Great Marketing Strategy Makes the Customers Feel Smart
I was browsing the web and doing some research on marketing for SaaS and IoT companies and suddenly saw this quote: “Good marketing makes the company look smart, but great marketing makes the customers feel smart.” by Joe Chernov. Let’s dive in and see what it takes for tech companies to have a great marketing strategy.
I have been working with lot of marketing teams across APAC region and involved in many marketing initiatives. Obviously, many of the initiatives we ran was unsuccessful. This does not mean that I was working with incompetent marketing teams. During all these years, I kind of come to the conclusion that 80/20 rule is actually exist in many aspects of life and business. Marketing is no different. 80% of marketing tactics and initiatives will fail and all the revenue and leads are coming from 20% of the projects.
It does not matter if you like it or not. From statistics perspective, majority of your success comes from few projects that you run and implement very good. The rest are waste of time and money.
But are they??!
I personally believe not!
In order to get to those great 20% level and discovering what actually is working for you, you need to test lots of things in the market. You need to at least run 8 programs and learn as much as you can, to be able to come up with 2 successful projects.
This is no brainer. Common sense!
There is no doubt that marketing is a “try and learn” job and you need to be very open to test new ideas and be ready to learn from failures.
The issue is “ego”. Meaning that lot of people are having a self perception about themselves that they are mostly right. In marketing, it is exactly the opposite. You are wrong most of the time. This means that as a marketer you need to be brave enough to accept that you are a learner for life and there is always something to learn.
80% of marketing tactics and initiatives will fail and all the revenue and leads are coming from 20% of the projects.
Good Marketing
Good marketers always talk about their product and features, in detail. They believe that having “cool” features will convince customers to buy or at least think about buying their products and services.
I am not arguing that we do not need technical and detail presentations and documents about your products. You definitely need to have those….
But for your existing customers…
To be able to get net new customers and attract net new markets (blue oceans), marketers should revert back to be a salesperson. Meaning, they need to think of what their potential customers want to achieve and how to achieve.
It is simply not enough to talk about yourself, you need to make sure you talk about how you can help your customers to go from point A to point B with minimum risk and high gain.
Great Marketing
Great marketers are aware that not all the marketing activities are success. To ask for ROI (Return on Investment) for each and every marketing activity is not practical. Some of the tasks are only there for branding. It means there is no actual gain or direct revenue recognition for these activities. But they are long term and long last.
Marketers should learn what questions to ask instead of asking constantly for ROI. The questions should be what we will gain in long term out of this tactic.
Not all marketing initiatives can be measured by $$ returned, but what impact they will have on the market and potential buyers.
The fact is you cannot only rely on one strategy to drive marketing. You need to have parallel strategies for different channels, either digital or non-digital to be able to communicate your message with your potential market or markets.
Find out who will benefit the most from your products or services. Then figure out which channels will give you the opportunity to reach out to them as cheap as possible. Get their attention. Offer them a solution and bundle with extra value and complementary services so they cannot refuse.
Use every tool in your arsenal and make a lot of noise in the market. Give away free content, social media updates on hourly basis, YouTube videos, podcasts, blog on a daily basis, advertise on every spot that you may think your prospects may look. Go crazy! But do not spend money crazy!!
Marketers should learn what questions to ask instead of asking constantly for ROI. The questions should be what we will gain in long term out of this tactic.
Leverage Influencers
Go out and talk to the thought leaders in your space. They will love to promote your business and services for a bit of cash! That is their business model. Leverage them in every channel possible. Interview them! Let them interview your team . . . and not only your CEO if you are a startup, every body in your leadership team should have a voice in the business.
Here is my thoughts on how to become a trusted advisor for your customers.
Start a channel program
Do not assume that your business is small or you are just a startup. That actually can work to your benefit. Start talking to people or companies that are owning your customers, but offering different non competing services. They love to work with you. You will bring extra value to their customers that they are struggling to offer if you are not helping them. Work with them and come with a killer margin so they cannot refuse to work with you. Otherwise, your competitors will do that. Go crazy and even offer up to 30% margin to them. Convince them that this is a good deal and you will help them to communicate the value of the combined solution to their clients.
Tell your day to day story
This is actually a great tool. I, personally myself have not try this yet. This is a bold move. Look for the right channel or social media platform and start recording 10 min videos on a go every day and explain your challenges, success and failures. This is bold and memorable.
In conclusion, it is not hard to come up with a multi channel marketing strategy. You can search the web and there are thousands of tactics to start. The key is to be consistent and using the tools that your customers are using. The rest is a waste of time and of course, great learning experience.
If you are interested, you can learn more on marketing strategy in IoT space from here.
