Posted by Tara Robertson on Thu, Sep 09, 2010 @ 07:56 AM
There is no question that marketing is becoming increasingly more complex as the industry continues to grow and more companies continue to go to market aggressively. Though it is interesting to see how many companies continue to market through singular campaign executions that aren't speaking to their end user. In a recent article "Are you boring your prospects," Mike Kelly, managing director for TSL Marketing explains the importance of content marketing.
"Many business-to-business marketers seem to have forgotten that you don’t market to companies, you market to individuals;" says Kelly, "and each has their own specific agenda. Unless you market to them in their language, addressing their specific needs, you will simply bore them."
Take for example a basic email marketing campaign. If you are sending an email out to your prospects, where the target prospect varies from IT director, Finance Director, and Operations, each one of those titles will have a very different pain or need from your solution. If your email is only directed towards the pain of the IT director, you have thus "bored" your other prospects and most likely lost their interest.
"Once the messaging for each constituent has been agreed, this needs to be rolled out across the marketing tactics in an integrated way." Kelly goes on to say, "Any support collateral such as white papers or other downloads should also be customised. In practice, this means that there should be three versions of each tactic, tailored to each constituent (Financial, Operational, IT)"
Read the full article by visiting the button below:
We would also love to hear from you on if you are currently using content marketing and how it has helped.
Posted by David English on Mon, Jul 26, 2010 @ 07:32 AM
Dave Brown, principle consultant for Ridge Consulting (a sister company of TSL Marketing) recently wrote an article published in ConsultingMag.com on the importance of catching your prospects attention and finding a way to create an uncontested value proposition for your company.
Here is an excerpt from this article:
The Problem
"In all aspects of our work, we constantly switch between heuristic and analytical problem solving techniques: the gut feel and the data gathering. And so do our sales prospects and clients. Yet, in many interactions in the sales process, the tendency is to dwell almost completely in the analytical realm. Most sales presentations, webinars and seminars are data-fueled pitches that fill the audience with all kinds of facts and stats. They start with the “features,” move on to the “benefits,” and end with a crescendo of “advantages.” There’s talk about time to benefit, TCO and ROI.
There are graphs, pie charts and magic quadrants. The analytical input is overwhelming. The audience is seen as passive pawns. Give them the right information, show them how your products or services are faster, better, cheaper and bigger than your competition, and they’ll buy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Chances are that your clients don’t have the time or interest to wade through the information that is being thrown their way. While you’re delivering that well-crafted pitch, your prospects’ attention is probably wandering, fading in and out, depending on their level of interest or concern. This happens to even the best presenters and best-prepared presentations. Why?
You’re hitting your audience at an analytical level, while they’re operating heuristically. While you’re explaining some well researched statistics, they’re thinking: “I get it already! But will it solve my problem? How much will it cost? How fast can I deploy? What are the risks?”"
The Solution
Learn more about how Dave Brown offers solutions through getting into the mind of your prospect. You can read the full article by clicking here.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Thu, Feb 18, 2010 @ 01:58 PM
This week we would like to share with you our newest white paper on the IT Predictions for 2010 at no cost (we can call it our valentine to you)! In this paper, you will see a comprehensive picture of the landscape for IT buying and how it will evolve in 2010.
Through this white paper, you will learn:
- Technology trends - the five biggest winners
- Which technologies and sectors will grow, and by how much?
- Which geographies will see growth or contraction?
- How will purchasing patterns change?
- What will CIO priorities be in 2010?
Here is a highlight from the white paper:
"Of the many organizations putting forth predictions for IT purchasing in 2010, the majority of the outlooks are positive. Gartner is predicting that growth in the industry will return, with IT spending looking to rise about 3.3 percent over 2009 levels to about $3.3 trillion."