TELECOMMUNICATIONS - A B2B MARKETERS PRIMER Driving Mindshare in the Telecom Vertical

By Jeff Hutkoff, PhC.

Marketing in the Telecom Space

Few industries are evolving in 2010 as fast as wireless communications. The explosive

growth of smart phone adoption, mobile applications breadth, functionality and availability,

and use of mobile communications for real-time and location-based social networking

purposes has opened the telecom vertical to new brands, products, markets and marketers

alike. This presentation seeks to provide initial direction to these B2B players in targeting their

value proposition within the vertical.

If there is one key take-away, it is this: Successfully marketing B2B products within the

telecommunications vertical requires that you know key vertical pain points, tie all

conversations to demonstrating how your brand provides solutions to selected pain points,

and target your communications activities towards securing opportunities to have these

conversations with decision-makers.

Executive Summary – Targeted Telecommunications Conversations

Critical telecommunications pain points/opportunities• Network Performance, Customer Engagement, Security, Billing and

Insight, Cost Control, Evolving Business and Technology Models.

Targeting your brand message• Craft specific brand value statements to the targeted segments.

Spread your message in the B2B space• Secure personal discussions regarding customer pain points, your

brand’s unique abilities/features that resolve these pains, and your company’s position as thought leader in this category.

Telecom Pain Points

Key Concerns and Opportunities

1. Network Performance Under Stress from Data Growth• 4G/LTE migration will not mitigate data bandwidth resource allocation

challenges. Opportunities include data and voice traffic offloading, network performance enhancements and application or data type optimization.

2. Customer Engagement Opportunities Expanding• The need to create positive customer interactions that enhance CSAT, upsell

and retention opportunities will not diminish. Opportunities include mobile customer service, data application promotions, movement from text communications to video communications.

3. Security Threats Growing• Customer data and communications security integrity continue to play

leapfrog with mobile data threats. Third party applications, software viruses, fraud and identity theft remain problematic as networks and their use by customers evolve.

Telecom Pain PointsKey Concerns and Opportunities

4. Billing and Insight• Networks, third-party application providers and analytics companies are all become intertwined

as the range and types of customer data expand. Sharing of this data is intuitive from the customer’s perspective, not from the OEM, provider, apps deliverer or analytics company; collaborative tools that aid the correct/timely billing and customer behavior insight analysis are needed.

5. Cost Control• The carrier turn towards metered data pricing is but a first step in cost control. Network traffic

management, apps delivery/usage optimization and customer engagement minimization will continue to be fertile ground for controlling hardware, software and business efficiency processes consulting solutions.

6. Evolving Business and Technology Models• Just as the mobile network provider business model continues to evolve from walled garden to

open applications system, so too does the customer touch model. The move towards the mobile device as personal assistant portends a second type of mobile end user customer – the mobile device operating system and add-on provider software. These two evolutions will impact customer touches as much as segmentation, and whole new players into the mobile field may develop overnight such as in areas of mobile content, advertising, location-based services, social networking and mobile search.

Targeting Your Brand Message

Craft specific brand value statements to the targeted segments• Analyze Prospects and Develop Segmentation Model

• Leverage insight to determine targets (ex. CTO , CMO), identify pain points per segment and analyze brand alignment.

• Craft Value Statements for Segments• Determine how your product’s technical, monetary and/or customer

behavior solutions relieve telecom pain points (ex. Enables automatic WiFi data offloading) .

• Align the Company and Product Brands• Incorporate solutions to pain points in all core brand messages.

Brand communications support and expand key dimensions to pain point resolutions.

Communicate Your Message• Communications Segmentation – Use segmentation

model to identify best opportunities for communicating brand message.

• Position the Brand for Category Leadership - Drive perception of brand leadership within category through ongoing white papers, collateral, advertising, speaking engagements, analysts, social media, blogs, public relations and other tactics where critical segments place attention.

• Build evangelists - give customers and partners reasons and tools to share with other potential customers so they can experience the brand.

Communicate Your Message (cont.)• Influence the influencers – public relations campaign to

own category niche (wireless week, connected planet, network operations monthly, technical popular press).

• Focus your Campaigns - Design your integrated tactical campaign strategy to achieve a spike in both customer awareness and customer engagement along brand and category positions. Your campaign goal will be to generate conversations with key telecom segments where the outcome is their pain reduction.

From Vision to Campaign

9

Vision

Positioning company/brand/product within the telecom

universe

Goals

Objectives to establish

company/brand/ product position in

vision

Tactics

Tasks that when executed achieve

strategic plans

• Segmentation Strategy • Brand Strategy• Product Strategy• Communications Strategy• Distribution Strategy

• Market Research • Segmentation Modeling • Advertising Creation• Public Relations Targeting• Events/Sponsorships• Partnerships• Sales collateral/support• Campaign Management• Analysis and Evaluation

• Market Analysis• Vision Statement

• Sales Goals• Customer Goals• Category Goals

Strategy

Plans that organize company/resource

activity to reach goals

Tactical Review

Strategic Review

About the Author

Jeff Hutkoff, PhC. is a 15-year strategic marketing professional in the telecommunications industry. He is a recognized expert in mobile marketing, traditional and digital advertising, and corporate brand communications.

Contact Mr. Hutkoff at hutkoff@hotmail.com and read his blog at http://www.hutkoff.blogspot.com