Updated July 13th, 2022
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6 Tips For Developing An IT Marketing Strategy
In an industry as competitive as the IT industry, having a robust marketing strategy that can stand the test of time is essential.
Knowing exactly what you are going to be doing and when can prevent a number of IT marketing mistakes, saving you a large amount of time—and money—that could be spent focusing on other things within your business.
With that being said, developing an IT marketing strategy does take some time to plan ahead of time.
It can seem overwhelming when you sit down to write one for the first time, with no idea where you should start, but that’s why we’re here to help.
With these tips, you will have all the information you need to write a robust, targeted marketing strategy that helps your business succeed.
Define The Goal Of Your Marketing Strategy
One of the biggest IT marketing mistakes made when planning a marketing strategy is people forgetting to define the goal of said marketing strategy.
Many businesses assume that business growth is a good enough goal of the strategy, and while that’s going to be your ultimate goal, you do need to be more specific.
Think about how you want this marketing strategy to build your business. Is it a strategy that’s going to attract new customers, or retain your current ones?
Is it something you’re using to temporarily build profits to implement other services or a strategy that stands the test of time for years to come?
Essentially, you need to sit down and really think about your goal—and write it down, no matter how simple it sounds.
Seeing it on paper will really help with the next steps.
Identify Your Target Audience
As an IT company, obviously, your services are going to be targeted toward those who like IT, but you need to think further than that.
Are you looking to attract millennials who want the latest technology? If that’s the case, consider creating a strategy that incorporates social media to really meet them at their level.
If you’re using assistive technology for older adults, on the other hand, using traditional methods like website advertising and email marketing may be more effective.
Interact With Your Target Audience & Competitors Online
If you’re yet to create an effective IT marketing strategy, look at what your competitors are doing, and what your target audience is interacting with.
This is the easiest way to determine what is and isn’t going to work for your business. Obviously, it isn’t foolproof, but it allows to skip a number of trial and error steps faced by other companies.
You might think memes work well on younger generations, and then look at a competitor and find out that this really isn’t the case and people actually prefer straightforward communications when it comes to their tech, for example.
The truth is, you could find out that the opposite is true, but you won’t know until you get down and dirty and start interacting (or observing) with your competition.
Work Out The Problems That Face Your Target Audience
Your target audience isn’t going to become attracted to your marketing strategy just because you put it in front of their faces.
Instead, you must take the time to work out the problems that face them, and work them into your own marketing strategy.
This will help them receive a more personalized experience that will benefit your brand going forwards, as opposed to a more generalized strategy that doesn’t make people feel valued.
Plan Content That Solves Their Problems
After working out the problems that face your target audience, you need to start planning content that solves their problems.
This is the easiest way you turn perceived value into actual value, and attract loyal customers with an increased chance of retaining them.
When doing this, however, you need to make sure that you aren’t just planning content that will sell your products, and are placing genuine interest in solving people’s problems.
You might not think this is a smart marketing move, but it’s actually proved extremely effective in building relationships between future customers and a brand.
This is because, when people find value in something, they want more of it, so they will go in search of your services and products.
And, if another problem comes up in the future, it’s likely they will know exactly where to go, increasing your future profits as well as your current ones!
Allocate Your Funds
By this stage in the process, you should be at a point where you have most of your marketing plan written out—or have at least some idea of where to start.
The last thing to do before putting your IT marketing strategy into place is to allocate your funds.
According to Digital Authority Partners, your marketing strategy funds should be broken down to the following:
- 50 percent towards paid search campaigns on Google AdWords (more if your business is new, or you’re still struggling to be found online).
- 17 percent for Facebook Ads
- 11 percent dedicated to SEO campaigns, from keyword research to hiring an SEO agency to purchase SEO tools
- 6 percent to content marketing (content marketing can be quite inexpensive, so you should be able to get a lot for your money here)
- 9 percent goes towards the costs of social media marketing and ramping up brand awareness online
- The remaining 7 percent goes towards miscellaneous items, including tracking content marketing, influencer outreach, and so on.
Although your own marketing strategy may differ slightly, the above is a good place to start if you don’t know where to begin with the funding side of creating a new strategy.
Summary
As you can see from this article, there’s quite a lot that goes into creating a comprehensive IT marketing strategy—especially a successful one.
With that being said, the results that can be yielded from the efforts you put in initially make it worth putting extra time into coming up with a foolproof plan.
So what are you waiting for? Go out there and find what works for your target audience so that you can create your most successful marketing IT strategy yet! Not sure where to start? Check out this list of marketing agencies that can help you out with your IT marketing efforts today.
