Microage Innovation Conference 2016 Montreal - 10 Marketing Tactics for Small IT Companies
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Slide deck presented at the MicroAge Innovation Conference, April 25, 2016 in Montreal to MicroAge partners. Topic: how to do marketing to grow your IT business.
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Microage Innovation Conference 2016 Montreal - 10 Marketing Tactics for Small IT Companies
- 1. 2016 MicroAge Canada M O N T R E A L A P R I L 2 4 - 2 5 - 2 6 , 2 0 1 6
- 2. 2016 MicroAge Canada W E L C O M E
- 3. Raj Khera Partner, MailerMailer (Makers of Presstacular) @presstacular @rajkhera @mailermailer 10 Marketing Tactics That Will Drive More Sales
- 4. Engineer turned business guy • CEO, GovCon — sold in 1999 for $12M • Partner, FilterPoint — sold in 2009 • Partner, MoreBusiness.com About the Presenter, Raj Khera Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC Partner, MailerMailer • Presstacular — marketing tool for IT companies • Author #1 Amazon Bestseller: IT Marketing Crash Course • Sold DiscussThis.com in 2014 • Acquired Listcast in 2015
- 5. Hi, nice to meet you. Will you marry me? Typical Sales Call Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 6. Hi, nice to meet you. Look at my muscles. Now will you marry me? Typical Sales Call Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 7. How Prospects Buy IT Services Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 8. Too Many Options = Clutter Clutter = Slower Decisions Starting Point: What Exactly Do You Sell? Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 9. Tactic 1: Reduce Buying Option Clutter Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 10. Study: more choices leads to more “oohs” and “aahs” but fewer purchases (3% vs. 30%) Package your IT services as product bundles with specific options • Package A: xy • Package B: xyz “When Choice is Demotivating,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Iyengar and Lepper, 2000. Reduce Buying Option Clutter Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 11. Tactic 2: Mimic Client Behavior in Meetings Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 12. People look for environmental cues to decide who to trust Study: 79% of retail shoppers bought from mimicking sales reps vs. 62% “Imitation is the Best Form of Flattery – and a Good Negotiation Strategy,” Kellogg News (Northwestern University), 2007. “Retail Salespeople’s Mimicry of Customers: Effects on Behavior,” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Jacob et. al., Sept 2011 Mimic Client Behavior in Meetings Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 13. Tactic 3: Repeat Clients’ Words in Proposals and Presentations Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 14. Say “Tell me more” as your answer to yes/no questions Study: waitresses who repeated diners’ orders word-for-word got 70% more tips “Mimicry for Money: Behavioral Consequences of Imitation,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, van Baaren, Holland, Steenaert and van Knippenberg, July 2003. Repeat Clients’ Words Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 15. Tactic 4: Attend Networking Events Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 16. Attend Networking Events Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC Attend at least 6 networking events each year More is better
- 17. Attend Networking Events Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC Identify which events your clients never miss Be a speaker there
- 18. Tactic 5: Get Call Backs Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 19. • Exchange cards, stay in touch • Educate on how to relieve headaches, save time, and save money • Provide them with a lead • Be the connector — it builds trust Ways to Get a Call Back Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 20. Who Do You Trust? Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC What makes you trust a company you don’t know? • Those who talk about what they offer and how good they are — “me” • Those who listen, educate, and comfort you without pressure — “you”
- 21. Me Preferred words • “Our services” • “Our clients” • “Our staff” “Me” vs. “You” Marketing Word Choice Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC You Preferred words • “How to…” • “White paper on…” • “Free report on…” • “We can help you” • “We can help you”
- 22. What Does Your Marketing Say? Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC • Our services • Our capabilities • Our clients • Our projects • Our staff • Our promotions
- 23. Not important • You • Features of your products and services What Matters to Clients? Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC Important • Them • Their problems • Solutions to their problems • Benefits of your products and services
- 24. • How to Prepare Your Office for the Storm Arriving This Week • Alert: What the <Breach of the Day> Security Issue Means for Your Business Content Examples What Matters to Clients? Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC • Tip: Using Airport Wi-Fi Safely and Securely • 5 Handy Windows Productivity Tricks That You Didn’t Know
- 25. Preparing Your Office for a Major Storm Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 26. Tactic 6: Send Security Alerts Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 27. • Cryptojoker • Malware in Macros • California Hospital Pays $17k Ransom • Server 2003 End-of-Life Send Security Alerts Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 28. Tactic 7: Post Blogs Every Month Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 29. Post Blogs Every Month Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 30. Tactic 8: Offer an Incentive to Contact You Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 31. Offer an Incentive to Contact You Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 32. Tactic 9: Send an Email Newsletter Every Month Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 33. Send an Email Newsletter Every Month Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC Inform, don’t sell Share news, tips, insights, recommendations Include a call to action
- 34. Educate First… Then Promote Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC Educate First Then Promote
- 35. Monitor Opens/Clicks for Warm Leads Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 36. Write or Acquire Educational Content Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC • Generates and nurtures leads • Enhances credibility • Encourages sharing • Establishes trust • i.e., Sells without selling
- 37. Repurpose Content Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 38. Real-Life Example Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC “100% increase in unique page views, 250% increase in online conversions” Bill Owens CEO, Veracity
- 39. Tactic 10: Apply for Awards and Get Testimonials Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 40. Apply for Awards and Get Testimonials Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC Publicize your awards and testimonials in press releases, newsletters, blogs,… Shows off your expertise
- 41. Remember to follow up with leads Marketing IS NOT set it and forget it Please, Please, Please… Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 42. How to Get Clients for Your Technology Business www.ITMarketingBook.com The IT Marketing Crash Course Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 43. Presentation Slides © 2015 MailerMailer LLC Your Complete IT Marketing Toolkit
- 44. Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC Special Offer for Attendees Free 12-month IT marketing plan template – you can edit it to make a custom plan for your business! Just drop off your business card
- 45. raj@mailermailer.com presstacular.com 800-475-1415 +1-301-825-5658 Contact Us Presentation Slides © 2016 MailerMailer LLC
- 46. 2016 MicroAge Canada T H A N K Y O U
Editor's Notes
- Before we get started, I thought it might be useful to share a little background on who I am. I have a couple of degrees in electronics engineering – I used to build semiconductor chips and wrote a lot of software. Then after 9 years of being an engineer I got the itch to start my own company 20 years ago. I’ve been there – being a technical person and learning about marketing to grow my business – and it can be challenging. Today I’m going to share with you a few of the things I’ve picked up along the way, many of which are in my book, the IT Marketing Crash Course.
- <read> Some people have a modified version of this phrase. It goes something like this…
- <read> What I mean by this is that too often, we meet somebody and try to find out quickly if they need IT services and then we start talking about how good we are and try to sell them what we offer. We try to get married on the first date. IT services usually aren’t cheap, and so people need to get to know you before making a commitment. When you think about it, it’s just like dating. You want to get to know who you are getting involved with. I mean, you wouldn’t just go to someone and say “hi, nice to meet you. Will you marry me?” This just isn’t how things work.
- Your prospects are no different. Here’s how most people make buying decisions. This holds true if you’re buying a TV or buying IT services. A prospect first becomes aware that they have a need, that there is a problem that they need to solve. But they don’t jump from becoming aware about an issue to making a purchase. There are a couple of steps in between. They first try to educate themselves. When they identify good sources of education, that builds trust in their minds – because they feel like they are making an informed decision. That’s when they become ready to buy. People buy from those they trust. Your ability to drive more leads and close more sales depends on your ability walk a prospect through this sales process. Everything I’m going to talk about today is about guiding your lead through this process, building trust so they want to buy from you. We’re going to dive into specific tactics that you can implement starting today or tomorrow. Let’s dive in.
- <read title> I see a lot of web sites for IT companies. Many provide so much information on every type of service they offer. They list out data backup, other cloud services, remote desktop support, anti-virus, malware, the list goes on. If you’re a prospect looking at this, how different is this than everyone else’s web site? It’s all a huge smorgasbord of options. You would have no idea where to start, especially if you aren’t technical. It creates clutter in the prospects’ minds. Clutter leads to slower decision making.
- Let’s turn to a study about what happens to peoples’ thought process when they’re confronted with so many choices. <describe study on 24 v 6 choices of jam>. When you talk with a prospect, they can get overwhelmed by all of the ways to buy your services. That requires a lot of thinking. The more they have to think, the slower they’ll make a decision. Take a look at Mindshift.com or search the term “managed service package or bundles” for examples of bundling.
- <read> When people don’t know you, they look for things in their environment to decide who to trust. And studies show that some of those cues are mimicked behavior. <describe study, use gestures hand on chin, leaning back/forward – has to be subtle> Don’t be overt about it. That can backfire. It takes practice to make this subtle. Next time you’re out with your significant other, test it out.
- When you sell your services, you often have to give the prospect a proposal. You start with your sales meeting. You prepare your questions and then take notes. <describe how to use ‘tell me more’ – hand over mouth gesture about talking too much – to draw out specific requests and write them down in their words – read them back to confirm>. <describe study, then tell how people typically respond to question like “what kind of IT services do you provide?” or “do you do xyz?” and what the best response is to this question>
- To get more customers, you have to get in front of people. I’ll show you ways to pull traffic to your web site. That takes a little time to build up. The fastest way is to go where your clients – and therefore your prospects – hang out.
- <read, discuss value of speaking – local chamber, associations, host lunch and learns – The Most Commonly Overlooked IT Security Practices That Law Firms Make (can tie to compliance which people are always worried about – FUD factor), buy a list, send a mailer, hire a student to call>. Let’s say you meet someone, they’re interested but then you can’t get them to call you back.
- <read first ones, 7 touches till they start recognizing you, describe why we hire accountants and lawyers, how to find opportunities for others, which leads to getting a call back>If I sent anyone in this room an email saying “Hi, I know someone who might need data backup services. Let me know if this is something you can help with.” Everyone of you would call me back, right? It’s like saying “here’s a $1000, want it?” Even if the lead doesn’t pan out, they’ll remember and appreciate it. You’ve added points to that layer of trust.
- Let’s translate this into the work world.
- Different word choice, same end goal: we can help you. Remember, we’re trying to walk someone through awareness, education, trust to purchase. The “Me” approach is the “hi, nice to meet you, look at my muscles, will you marry me?” Which one of these approaches would you trust if you were the buyer?
- <use gestures, muscles, power stance> Turn the table now to you. Is your web site just a brochure? When is the last time you got a client because they read your online brochure? If your website is brochure-ware or if all of your marketing material only talks about how good you are, you are missing a major opportunity. Plus, your competitors will sneak past you – and maybe even steal your clients.
- How? Because what matters to clients are the issues they are facing in their own business right now, not you and not necessarily what you are selling. Focus on benefits, not features. You and I know what cloud computing is. Your clients might not. Don’t say “store your data in the cloud”. That’s meaningless to a non-technical person. Instead, say “access your data anytime you want it and from any device – your iPad, your work computer or home PC”. That’s what people buy.
- Focus on what matters to your prospects and clients. One of my favorites is the last one – there’s no shortage of information to share when it comes to security breaches. Headline news every month.
- Story of how people buy milk, bread, eggs but forget about how to plan for their business. Next time you hear about bad weather coming (hurricane, major storm, etc), offer tips on data backup, remote access, etc. Even if it’s not in your area, you can leverage the news if it’s on CNN. This is my in round 2 of 3 in January when the DC area got hit with 30” of snow.
- One of our clients sent an alert on ransomeware to contacts that already were using other IT companies. Those companies started scratching their heads wondering why their IT firm wasn’t keeping them updated on this stuff because it looked pretty important. So they called our client after he sent the alert and he was able to close $5000 in new project business within a week, and then convert those new clients into $75k in annual recurring revenue. This stuff works!
- To help you get found in search engines, make sure you update your site regularly. And there’s no better way to do this than through a blog. It allows new people to find your site and possibly reach out to you. Plus, when you send you email newsletter which directs people back to your site, you continue to stay top of mind and show off your expertise. And that allows you to nurture those contacts you meet at networking events or those who fill out your site’s contact form. Speaking of which…
- If you want someone to fill out your contact form, don’t just post up a generic form with a Submit button. Give people a reason to fill it out. Those blogs you have can easily be turned into a guide or white paper. Many of our clients use our specialized white papers to capture contact information from web site visitors. This is what some call “gated content”, which is very valuable content that you get for exchanging your email address. In fact, Presstacular has a way to capture this information automatically and send the white paper after someone enters a valid email address. And then it alerts you so you can follow up accordingly. Remember I mentioned educating people about Server 2003 – we have a white paper on that, one on data backup, one on IT terminology for non-technical people.
- A related cousin to sending security alerts is sending a monthly email newsletter. A newsletter does not mean you’re sending out product info or something on a special sale you have. This newsletter is designed to be informative. One of our clients sent a newsletter about the end of support on a Tues morning. $25k in new biz by Friday. Now, we have another big opportunity ahead of us – Server 2003. With over 8 million servers still running 2003 and Microsoft stopped support in July, this is a very timely opportunity to get migration business by alerting people about this issue.
- When a client only sees promotion after promotion, they tune out. When they see educational pieces, they stay tuned in. You have built trust. What comes with trust? If they trust you, they become open to your advertising, open to your sales pitches, open to your promotions. To get the most mileage out of your content, you can create and send the newsletter yourself or you can use a tool to help you out. Here’s an example of a newsletter created using our tool, Presstacular. The really neat thing about this tool is that all of the content is already included. You don’t have to write anything.
- I wouldn’t recommend sending your newsletter through Outlook because you won’t get any tracking details. The beauty of email newsletter tools is that you can get very detailed metrics to help you close more sales. You can find out who is clicking the articles- and which ones they are reading, and who is most likely ready for a sales call. There’s only so much time in day. You want to spend that time talking to people who are likely ready to buy your services.
- Educational IT content does so many things – and remember, this is not sales content about your products or services, this is material that is designed to speak in a client’s terms.<read> and most of all it keeps you top of mind. So don’t sell. Instead, educate.
- And to top it off, this is the one thing in your marketing budget that you can stretch to go a very long way. Your educational material can be transformed into multiple forms so you can share blogs, ebooks, white papers, newsletters, checklists, infographics – even tweets and facebook or linkedin posts. Here’s where leveraging other people’s time comes in handy – stop doing $10/hour work yourself: get someone to write articles for you – or subscribe to a service like ours to do that – it’s very cost effective, very professional and saves a lot of time, use a graphic designer to make some infographics for you, maybe reformat some of your pieces into ebooks or slide presentations, maybe hire a student intern to turn some of these into videos. Can also repurpose that into your proposals – remember to be like a parrot and recite client’s words.
- Here’s what one of our clients found out through experience. He started using Presstacular’s IT content a little while back and has seen a 100% increase in unique page views to his web site. Plus, a 250% increase in online conversions – these are new people who found useful content on his site and contacted them.
- <describe, how one IT company asks for testimonials before they get the contract> When coupled with your educational material, this shows off your expertise, which in turn increases trust.
- A final word… If you implement the strategies I outlined today, you WILL get leads. You will get QUALIFIED leads. Make sure you follow up with them. Use the metrics from your email tracking reports. Put them on your email list, put them into your CRM and Presstacular. Send them a newsletter, guides, white papers. I promise you will get new business. If they’re not sales ready now, they might be later. You just have to nurture them. I regularly get clients who have been monitoring our activities for over a year and then the time is right and they call us. This happens all the time.
- If haven’t downloaded it yet, my book will give you a roadmap on how to build your business. It’s a #1 bestseller on Amazon and one of the only books that goes into modern marketing strategies just for MSPs. It’s available in print and Kindle editions – you can get a free Kindle reader app for your iPad or PC. Just visit ITmarketingbook.com.
- Doing all this marketing might feel a bit overwhelming. Presstacular can help – you can automate your marketing. Presstacular empowers you create an email newsletter and blog instantly using a library of professionally written articles that you can edit. We also provide white papers, guides, slide decks and lots more content that’s pre-written and ready to use right out of the box. Our automation tools show you live reports so you know who’s reading your material, what they’re clicking on and who’s likely ready for a sales call. It’s like having your own marketing department but at less than a tenth of the cost of hiring staff.
- Just drop off your business card with me and I will email you a free IT marketing plan template – this is a monthly checklist of things to do to grow your business that you can customize for your company