09TOP10

ITSMA’s Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010ABBREVIATED SUMMARY

Special Edition | January 4, 2010

Chris Koch

Download the full Special Edition of

ITSMA’s Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010.

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 2Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

Introduction

We had many new ideas to

help marketers in 2009.

(You can see them all in

ITSMA’s Online Library.)

But here we’ve summarized

the ones that you voted for

with your feet. These are

ideas within the documents

that were downloaded most

often in 2009, in order of

popularity. Enjoy!

Download the full Special Edition of

ITSMA’s Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010.

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 3Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

1. Help customers and prospects spark epiphanies

We have identified three steps to becoming a master of the epiphany stage:

Refocus your thought leadership strategy.

Align the sales and marketing processes with the customer’s buying process.

Change sales’ emphasis from transactional to consultative selling.

Stage 5.

LOYALTY

Post-Purchase

Evaluation

Evaluate

satisfaction

Measure value

delivered

Stage 4.

CONFIDENCE

Selection and

Purchase

Select the

provider

Negotiate the

contract

Ultimate sign-off

Stage 3.

INTEREST

Alternative

Evaluation

Solicit proposals

Evaluate

alternatives

Stage 2.

AWARENESS

Search

Clarify objectives

and solution

specifications

Identify

alternatives

(short list)

Stage 1.

EPIPHANY

Need

Recognition

Explore the

possibilities

Identify a need

or opportunity

Buying

Processes

Relationship

Stages

ITSMA’s Relationship Model

Source: ITSMA, 2009

To understand the epiphany stage and how it can help, read our report,

The Epiphany Stage: The Missing Link in the Buying Process.

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 4Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

2. Match value propositions to the different stages of the buying cycle

According to ITSMA’s definition, a value proposition is:

A clear and simple statement that reflects the essence of the unique

value a business will provide to a client or target market through a

combination of benefits and price.

ITSMA’s Six-Step Process for Articulating Value Propositions

For more information, read our report Where’s the Beef? Creating Value Propositions That

Matter, which explains our six-step process for developing effective value propositions and

offers a proven template for creating value propositions that deliver results.

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6

Understand

the market

and clients

Determine

your true

differentiators

Articulate

unique value

based on

customer need

Quantify

value

Elicit internal

and external

feedback and

revise

Collaborate with

sales to

communicate

value

propositionsSource: ITSMA, 2009

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 5Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

3. Reduce the cost per order dollar through marketingCost per order dollar is the key to

demonstrating the power of

marketing to improve the

efficiency of sales. It helps senior

management understand that

spending money on marketing has

the potential to both improve

revenue generation and reduce

the cost of sales as a percentage

of revenue.

For more information, read

Why (and How) You Should Spend More on Marketing in a Downturn.

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 6Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

4. Create a clear process for developing and selling complex solutions

In 2005, HP began an ambitious

effort to create an all-encompassing

solution for customers to revamp

their data centers.

Developing a quantitative analysis of the

potential market was important not just

for market planning but also for making

the case for the solution internally. HP

wanted the solution to be something that

the business units would be actively

involved in and supportive of. That made

quantitative market research essential.

Other essential steps in HP’s solution

development process include:

1. Size the potential market.

2. Research customer needs.

3. Market the solution internally.

4. Create an appropriate level of

detail in the solution.

5. Develop a list of differentiators.

6. Create a go-to-market plan.

7. Raise the tolerance for ambiguity

inside the organization.

8. Create a composite portrait of ROI.

To learn more about these specific steps, read

How to Develop a Complex Solution: HP’s Data Center Transformation.

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 7Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

5. Close deals faster with collaborative account planning

Collaboration between marketing and

sales in the account planning process

can speed up the sales process.

Ideally, sales and marketing should

collaborate on both selecting accounts

and digging up the market and

customer intelligence to support the

plan. Salespeople are good at

understanding the “now” inside

accounts—the current opportunities —

while marketing develops the larger

picture of market trends and new

opportunities.

Want to learn more about collaborative account planning?

Read Accelerate the Buying Process with Collaborative Account Planning.

There are six steps to

collaborative account planning:

1. Pick the target accounts.

2. Conduct research and map to

customers’ strategic planning

processes.

3. Validate with customers and

analysts.

4. Link the initiatives to the

responsible individuals.

5. Develop targeted offerings.

6. Create tailored value

propositions.

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 8Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

6. Differentiate by knowing buyers’ business needsNo single marketing tactic

stands out as being more

effective than others to buyers

today. Yet thought leadership-

based tactics such as

e-newsletters, Webinars, and

in-person seminars all cluster

near the top, whereas more

traditional marketing tactics

such as brochures,

telemarketing, and hospitality

events all occupy the bottom of

the list.

Learn more about what buyers want by reading How Customers Choose Solution

Providers, 2009: The Importance of Personalization, Epiphanies, and Social Media.

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 9Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

7. Stop reporting and start predicting through analytics According to our survey, Marketing

Analytics, marketers who want to make

the transition to analytics need to do

three things:

1. Collaborate with finance. Work with

finance to gather the enterprise-level

data necessary to get a view of

marketing’s overall business impact.

2. Shift to a fact-based culture. That

means a culture that is comfortable

waiting a little longer before taking

action—a culture that wants answers

before plunging ahead with action.

3. Experiment. Develop experimentation

methods to predict the performance of

marketing programs and campaigns.

Want to get the facts about analytics? Download our survey, Marketing Analytics.

Source: ITSMA research

Use marketing data to glean insights

and make important marketing decisions

Cultivate a fact-based decision-making

culture

Manage marketing data at an enterprise level

Gather sufficient data to document

marketing’s performance

Analyze marketing data in conjunction with

data from finance and operations to create a

holistic view of marketing’s impact on the

business

Demonstrate a link between marketing

performance and business profitability and

customer loyalty/retention rates

ITSMA’s Analytics Best Practice Model

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 10Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

8. Integrate Marketing into the Portfolio Management ProcessBuilding a successful portfolio

management process is difficult enough,

but building support for and participation

in the process in a company as large

and diverse as CSC takes years.

As CSC has discovered, fthe portfolio

management function must establish the

senior executive relationships necessary

to gain entry into the process, get

funding for finding and investing in new

ideas, and become change management

experts to get skeptical businesspeople

to support it.

Learn more about how CSC created its portfolio management process by reading

CSC: How to Integrate Marketing into the Portfolio Management Process.

Key Takeaways Portfolio management, business

development, and marketing groups

should all be involved in the

selection of the products and

services that they will be asked to

market and sell.

Delivering complex solutions

globally requires a tightly managed

portfolio process.

The effectiveness of strategic

marketing activity inside the

organization grows as it becomes

more involved in the portfolio

process.

Building acceptance is the biggest

challenge in portfolio management.

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 11Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

9. Make marketing more efficient rather than slashing and burning

Marketing staffs were already lean

coming into this recession. We were

shocked at how deep some companies

cut marketing. Some will not recover

from it. Meanwhile, many of those same

companies are holding sales expenses

steady or even increasing the number of

sales resources.

To learn more ways that marketers

responded to the downturn,

listen to our online briefing

ITSMA’s 2009 State of the Marketing

Profession Address: Making the Right

Choices in Uncertain Times.

But we also saw some companies

making some intelligent choices. They’ve

tried to make marketing more efficient by

taking these steps:

Move from broad to narrow.

Shift from offline to online.

Use the urge for continuity to cut

costs.

Go offshore for productivity, not

just cost.

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 12Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

10. Refine the demand generation and lead management processesMarketers need to move from

lead generation to lead

nurturing. We do this by

developing programs that

generate awareness,

stimulate interest, and

educate. We also identify

needs, pain points, and

purchase ability. But most

important, we engage in

dialogue and build a

relationship and credibility.

Learn more about how to manage your demand generation and lead management

processes by downloading Generating Revenue in Tough Times: Better Thinking,

Better Tactics.

© 2009 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 26ITSMA Web Briefing | OLB090225 Generating Revenue in Tough Times

The role and value of information in the IT buying process

Source: KnowledgeStorm, Connecting through Content, March 2006;

IDC, An Inconvenient Truth: The Role and Value of Information in the IT Buying Process, January 2008

Technology

Buyers Information Usage

Look for different kinds of information at various

points in the buying cycle61%

85%

Need to see information about a new technology

or solution at least three times

85%

Rated educational content as ‘very’ or ‘extremely’

important to them

72%Contacted a vendor after reading a white paper

Almost

allSpend ~5 hours per week with third-party information

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 13Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

As a membership

organization,

ITSMA brings together

the world’s leading

technology and

professional services

firms to advance the

state of the art in

marketing and selling

services and solutions.

About ITSMA

Special Edition | January 4, 2010 | 09TOP10 © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 14Top Ten Marketing Ideas for 2010

For More Information

Follow us…Online Library

Chris KochDirector, Thought Leadership and Research

ITSMA

ckoch@itsma.com

+1-781-862-8500, Ext. 115