSMA members as a benefit of membership. Suggestions for new tools are welcome; please send them to jschwartz@itsma.com.

A Proven Model for Implementing Account-Based Marketing

Julie Schwartz — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 06:00:00 +0000

Many ITSMA members have embraced the concept of Account-Based Marketing (ABM), an approach that emphasizes relationship development by treating an individual account as a market in its own right. The benefits of ABM—including improved relationships, enhanced positioning, and increased profitability with ABM accounts—can be enormous, and for the past couple of years ITSMA has been helping member companies such as Avaya, IBM, and Xerox, adopt our approach to ABM.

This ITSMA Marketing Tool outlines the three phases in ITSMA’s model for Account-Based Marketing, including key questions companies need to ask at each stage of the game.