How to Penetrate New Accounts in Tough Times

As economic fortunes tighten, the need for marketers to learn more about customers—a growing trend even in good times—will become even more important. ITSMA research shows that CIOs and business leaders are looking to reduce the number of companies with which they are doing business and establish better and deeper relationships with a select few.

The yardstick for determining who stays and who goes? Providers who truly understand customers’ business and IT requirements, have done their homework, and have proven themselves trustworthy.

Indeed, in this climate, the cold call is going the way of the shivering dinosaur. A recent ITSMA survey found that when selling to new accounts, 80% of salespeople’s time is devoted to “warm calls” (prospects who have already received marketing touches such as white papers or Webcasts) versus 20% spent on cold calls.

Penetrating New Accounts Is Getting Harder

Warming up those prospects is the responsibility of marketing, but the job isn’t getting easier—especially when marketers try to penetrate new accounts. In ITSMA’s survey, 50% said it is more difficult to penetrate new accounts today, with only 12% saying it is getting easier. But the slowing economy also means opportunity: 58% said it means they could take business away from competitors.

How then to warm up new accounts in these tough times? 17, director of membership engagement for ITSMA and leader of ITSMA’s Account-Based Marketing consulting practice, offers some advice:

• Do your research. Understand the market in which the target account exists, the dynamics of that market, and how it impacts the company’s ability to succeed.
• Build channel partnerships. ITSMA research found that 63% of respondents have formal channel programs to generate new accounts through channel partners.
• Integrate campaigns and systems with partners. It’s difficult to build deep knowledge about new customers if you can’t see what channel partners are doing with them. Of the respondents who are generating marketing leads for channel partners, 47% are tracking those leads through an internal customer relationship management (CRM) system.
• Find out what competitors are doing. Differentiation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Services marketers all tend to use the same language as part of their messages—the techno speak of the high-tech industry. It behooves us to step back and see what others are saying, to make sure that we are really differentiating.

Be Patient

Once you get the lay of the land and develop contact points with customers, it’s important to avoid trying to make the sale too early in the process. New customers are generally not ready to buy for quite some time—ITSMA research shows that customers need an average of 25–30 touches before they will buy complex technology solutions.

Yet with most sales representatives having between 75–100 accounts to cover, it’s impossible for them to gain the kind of knowledge they need about a customer’s business and market position. They simply don’t have time—and many don’t have the skills.

Educate, Don’t Sell

Marketing needs to step in and provide that information. But that information should not be focused on making a sale. It should be focused on educating the customer. “Educational material is the best way to penetrate a new account,” says Kathy Macchi, senior associate at ITSMA. “Customers are saying, ‘Tell me, don’t sell me.’”

But marketing should not be educating customers about the company. The emphasis should be on customers’ business and technology issues. And the content that marketing sends them should come from third-party sources at first—analyst white papers about a business or technology issue, for example.

Like breadcrumbs in a forest, the marketing touches should proceed logically, educating customers at every step of the way until they are ready to learn about the company’s specific offerings. “To penetrate the account there has to be an ongoing presentation and dialogue with the prospect, and you need to be educating them along the way,” says Macchi. “The goal is not to sell them but to get them to think of your company first when they are ready to buy. That’s all you can do as a marketer—increase mindshare.”

ITSMA members can hear more from 17 and Kathy Macchi by listening to the ITSMA Online Briefing, “Permission to Play: Penetrating New Accounts,” at http://www.itsma.com/research/abstracts/OLB080311.htm.

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ITSMA specializes in helping companies market and sell services and solutions more effectively. We work with the world's leading technology, communications, and professional services providers to generate increased demand, strengthen customer relationships, and improve brand differentiation. ITSMA annual program clients include business leaders such as AT&T, Cisco, Deloitte, EMC, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and Tata Consultancy Services, among others. Our comprehensive research, consulting, and training on topics including ITSMA Account-Based Marketing℠, Brand Positioning, and Solutions Development provide the insight and experience companies need to improve business results. ITSMA is based near Boston, and has offices in London and Tokyo. Learn more at www.itsma.com.