If you are an IT professional working in B2-B businesses, you know the importance of long-term strategies for building a business. The same strategy should be used when we are
If you are an IT professional working in B2-B businesses, you know the importance of long-term strategies for building a business. The same strategy should be used when we are talking about sales and marketing.
The consumer is increasingly demanding and the market is more competitive, therefore, it is necessary to focus on prospecting customers — and keeping them.
A deal in the information technology sector only happens after a lot of analysis and evaluation of not only monetary values but the impacts that your product or service will have on the client’s core business.
It is logical that our objective is to increase revenue and growth. But for us to achieve this, marketing and sales strategies need to be right to conquer our target audience without spending too much.
We want to help you in this mission! That’s why we created this post to introduce the top sales and marketing and customer retention techniques for your IT business. Enjoy reading!
How to adapt an IT product to the market?
Of course, you know all your products and features, but just giving your vision about them is not the most effective way to introduce yourself to a customer.
It is necessary to adapt it to their reality and needs, that is, the customer needs to understand that that product or service will solve, or avoid, specific problems related to their business — but without becoming an expense and without interfering with their productivity.
Understand the evolution of agreements
If your IT expertise is support, present yourself as a problem avoider, not a solver. Differentiate yourself, and offer a managed, proactive, and preventive service.
Make sure that the offer has operational and financial profitability and that the market can acquire it.
Some operating costs cannot be passed on to the customer, including:
- Security settings;
- Remote monitoring;
- Remote support ;
- Preventive maintenance
- Antivirus and content filter;
- Automatic software updates.
Also, offer remote monitoring. In fact, this should be the basis of your offer, 24×7 full-time monitoring with management during business hours. Include in the agreement, in addition to remote support, local service, with punctual visits.
How do I calculate the pricing of my service?
Pricing is based on 3 pillars, the services you offer, the chosen SLA, and the customer’s equipment. Below we will give a better example of each of these points.
- Services offered: what other services will be performed in addition to the service packages contracted by your client?
- Chosen SLA: Will the customer be served within a standard timeframe? Has a Priority SLA been contracted?
- Customer equipment: how is your customer’s park? How long will it take to implement the solutions? What is the recurrence of tickets?
As with any negotiation, there may be objections to your initial offer. At that time, it’s up to you to keep calm and argue over his statements.
Customers generally have 3 types of objections, so be prepared to resolve them:
They will say that your service is expensive
You can counter by asking what is expensive for him, or if he is comparing your price with a competitor or similar service. Always emphasize the differential of your product.
They will say the competitor is cheaper
First, make sure it really is comparing services in the same category. Then point out to him how strange it is for a quality product to be so cheap, with a service similar to yours. You can also ask if he is only comparing the initial outlay or if he is focusing on the final cost.
Finally, they will say that the budget is tight
At that time, you can offer better conditions, such as a longer payment term or a slightly leaner package, but that is suitable for his budget.
It’s also worth asking what his target price is. There is always an argument for the deal to be closed and to be good for both sides.
Sales and Marketing: How do I promote my IT product?
The first thing that must be taken into account when promoting your service is to carry out a study or research to define who your target audience is.
This should be a detailed analysis of your ideal customer, so come up with a few questions for this survey, such as:
- Who is my client?
- What he does do?
- How does IT affect his business?
- What is his level of knowledge regarding technology?
- How does he view IT: resource or expense?
By answering these questions, you will have a good basis for focusing on a niche and, thus, devising strategies to find it or attract it to your product or service.
How to introduce yourself?
Introduce yourself as a trouble avoider and make it clear that the main purpose of your service is to ensure the viability of the company’s operations. The customer’s business must be prioritized over computers.
What is the best channel for promoting an IT business?
Currently, the best way to promote an IT product or service is using the internet.
In addition to being able to use paid advertising tools, such as Google Adwords or Facebook Ads, you can use Inbound Marketing strategies to attract people who are really having problems and identify your product as a solution. And the best: having the possibility to talk directly with them.
This type of customer, who looks for a company in search of a solution to their problems, is known in the marketing world as a “lead”, and it is about them that we will talk about next. Check out!
What are leads and how can I generate them?
The lead is a potential customer, that is, the person who has shown interest in your product or service through some attraction strategy — a blog post, an e-book you have offered, or a newsletter subscription, for example. example.
Attracting leads is a critical task for your marketing success, and it must be completely connected to the sales funnel journey.
The idea is for the lead to offer their contact voluntarily, in exchange for some material that contains some information of value to them, which helps them to solve a problem. To learn more about how to attract them, keep reading!
How do attract more leads?
To attract a lead, you first need to define a persona (who is your customer?).
Then, create attractive content, in order to reach people who still don’t know the brand, especially those who don’t even know they need your service. Educate the market.
Define the persona
A persona is a semi-fictional character that represents your ideal customer. It must be defined based on studies and data obtained about its current customers and the market in which it operates.
Important not to confuse the persona with the target audience. Both bring definitions and information about their future customers, however, the target audience is broader, for example, Men aged between 25 and 45, who work with Information Technology, live in urban centers, and have higher education.
The persona is a defined “person”, which is not only considered demographic factors, but has a main focus on behavioral determinants, for example, Rafael, 35 years old, IT manager, married, higher education, aims to win more customers, but is short of time and money.
By being more specific about your ideal customer, it will be easier to produce content aimed at them, as you will understand what your persona sees value in, what their problems are, and, in this way, you will understand how you can help them.
Understand your customer’s shopping journey
Another important factor to attract the lead is to understand how the consumer’s shopping journey works, as it must be fully connected to your sales funnel (which we will see later in this post).
The stages of the journey are:
- Learning and discovery: the customer does not necessarily know yet that they have a problem or that they need a product or service;
- Recognition: with a web search, the person has access to content that helps in recognizing a problem or need;
- Consideration: after discovering the problem, the potential customer will begin to refine their searches, looking for a solution that fits their needs;
- Decision: after doing all the analysis, he will make the decision to purchase your product or service.
Use the sales funnel to your advantage
The sales funnel is a way of structuring your prospecting strategy and understanding the right moment to convey each message to the customer and, thus, advance them in the purchase journey.
The funnel is defined in three main phases, which relate to the purchase journey as follows:
- Top of the funnel: this stage covers potential customers who are in the learning and discovery phases
- Middle of the funnel: this phase involves people who are in the recognition stage;
- Bottom of the Funnel: Here, we talk to leads who are in the consideration and decision stages.
Top-of-funnel content needs to be comprehensive, that is, including varied themes. These are articles not only focused on your product or service, but also on other topics related to the persona universe. Your goal here is to make the potential customer engage and want to receive more content.
If you work with support, for example, in addition to texts on data security and management software, create blog posts about technological trends, news in business management, basic IT issues, etc.
If you’re an instructor and want to sell courses, for example, don’t just talk about courses. Write about job opportunities, the future of technologies, the history of IT, and other topics that appeal to future students. Open the fan!
In the middle stage of the funnel, people will evaluate your product/service as a viable solution to the problem. Here, the content should be closer to the company’s goals, bringing the potential customer closer to a resolution. Take the moment to reinforce your authority on the subject and the credibility of your brand.
Content marketing
Finally, with the person interested and more immersed in your strategy, you can direct them to the bottom-of-the-funnel contents, in which your product should be presented in a practical and functional way, offering an effective solution to the lead problem — in a didactic way. At this stage, you can use more in-depth webinars, video classes, ebooks, etc.
At all stages, don’t forget the call-to-action, the invitation for the reader to take action. It can range from asking for a simple comment on the post to offering to download an ebook — and, at that time, you can capture important contact information from this future customer to use it in lead qualification.
Your content production should be structured as follows: 80% top-of-funnel content and 20% middle and bottom content.
Keep in mind that only a small fraction of the people who will read, interact or contact you will actually become a customer and close a deal.
For this audience to be reached, it is necessary to identify qualified leads. Learn about them below.
What are Qualified Leads?
You may be wondering: now that I’ve managed to get the interested person to the bottom of the funnel, do I already have a customer? Not yet!
As we said at the beginning of this topic, a lead is a potential customer, that is, there is a probability that he will actually purchase your product or service. Therefore, the strategy must continue.
To improve your chances of converting, you need to identify which are the qualified leads, the ones who are really looking for a solution to their problems and will really benefit from your service.
Identifying qualified leads is essential to closing deals, so it’s critical that you strategize to convince them that your service offers the best solution for them. Always use content that reinforces this.
To consolidate a list of qualified leads and be able to contact them directly, you must get their authorization — and thus be able to measure engagement.
Measuring lead engagement
There are several ways to identify an engaged lead and one of them is through email marketing platforms.
In addition to automating submissions, you will be able to obtain metrics — such as which links were clicked, which messages were forwarded to SPAM boxes, which were not read, etc. Also, acquire tools for automation and measurement of engagement in social networks.
What are the best sales techniques for IT?
The world has changed with the creation and popularization of the internet. Today, people’s relationship with brands and products depends much more on personal identification than on advertising. And there’s no better way to leverage IT service sales than by investing in digital marketing.
How to execute a good digital marketing strategy?
There are several strategies to be used and it is up to you to identify which ones best suit your company and your target audience. Check out what they are below:
Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing is a methodology that seeks to attract potential customers, unlike traditional marketing which uses a more direct approach strategy. The goal of this strategy is for your business to be found by the customer (not the other way around).
When you are able to do this, you create a segmented audience and you will be able to maintain a constant communication channel with the leads.
As people are currently connected 24 hours a day, nothing is more effective to reach your persona than creating relevant content, with information that can help them solve their problems.
Content Marketing
As we know, all marketing strategies need to be aligned with the persona that represents your ideal customer.
Identify what types of content it consumes and what platforms it uses constantly. Diversify channels: create a blog, or a website, develop content in the form of videos, ebooks, infographics, etc., and be on social networks.
The blog is the flagship of content marketing, a tool that, if well crafted, will place your brand well-positioned in search engines. This space is ideal for you to publish longer and more informative content, in addition, it is not as full of distractions as a social network.
institutional website
The website is your company’s business card in the online environment — and when it comes to IT, it’s the company. So don’t be content with just maintaining a blog and pages on social networks, as the website increases the credibility of your business.
In addition, it will be the channel where people can find you, request your product/service, ask questions, use your tools, etc.
E-mail marketing
Emails need to have context and cadence. Shooting them in no order or to random people, in addition to being unpleasant, creates a bad image for business, as it is as invasive as those telemarketing calls you receive at home.
You already know what leads are and how to attract them, so it is very important that your email marketing strategy is aligned with your leads, as you will already know how and when to send them, and what subjects to address.
One of the benefits of using automated email marketing is that you can get metrics like open rate, link clicks, and material downloads. Remember that a list of contacts needs to be earned, and purchased lists are not effective.
Email marketing strategies
Here are some steps to start a good email marketing strategy:
- Create some promotional material to use as a “bargaining currency” and receive the lead’s contact (such as an ebook or a webinar);
- Insert subscription forms within your website or blog, such as newsletter subscription;
- Choose a good program to automate sending and managing your list;
- Cadence the firing off e-mails, setting up a logical sequence to send them.
Your prospecting email should make the lead curious, then interested. If it doesn’t, you’ll get an email shot with no effective response. We can mention as characteristics of a great prospecting email:
- Attractive subject;
- Quick introduction;
- Main benefit;
- Call-to-action;
How to retain the customers I already have in IT?
After-sales is crucial for any business that wants to remain profitable in any sector.
Some companies still maintain outdated customs, such as forgetting the customer after closing a deal.
This is harmful in two aspects: you are running the risk of losing it to the competition and you are also losing a spontaneous dissemination tool — a satisfied customer is a source of dissemination, which, in times of social media, can mean thousands of views.
But how can an IT service provider do an efficient after-sales?
Sharing with them their concerns about his business. What are the demands? How does he see your work and that of your team in relation to his company? Finally, you must be in contact with the customer. And the best way to get this information is through regular meetings.
Nowadays, with the resources that technology offers us, distances have decreased, but we cannot accommodate ourselves with this ease of distance communication: it is necessary to maintain constant contact with customers.
How to stay visible to your customers, even from a distance?
With an increasingly competitive market, it is crucial that you set goals to differentiate your business. In addition to meetings, provide proactive, remote service with occasional visits. Approach them!
Get in the habit of having monthly meetings, as nothing replaces face-to-face contact. This demonstrates more credibility and concern for the customer.
A good solution to make these meetings more interesting is to hold them outside the corporate environment. Arrange a business dinner or coffee and listen to what they are saying. Participate in their success and support them when something is not going so well.
This time dedicated to the customer demonstrates your commitment to the success of the business. As small as this may seem and even a waste of time, you will reap the rewards in the long run. At these meetings, but the following situations into practice:
- How is your relationship with the customer;
- Present the latest updates made and the current situation;
- Identify customer concerns;
- offer additional services that can be upgraded in the initial agreement.
Keep your customers up to date
It’s up to you to keep your customer up to date on products that can add value to their business.
For example, if the company suffers some kind of physical invasion, talk to him about the advantages of connecting company objects to the web, explain the concepts of the Internet of Things, and how a camera connected to the network will allow him to be able to access them even the distance. Don’t sell products, but present solutions to avoid problems.
As we have seen, the execution of a good sales and marketing strategy for IT starts with a good product design. It must be described and divided into packages so that the customer can have more options and suit their budget.
We also learned that, currently, the best lead capture strategy is attraction. Inbound Marketing Strategies are more pleasing to the new consumer, who less and less believes in traditional media and rejects invasive advertisements — in addition to being cheaper.
Another important factor addressed is after-sales, the maintenance of their fixed clientele, because, in addition to guaranteeing recurring revenue, they become spontaneous promoters of their service.
Get out of the trivial. The market is saturated with professionals who act in a reactive way, with agreements that are based on solving problems when they happen.
This type of approach is unproductive and distances the professional from the client’s business, placing him or her as an agent who only appears at the worst times. Do you want to be the last person a company manager wants to see in front of you? Certainly not.
Managed services
Work with managed services proactively, preventing problems rather than just plugging holes. Offer monitoring and automation, streamlining customer processes and reducing your operating cost.
Did you like our post about sales and marketing for IT professionals? Then subscribe to our newsletter now and receive more informative materials like this.
