IT Services Marketing

Branding | Go-to-market | Strategic Communications

IT Services Marketing: making a difference in the vanilla market.(A dozen slides to help you get started.)

Karthik SundaramPresident & CEO

[email protected]

© 2009 All rights reserved | Purplepatch Services LLC | [email protected]

Typical Identity Problems

• Clients ask us “What is your differentiator?”

• We offer everything clients want, but do not know how to grow up the value chain

• We have expertise in a new domain, but do not have proof of project in it yet

• Competition is always cutting prices, so clients do not want to hire new vendors

Typical Services Marketing Jargon


• We provide “end-to-end” services• Our focus is on “value-creation”• We are “aligned” to customer

businesses• Our “comprehensive,” “deep-

domain,” and “extensive” services offerings

• “World-class,” “Next-generation,” and “Scalable” service engagement

Who is hearing what you say?

• CIOs are under pressure. • Managers are skeptical. • Clients want to speak to someone who can

answer questions. • Procurement handles services buying.

• Who is hearing what you say? Er… no one.

• Build conversations.


How, now do we build a conversation?

• Clarify• Convince• Communicate• Connect• Collaborate


Over years, we have found the following 5C’s helpful in creating, checking, and constantly measuring marketing for IT Services companies

Clarify

• Start with your buyer. Can you articulate their pain point to match your services offering? Here’s an example:

– As the telecom operators struggle to contain customer churn and eroding loyalty (customer pain), our back-end billing operations can help these operators:

• Offer easy-to-understand bill presentation to customers

• Add incentives in monthly statements based on customer intelligence

• (Both offers are tailored to their pain points)


Clarify

• It is perfectly acceptable to offer just one service, and execute it extremely well—every time. Customers will be emboldened to try your firm out for other services.

• In multiple services offering, ensure you are tailoring each one to a customer need, not to fit your website.


Focus. Focus. Focus. Did we say focus?

Convince• Clients are taking a leap of faith

with your services. How do you enable this process?– Significantly in-depth case

studies of real customers (with names will help)

– Testimonials to the caliber of your service, not the projects

– Reference customers who will give your prospects a call


• Here is a template to help develop a case study. View a customer testimonial here: Client testimonials

Communicate: ah, this one is the toughest

• While clients know what you sell, they’d like to hear how you sell:– What are your core beliefs?– How big is your community

presence and activity?– In this people business, how is your

resource management different?– What are some specific soft sell you

bring to the table?– How can you see their “big picture”

and yet not lose focus on the “small frames”?


Communicate:

• Put names and faces to your communication. People talk to people.

• Provide enough hooks for clients to speak to your team transparently over online chats, emails, and forums

• Tools like polls, quiz, and webinars help clients seek answers more than long static content

• Community, Earth-friendly, proactive consultant-friendly interests gain true communication wealth


Connect

• Internal communication is as important as external marketing

• Consultants at remote locations know of potential projects, and can become lead generators if they know the parent company has the talent in-house

• Newsletters, social groups, and community tools play critical roles in providing the right communication for the non-business side of business


Collaborate

• In markets where you play, it is critical to collaborate– Knowledge forums– Business and technology portals

content reviews– University collaboration– Advisory councils and local

leadership agencies– Webinars, conferences
