Being able to touch something isn’t as important as it used to be, and the ability to maintain control has declined in importance. Instead, IT departments are watching total cost of ownership and return on investment. Obviously, lower cost solutions favor these metrics. Cloud computing, software-as-a-service and other hosted and managed solutions are entering the IT cultural lexicon … and the attendant budgets and data centers. Google makes it easy to adopt, implement and afford its “nebulous” solutions. And, as long as they work as planned (which is most of the time), it’s easy for an IT department to be happy. When something goes wrong, though, remember that the Google organization and operation is not designed for support.
It’s easy not to see Google as a competitor. First, the company’s major operations – search and ads – don’t really interfere with what VARs are doing, namely selling and implementing IT solutions. Also, Google isn’t entering the VAR space, so again, it doesn’t look like a competitor. The problem is more difficult to detect: Google is slowly trying to replace certain parts of the IT market. Enterprise use of its Gmail service, for example, replaces the opportunity to sell mailserver solutions. The problem isn’t widespread yet, but now is the time to watch Google’s moves and determine the impact to your business.
Google is starting to edge its way into what would normally be considered the traditional IT business. It’s delivering both personal and enterprise applications, from office productivity to e-mail to data storage. And, it’s generally charging very little or nothing at all. For small businesses especially, Google is making a variety of IT options available at extremely low prices. If this trend continues, Google could begin to erode the markets that currently belong to traditional IT manufacturers and value-added resellers.
This week, we’re running a series on the enter:marketing blog – Five Reasons to Watch Google in 2010. Stop by every day to learn how the search engine giant is moving into other aspects of the IT industry … and how this can affect your business. To discuss ways to bolster your competitive strategy in regards to this challenge, please contact us today (opens an e-mail message).
Five common blog marketing mistakes: Using a blog to market your IT VAR business can be incredibly powerful. You can get in front of your prospects and clients as often as you want, put your thoughts into the market quickly and take the space to explain ideas that just won’t fit on a one-pager. And, you gain access to new leads … which take the trouble to find you (e.g., via Google) and take an interest in your content.
Watch IT spending, not the recession: The financial news has been great for serving up one dismal story after another. Consumers aren’t spending – which affects everyone – and unemployment’s at its highest point in more than a quarter of a century. If you follow this stuff too closely, you might miss the trend that matters most: IT spending is going up.
The financial news has been great for serving up one dismal story after another. Consumers aren’t spending – which affects everyone – and unemployment’s at its highest point in more than a quarter of a century. If you follow this stuff too closely, you might miss the trend that matters most: IT spending is going up.
After two years of clamping down on technology budgets, businesses are investing in both software and infrastructure. Much of this is for “must-have” projects still, a side-effect of delaying upgrades and migrations because of market conditions. Look closely, though, and you’ll find a hidden opportunity for future account growth.
Through Faceted Search, dynamic facets are generated automatically based on your query results. Eight facets, which arise in real time, are available to help you target your search – and extract marketing results you can use.
If you are using LinkedIn to market to IT buyers either by inviting members to groups or for personal outreach, Faceted Search enables you to identify the contacts most relevant to your efforts and in less time.
See the video below for more information on targeted search, and contact us for more information on how to market using LinkedIn.
Using a blog to market your IT VAR business can be incredibly powerful. You can get in front of your prospects and clients as often as you want, put your thoughts into the market quickly and take the space to explain ideas that just won’t fit on a one-pager. And, you gain access to new leads … which take the trouble to find you (e.g., via Google) and take an interest in your content.
Since this form of marketing is still new, many companies are still feeling their way … and are making plenty of mistakes. If you’re thinking about launching a blog – or have one already – here are five common missteps. Just by knowing them, you’ll be able to enter the blogosphere informed and ready to demonstrate your company’s capabilities.
IT social media marketing: strike while the iron’s hot: Forrester Research offers a pretty grim assessment of the future of social media marketing on its blog: Though social networks are the “future of online life,” James Kobielus writes, we could reach a point where “social network analysis – automatic, real-time, effective – will become too popular.” Everyone will wind up scouring social networks for business opportunities and crunching the same commodity analytics from platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook. The competitive edge, effectively disappears.
IT manufacturers and resellers have been looking into social media marketing, unsure of whether there’s an ROI case in it but understanding that eventually they’ll need to make the plunge. Well, an announcement by Dell yesterday shows that you should explore social media marketing … for all the right reasons.
Let’s be realistic: $6.5 million is a drop in the bucket for Dell. At the same time, social media is but one part of its overall marketing strategy. So, it looks as though the return Dell has generated is at least close to proportional.
So, we should all rush over to Twitter and get started, right?
If you aren’t thinking about cloud computing yet, it’s time for you to start. Now. Seriously. Sure, there’s been a lot of buzz around this for a while, and IT buyers are starting to buy into cloud computing services (especially in the small and medium-sized business segment). Services are popping up from some of the strongest brands in the IT industry, including EMC’s cloud-optimized storage, VMWare’s vCloud and Cisco’s cloud computing overlay for unified service delivery. But, the most interesting indicator of cloud adoption is that IT departments are hiring for it.
Your clients are so committed to exploring cloud computing that they are adding to their departments – in a tough market. According to a report by InfoWorld, mentions of “cloud computing” in job posts on Indeed.com are up 350,000 percent since January 2008.
Five reasons to watch Google in 2010: Small and medium-sized businesses, especially, are becoming comfortable with nebulous apps and services
Being able to touch something isn’t as important as it used to be, and the ability to maintain control has declined in importance. Instead, IT departments are watching total cost of ownership and return on investment. Obviously, lower cost solutions favor these metrics. Cloud computing, software-as-a-service and other hosted and managed solutions are entering the IT cultural lexicon … and the attendant budgets and data centers. Google makes it easy to adopt, implement and afford its “nebulous” solutions. And, as long as they work as planned (which is most of the time), it’s easy for an IT department to be happy. When something goes wrong, though, remember that the Google organization and operation is not designed for support.
It’s easy not to see 
Google is starting to edge its way into what would normally be considered the traditional IT business. It’s delivering both personal and enterprise applications, from office productivity to e-mail to data storage. And, it’s generally charging very little or nothing at all. For small businesses especially, 
The financial news has been great for serving up one dismal story after another. Consumers aren’t spending – which affects everyone – and unemployment’s at its highest point in more than a quarter of a century. If you follow this stuff too closely, you might miss the trend that matters most: IT spending is going up.
Using a blog to market your IT VAR business can be incredibly powerful. You can get in front of your prospects and clients as often as you want, put your thoughts into the market quickly and take the space to explain ideas that just won’t fit on a one-pager. And, you gain access to new leads … which take the trouble to find you (e.g., via Google) and take an interest in your content.
IT manufacturers and resellers have been looking into social media marketing, unsure of whether there’s an 
