INTRODUCTION:
In recent years, our digital world has transformed the way we do business. One of the areas most impacted has been the way we go to market in the B2B tech envrionment. A decade ago, our marketing mix was dominated by the sales cycle and featured email blasts, tradeshows, advertising and telemarketing. Now with the advent of the new IT buyer, a more passive approach is needed involving blogging, SEO, Social Media, Reviews, Email nurture campaigns and marketing automation. This blog contains a checklist of 5 things you need to get right to entice todays' digitally savvy IT buyer:
THE IT BUYER'S MARKETING CHECKLIST
i) A website with a good user experience (UX) - IT buyers actively seek out content online - therefore it is important that your website is easy to navigate and that information presented in a concise and logical way. Also, it must contain resources that are informative and educational thereby encouraging your target audience to exchange their contact details in exchange for its download.
ii) Targeted email nurture campaigns - not panic blasts! - When sales are down, it's the natural reaction to identify some target markets and BLAST campaigns about how great your product is. STOP! Email is still one of the most effective forms of marketing but only if used in the right way. Try to do smaller email campaigns to more targeted audiences and think about your buyer, e.g. a Head of IT in a pharmaceutucal industry. How could you could create a series of emails to them with some compelling content - it might be a White Paper, a webinar, some industry news or an event? You need to make sure they get something out of reading your email.
iii) Get social - You may say why - isn't that for consumers ?- but think again. Nearly 90% of B2B buyers use social media in their purchase process with the majority of them preferring educational rather than promotional content. We would highly recommend you build up your social media presence - starting maybe with a few LinkedIn posts, tweeting several times a week and then monitoring what works best and then building up momentum.
iv) Content is key - Think about the decision process that IT buyers go through to buy your product - what might help them and make sure this is on your website. For example, an e-book might educate them about the benefits and how your technology is used. A video demo might show them how your product works, a product brochure will give them the full tech specs and performance statistics.
v) Be vertical sector specific - It is an easy temptation to buy and blast emails to all the UK IT buyers but beware. We recommend you identify two or three target segments and really get to know your audiences. You then create a message proposition about your company and product to each of these sectors. For example, if you're targeting accountants - what pain points does your product solve for them and why should they buy your solution? You then develop a long term relationship with these sectors, participate in their LinkedIn groups and send them a range of emails, attend their trade shows, blog about their industry etc
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Hopefully you've found our top tips useful and will check out how you can align your marketing efforts accordingly. To help you, download our free e-book written by HubSpot "The 30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips, Tricks & Ideas". This goes into more detail about how to write compelling Calls-to Action and create web landing pages that will deliver leads.
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