In talking with executives at IT firms quite a bit lately, I’ve heard quite a few things thrown around as justification for slow growth, lack of opportunity, or stagnation:
“We just need to have a conversation and people will get it.”
“Our buyers like a deep dive.”
“Prospects just don’t get it.”
On and on and on.
What all of these justifications suggest is that the people responsible for creating the marketing and sales materials in this that they have likely fallen into the trap of navel gazing.
In almost every case, when you are having conversations or focusing on a market and you aren’t getting the attention you feel like you should be getting, you have a marketing problem.
And, your strategy is likely pointed in the wrong direction.
Here’s the deal to fix that:
Understand what the real value is that you are offering to your market:
What are the tangible values you improve?
Make more money?
Save time?
Accelerate customer acquisition?
Spell that out. Understand it. Internalize it.
It can’t be what you want to do. It has to be what your clients and prospects want to see achieve.
What about intangibles?
Less stress?
More efficiency?
On and on.
Lay that out as well.
Make sure it is meaningful.
Are you talking to your buyers or are you talking to anyone?
This is a big one. Are you talking to the people that can say yes?
Or, are you falling into a trap of talking to people that can only say no.
Focus on reaching the buyers.
And, the easiest way to do that is by focusing on the person that can say yes and making sure that the value you are trying to create is valuable to the person you are trying to reach.
Make sure you are targeting your marketing/sales/message in the right direction:
Your marketing efforts are the culmination of understanding your value and understanding who buys your stuff.
This means that your marketing should just be “spray and pray” or “smile and dial.”
Your marketing efforts need to be focused on being a logical extension of the whole thought process: value, buyer, where are they.
Its a pretty simple formula, but too many organizations ignore it.