IT marketing is a profession in its own right

Marketing is something that is generally done “on the side” at IT companies.

You just need it.

The activities done in them have a lot to do with standard marketing statements. The website, a newsletter, (customer) events.

Consequently, we see that IT marketing is often approached no differently than “just” marketing.

And to think that there is a double complexity in IT marketing – let me explain.

The dual complexities of IT marketing

The first complexity began with marketing itself. This field has developed tremendously in recent years. Again this year, there are lots of new developments and tools that are constantly changing the approach to marketing.

What about, for example, just the impact AI is having in the marketing field. Both finding customers, writing content and maintaining contact are going to take on a whole new dimension with AI.

And marketing was already not straightforward. In recent years, the rise of Marketing Automation, social media marketing, Growth Hacking and content marketing has made marketing more of a digital profession. Online and physical marketing are closely linked, and campaigns must be executed both in- and outbound, and multiplatform, multi-touch to be successful.

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And then you still have to market IT

The second complexity of IT marketing, of course, is IT itself. Whether you have an in-house marketer as an IT company, or use a marketing agency, they need to have some sense and understanding of what you do.

And that is complex in itself. Sometimes you spend days explaining to your marketing agency or content writers what, for example, a modern workplace actually is and how important it is. While the reality is much more unruly. In fact, marketing the modern workplace makes no sense at all. At least, if you don’t want to go into the “red ocean“.

After all, technology no longer sells itself by itself. You then dive very quickly into the world of the consciously competent buyer, and these are buyers who are always going to compare. On price, but also functionality and your business.

Marketing IT means you also have to translate your technology into value for your new customers. What do you bring them in terms of business, risk reductions or opportunities for their organization? How does an organization accelerate with your solutions? That’s the^2nd complexity of IT marketing.

So what should you do in IT marketing?

Because marketing and sometimes sales is not in the DNA of an IT company, it is also often a tricky subject. So you are dealing with complexity in this area, and therefore there is not yet full attention or understanding of it.

So should you be doing anything with marketing as an IT company? Leads come in a lot through events, recommendations and a good personal network, right? And of course it is, but ultimately, for your continuity in your leads, you have to do more than that. You can be especially active in achieving attention and conversations with clients who are a good fit for you. Similar organizations where you can offer similar services, leading to an optimal margin.

The steps for successful marketing of IT

One of the most important pieces of advice we want to give: don’t just go into marketing. Prepare your activities and execution well in order to achieve optimal results as well.

We always perform our marketing services for our clients according to the following steps:

Step 1: Preparing

1. First, dwell carefully on yourself. What kind of company are you? What is your profile and appearance. Where would you fit in well, what is your ambition? Know yourself as an organization.
2. Choose your ideal customer profile. You do this based on specific, preferably measurable parameters and characteristics such as size in employees, turnover and more.
3. Choose a target audience based on that profile. A target group is a group of organizations with similar characteristics. This does not have to be an industry; it can also be based on region or topic or dynamics.
4. Work the target audience into a content and contact plan and a database of those organizations with the contacts you prefer to get in touch with.

Step 2: Setting up

1. Select supporting tooling you will deploy based on your contact plan. You can choose from a simple email program to a comprehensive marketing automation tool with which to run and manage all your activities.
2. Furnish your marketing systems and process with the plans you developed in your preparation. Configure your contact flows that you do by email or social media, schedule events, and work out the content to be used.
3. Walk through the process with your organization and especially your sales team. Agree when they will contact approached contacts, and by what means.

Step 3: Execute

1. Get to work! Actually, this is the easiest step. You just have to start. Just do it. The power of your activities and their success is in the preparation and setting up.
2. Monitor. When you’re up and running, you’ll see in your tooling the effect of your activities. Whether on social media, your website or email tooling, you see how your target audience responds to your actions.
3. Steer by. Whether the results are exceptionally good or bad, in either case you have to make adjustments. For example, engage sales earlier or make appointments faster, or just use a different (prepared) theme in your content.
4. Continue. And whatever you do, keep going. Marketing for IT is like a marathon. You have to continue to inform your target audience, of getting them moving toward you.

Step 4: Expand

Expand if necessary. If you have become a thought leader with your previously chosen target audience and you have multiple customers and leads, you may choose to do this process again for a different, or broader target audience.

More than a good intention

One thing is certain: if you set this up and execute it well, as well as persevere and adjust where necessary, success is assured. We see many initiatives go awry precisely on this. Marketing is not just good intentions. If you’re going to do marketing just to do some marketing, I’m afraid you won’t get the results you want.

Not sure how to go about this? Then do this with us. With our marketing as a service for IT companies, we help you achieve leads and therefore growth.