Time to Sharpen Your IT Marketing Tools for 2021

End of year sales are over and business output has downshifted. Many are knee-deep into post-mortem analyses of the prior year while budgets await allocation.

For leading content marketers, the season’s lighter load is the perfect opportunity to inventory last year’s marketing assets and jumpstart the sales engine via fresh content. Read on to learn precisely how IT decision makers use content to inform their upcoming tech purchases, and how you can use your inventory to catch their respective eyes.

IT Decision Makers Crave Content 

According to a recent survey by Spiceworks, IT decision makers consume on average 17 pieces of content before making any final recommendations about a technology buy. Their “business” counterparts (business line managers, CIOs, etc.) reference an average of 12 content pieces. 

This consumption of information serves three basic purposes for decision makers, allowing them to:  

• Educate themselves about emerging technologies that can help solve “pain points” in their organization or help advance planned initiatives 
• Compare and contrast different manufacturers who offer those technologies, and  
• Research the best solution provider to partner with for the implementation.   

Most of the major OEMs continually update their content libraries and offer online portals where solution providers can download marketing assets (and even provide the option for them to add a logo and contact information). 

That falls under the category, “better than nothing.”  It may serve the first two purposes outlined above, but does nothing for the third.  Solution providers need take on the responsibility to differentiate themselves from their competitors and create their own value proposition separate and distinct from the technology manufacturers they represent. 

Practical Ways to Fortify Your Marketing Presence 

Here are some best practices when it comes to developing or updating a content library to support your demand generation efforts: 

1. Clean house first.  Gather together all your existing marketing assets and review them with a critical eye.  Are they up to date in terms of the technology solutions covered?  Are they reflective of your company’s current portfolio of solutions and services?  If not, toss ‘em (and don’t forget to remove them from your website as well as from any drives that your sales rep access).

2. Create a consistent format and brand identity.  Most larger solution providers have established brands and brand identity guidelines.  Smaller companies, or those just starting out, may not.  Consistency in presentation is important in building your brand equity and establishing trust with your prospects and customers.  Create standard templates while still allowing room for visual interest and creativity. 

3. Create variety. Different stages of the IT sales cycle demand different types of content (see our infographic:  The IT Sales Cycle). Be sure you have a balance between media assets that work well earlier in the decision-making process (i.e., solution briefs that are designed to help prospects better understand how a particular technology works) and those that are designed to help showcase your company’s experience in deploying a technology solution for specific company (i.e., customer case studies). 

Sharpen your IT marketing arsenal for 2021 by turning a critical eye to your existing media asset library and creating fresh new content to support your demand generation efforts for next year and beyond.