IT companies hold an increasingly lofty position in today’s markets, and marketing effectively becomes incredibly important for companies who want to stay competitive. Even the greatest innovations often meet with skepticism and apathy if your marketing team doesn’t do the necessary marketing to excite IT customers, explain the benefits of new features and deliver the “wow” factor through brilliant marketing.
That’s why all IT companies need to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy, deliver great customer experiences and differentiate their services from run-of-the-mill competitors. The following marketing tips are specially designed for IT companies that often need to generate excitement over services that often seem intangible:
1. Generate Compelling Original Content
Content is king in the digital marketing space, and you can’t afford to ignore the value and opportunities of broad-based content generation. That includes compelling descriptions, useful content that provides value to customers, webinars and podcasts and entertaining video content. Telling great stories – through videos, images and written content – is always an effective way to build an audience.
2. Promotional Products
Promotional products, which have been around for centuries, still drive sales and build customer loyalty. IT clients appreciate custom swag as much as manufacturing customers, B2C consumers and hard-nosed B2B buyers. The IT environment is especially effective for promotional products, such as custom thumb drives, electronic gadgets, earbuds, webcam covers, design tools, water bottles, writing pens, cellphone wallets, stress balls and traditional promotional products like hats, mugs and t-shirts.
3. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing can be bigger for IT companies than clothing manufacturers. That’s because respected influencers are deemed capable of evaluating complex new technologies. These technologies are more expensive than simple products, and influencing a decision-maker to invest a lot of money in IT tech can be vastly more profitable than selling a few hoop skirts or pairs of custom footwear. It’s difficult to stand out when selling software or IT technology – unless someone with high credibility endorses the product or service.
The best marketing strategy for IT companies is to identify key influencers and top buyers, solicit testimonials, connect with target prospects and build social credibility with social marketing.
4. Personalize Your Marketing Efforts
When you know about your customers – from website analytics, buyer behavior and external business intelligence – you can personalize marketing messages and initiatives based on each customer’s buying habits, preferences, demographics and other criteria. That means choosing the right content for landing pages, creating campaigns that target different decision-makers and understanding each person’s pain points.
5. Offer Incentives, Giveaways and Free Trials
IT technology and software are highly competitive, but you should never ignore the value of offering freebies, incentives, promotional products and free trials. If your product is good, you can offer an incentive or free trial to drive conversion rates. This is a low-risk, high-reward approach that drives sales. If your service is similar to what other companies are offering, you can still increase conversions with simple discounts, free promotional items and exceptional customer service.
IT marketing often seems more complex than it is. If you understand your customers, provide a great experience, personalize your marketing, prepare compelling content and show your appreciation of customers with promotional products and incentives, you’ll increase conversions and profitability.