IT companies “lack customer focus” says new research published by B2B Marketing and Tiger Lily Vanson Bourne. The survey found that “IT suppliers failed to meet 40 per cent of IT decision makers’ satisfaction levels whilst another 60 per cent commented that they had not been asked questions that mattered the most to them.”
The study claims that a focus on customer satisfaction research is the solution to these problems, but it looks to us as though what the decision makers were really frustrated about was the lack of understanding at a more fundamental level.
The lack of in-depth understanding of customers is something that has been endemic in IT B2B marketing for quite some time. It spans lead generation, key account/account-based marketing through to ongoing “regular” communication. This was echoed by Egg’s CIO Tom Ilube when we interviewed him late last year. Tom said, “I was most interested to receive updates from suppliers on things that were genuinely relevant. Almost all the material I got was too generic. I would think, “these guys could have done a bit more, they could have tried to understand Egg rather than banking in general.” It wouldn’t have been hard to do – just a bit of research for example – before targeting me.”
In the downturn, the pace of change is accelerated, and what once held true for entire industries (ie. retail, financial services) is now being splintered at a company by company level. Woolworths went under while Asda recruited thousands of people to cope with demand, Northern Rock is staging a strong comeback to the mortgage market whilst RBS will focus on retail and commercial banking. This makes industry-based and “pain point” marketing much more challenging – as marketers we need to be asking a lot more questions before we take campaigns out that feature explicit solutions to the specific challenges of companies we’re targeting.
It’s this very phenomenon that’s causing the drive towards more focused, narrow-cast campaigns and account-based marketing that we are increasingly seeing. For many ICT and professional services companies, treating existing accounts as markets in their own right is bearing a lot more fruit. If you’re looking to implement a narrow-cast or account-based programme then our continuous opportunity generation programmes start with the data and key account monitoring to get the comms and lead gen working in harmony. Get in touch with our Marketing Director to find out more.
2 comments
And the interesting thing we’re seeing with companies that focus on understanding their key accounts and producing content around them is that the same content is sparking inbound contact from other companies with similar challenges. Which of course is what you really want – people coming to you who already know that you can solve their challenges.
The point being that it isn’t a choice between focusing just on key accounts or reaching out to the whole market: focusing on te key accounts can provide the tools and reputation to bring the right parts of the rest of the market to you.
I think it starts way before they become customers, IT salespeople are notorious for selling speeds and feeds and do not address how their product is going to solve a clients business issue. Most IT providers websites talk about product without regard to where the client is in the buying lifecycle, if there is a white paper, and you download it, often a sales call and full court press follows to get you “on board”. I know all about it, I was a “bull horn” sales guy for 20 years. I have since converted to an account/content strategy that aligns the customers business issues. It is a slower on boarding process, but one that creates a closer relationship in the long term. The link goes to a paper on the subject.
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