B2BM MAR 08 – www.b2bm.biz
Marketing IT supplement 11
Leading technology marketers provide their top tips for effective
marketing to IT decision makers
THE GOLDEN
RULES OF TECH
MARKETING
2B Marketing asked a selection of Utilising data analytics, CRM systems and highly valued, and poor content can never be
B
industry leaders to give their top tips on good old-fashioned face-to-face communication made up for by all-singing, all-dancing channels.
the marketing of technology. Despite – actually listening to your customers! – will Likewise, products and services must address
the proliferation of new channels to market and give you gilt-edged information about the the key concerns of the buyer. How will your
the attendant hype surrounding Web 2.0, these audience, from which decisions about channels widget help keep your customer’s business
marketing shaman focus less on innovation and and messaging will naturally follow. profitable? What can your service offering do to
more on the core disciplines of marketing. The key point is that technology marketers enable your client to focus on her core activity?
It is not so much that channel choice is cannot afford to push products for their own For too long, marketing has been dictated by
unimportant, more that focusing on key sake, through channels that are chosen because what works for the vendor. The demands of
individuals, their business needs and the ways in they make tracking and measurability easy. 2008 will force technology marketers to adopt a
which your brand and its products are able to The medium, for the buyer, is not the buyer-centric approach to marketing. Shift the
help should take primacy. message. Content credibility is much more focus from the internal to the external.
1. “Never think you through a constant dialogue with your sales product, it is talking about the customers’
know your teams, so you are continually getting relevant business goals and objectives. Marketers have to
customer” Paul information about who they are selling to, the get a deeper understanding of a customers’
Cash, MD, Hurricane types of individuals who are buying, the reasons business and not rely on marketing a piece of
for their buying patterns. It’s an important technology because it’s good.
It’s really easy to box process, and one that will mark the winners out
IT decision makers into from the losers. 3. “Have an idea
a single image: they’re about people”
45 years old, they drive 2. “Focus on the Peter Hansen,
this kind of car, they business goals” director of strategy,
tend to buy this, they tend to buy that etc.The Chris Sykes, MD, Masius
organisations that do best don’t rely on that Volume
catch all taxonomy. Successful marketers are Forget about the
the ones who find the really interesting insights Communications have channel, it’s
about individuals. This enables them to create to be targeted and irrelevant. If we’ve
truly personalised marketing. highly personalised. learned anything as
“How you gather this information is up to The big shift we are marketers it is that
you. Whether it’s focus groups or access through seeing in technology you have to touch people. In order for your
social networks and online forums. It could be marketing is not necessarily talking about the customer to believe anything, to get them to buy
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