European Marketing Experts Highlight Four Priorities

9 July 2002—As European technology and professional services firms contend with recession and consolidation, marketing experts at ITSMA Europe's Annual Forum in London outlined four keys to success:

- Building a stronger brand to improve revenue, profit, and client loyalty
- Managing innovation
- Demonstrating value
- Building successful lead-generation programs

Easier said than done, of course, but forum participants from across Europe's technology sector dug deeply into the four issues to explore best practices, lessons learned, and the potential of specific tactics in each area.

Building a Stronger Brand

Laurie Young, marketing partner, global corporate finance and UK practices at PricewaterhouseCoopers, discussed the increasing importance placed on valuing brands by investors and accountants and therefore the importance brand value should have for marketers. He challenged technology marketers to invest more in building their companies' brands to help justify higher prices and margins from clients—as has already been achieved in other sectors—and deliver consistently high value to shareholders.

Derek Hardman, marketing director at Fujitsu Services, shared his recent experience of re-branding from ICL to Fujitsu. For Fujitsu, owner of multiple companies and brands across the world, the strategy of adopting one single brand for all operations is designed to deliver significant value through an essentially organic approach. Derek highlighted the importance within the transition of giving careful thought to the brand architecture, developing a detailed, practical checklist of tasks to complete by the "go live" date, and focusing on involving employees every step of the way.

Picking up on the theme of involving employees in the brand strategy and enabling them to deliver on the brand promise, Gavin Fenn-Smith, founder of the brand consultancy beasyousay, illustrated additional techniques such as focused skills workshops and leader coaching to help marketers initiate and sustain change.

Managing Innovation

Vincent Rousselet, head of strategic innovation at BT's small and medium enterprise (SME) division, discussed the challenge of creating and marketing innovative broadband services to small and medium enterprises in the United Kingdom. Using the concept of the "diffusion of innovation" curve, BT adopted one set of marketing techniques to attract the innovators among SMEs and another to reach early adopters. While the former were demanding broadband as the latest technology—leading to a focus within BT on broadband availability for these businesses—the latter needed a much more proactive, or "push," approach, with different value propositions, different pricing, and different bundled services, such as a Broadband Digital Office and an Internet Business Pack for SMEs.

Demonstrating Value

Rob Pearce, senior marketing manager at IBM Global Services EMEA, shared his experience of creating a marketing metrics program to demonstrate the value of marketing activity in generating and developing client opportunities. Rob was able to make the crucial link between marketing investment and business results; as a result, he could educate sales colleagues on the likely impact on results following any change in marketing investment levels. By demonstrating the value of marketing internally, Rob has been able to obtain budget increases for marketing to help achieve agreed sales targets at a time when many of his peers in Europe have experienced budget cuts.

ITSMA's own president and CEO, Dave Munn, expanded on Rob Pearce's presentation by confirming that the direct connection of marketing activity to business goals and results has never been more important, both internally and externally. In all areas of marketing the focus should be on demonstrating value. For Dave, the top challenge in the remainder of 2002 is to understand how internal and external stakeholders define value and then deliver on their expectations.

Building Lead-Generation Programs

Notwithstanding all the discussion of strategic priorities, short-term lead-generation programs remained a focus for most delegates. Stephen Stynes, chief executive for TecBrands, presented four case studies of successful campaigns with response rates of up to 98% (yes, 98%!). Fresh from winning the 2002 ICON Technology Marketing Award in New York, Stephen illustrated how to get past gatekeepers and reach key decision makers using a range of precisely targeted, creatively executed direct marketing programs backed by micro sites, telemarketing, and account mapping. Key lessons for technology marketers include getting senior stakeholder buy-in to campaign plans, simplifying messages, driving immediate action from prospects, integrating all activities, and measuring and reporting success.

Achieving the right balance of strategies and tactics is extremely difficult amid tremendous pressure for short-term results. As marketers look to position their companies for recovery, though, it is essential to maintain focus and investment in building the brand and managing innovation while also attending to those initiatives that yield a more immediate payoff.

—Bev Burgess, info@itsma.com

About ITSMA
ITSMA specializes in helping companies market and sell services and solutions more effectively. As a membership organization, we provide research, consulting, and training to the world's leading technology, communications, and professional services providers to generate increased demand, strengthen customer relationships, and improve brand differentiation. ITSMA is based near Boston, and has offices in London and Tokyo. Learn more at www.itsma.com.