2008-07-01 Ezine AddIn
Ask ITSMA: What Is the Best Way to Reach CIOs?By Julie Schwartz, Senior Vice President and Chief Research Officer, ITSMA Each month, ITSMA receives a number of queries through Ask ITSMA, a resource designed to give members 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 realize that CIOs are bombarded with information and sales calls, so I’m wondering where the best place is to put our marketing efforts. Is it in advertising, trade shows, direct mailings, emails? You are right: CIOs are getting bombarded with unsolicited emails and cold calls. They don’t like to be rude, but if they responded to every message and every phone call, they would have little time to do anything else. Therefore, they are very proactive. Every once in a while a cold caller or email message will catch their attention, but mostly they will call you. They find you by doing extensive research on the Web and by reading the trade press. They also attend seminars, conferences, selected trade shows, and user group meetings for their primary technology vendors. They are looking for new technologies and creative ideas on how to apply those technologies to solve business problems. In other words, they are looking for thought leadership, not the same old story. Sometimes a connection is pure luck. You are at the right place at the right time. In other cases, you can plan to be where the customers will find you. Think about speaker placement, exhibiting at your business partner shows, cosponsoring value-added seminars with business partners, getting article placements (or at least quotes) in the trade press, and getting your message in multiple locations on the Web—not just your Website. Work the search engines to pop up on top of topical searches. Make sure all your messages are integrated and are therefore additive. As you can see, in a world in which the CIOs are proactively finding solutions, marketing is vital.
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Recent ITSMA Thought LeadershipThe Steps to Vertical Market Leadership: ITSMA’s Vertical Maturity Model ITSMA has created a Vertical Market Maturity Model to help gauge progress toward vertical market mastery. In this Update we examine the model and outline the steps necessary to transform a company and its marketing group into vertical market experts. The View from the Other Side: B2B Marketing Practices from Other Industries If you want to break through and be unique, you need to look at how other industries market. It’s not that they are more creative, it’s simply that they may face different competitive pressures, industry norms, and corporate cultures. In this Online Briefing, we examine consumer packaged goods and professional services and look at ways to organize marketing more effectively to deliver breakthrough demand-generation programs. Elevating the Focus on Customers: ABM at Unisys Europe ABM is an ambitious strategy that views each of a company’s most important customers as a market of one. Though the concept is simple, the follow-through is not. As Unisys Europe discovered, ABM implementation brings significant challenges, including organizational change, shifting marketing competencies, close coordination with sales, and a need to raise marketing to new heights, both inside the organization and with customers. Unisys has already learned some valuable lessons that we discuss in this ITSMA Case Study. Services Marketing Budgets and Benchmarks: 2008 Trends and Outlook Although the economy is definitely losing air, there is good news for marketers. The optimism from 2007 is carrying over to 2008 with predictions of increasing budgets, services revenue, and staff, according to ITSMA’s 2008 Budget Allocations and Trends Survey. In addition, after a few lean years, marketing’s stature and acceptance within the organization have improved. Learn more in this free download. |
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News & NotesUpcoming ITSMA EventsTo view all events, please go to http://www.itsma.com/aspfiles/events/calendar.asp Taking Solutions to Market: Best Practices for Developing, Marketing, and Selling Solutions Workshop This advanced workshop includes ITSMA’s proven approach to marketing a wide range of solutions and will engage you in the models, tools, and examples you need to effectively grow your solutions business. Led by ITSMA’s Ajit Maira and Tammy Ribaudo, the workshop is infused with practical exercises, case studies, best practices, and lessons learned. http://www.itsma.com/Events/event_desc/08WS07N20.htm What Really Matters to Decision Makers: Insight into Key Buying Criteria for Services and Solutions Online Briefing Uncertain times call for razor-sharp marketing focus. Companies need to focus on activities that will have a measurable impact on the business, such as demand generation, lead nurturing, and sales enablement. All of this requires a deep and thorough understanding of how customers buy. Please join ITSMA’s Julie Schwartz and Katie Gustin as they reveal the latest results from ITSMA’s ever-popular annual research program, How Customers Buy Services and Solutions. http://www.itsma.com/Events/event_desc/08OB08G22.htm The Lasting Legacy of Sustainability: Marketing’s Role in the Future Roundtable http://www.itsma.com/Events/event_desc/08RT09E23.htm Maximizing Marketing’s Influence: The New Marketing Rules 15th Annual Marketing Conference, November 4 and 5 No more excuses: It’s time for marketing to step up to the plate and lead. We’ve dealt with shrinking budgets and staff, mastered complex CRM systems, learned to get great work done within a matrixed organization, and stood our ground with the Board. Now more than ever we need to maximize our influence and create bold, new marketing rules. Join usas we hear insights and success stories from marketing leaders on a wide variety of vital topics—each with a window into what they did, how they led, and the results they achieved. An essential combination of both pragmatic and strategic will be highlighted through presentations, panel discussions, and interactive break-out sessions. |
