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By the time you’re knotting your tie for a sales appointment, the cards should be stacked in your favor. The best indicator, of course, is that the prospect agreed to the meeting, so he must perceive some value. And, you’ve been able to review all the information that came out of the lead qualification process. You know the pain points, at least at a high level, and you have a sense of the status quo within your prospect’s datacenter. You have a willing audience and all the information you need to make a sale.

So, why do so many appointments go nowhere? It’s a fair question. If everything leading up to a sales call is so clearly beneficial, it should always go well … right?

Often, the problem isn’t with the prospect – it’s with you. You aren’t asking yourself the right questions before you sit across from your client. Below, you’ll find three questions to ask yourself before your next sales appointment. Answer them, and you’ll find your efforts to be much more fruitful.

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The only thing better than getting a great deal is paying nothing at all! Of course, giving solutions away makes it difficult to stay in business, so this is where IT solution providers need to get creative. If you can find a way to deliver a solution at no incremental cost to your client, you’re delivering a profound value, increasing revenue and saving your client money relative to its current budget. With backup and restore solutions, you have a shot at accomplishing this.

The balancing act comes down to cost versus return, as it does with any IT investment. The nature of backup and restore solutions is such that you can find waste easily and deliver a solution that cuts excess spending while providing value.

Here are four ways to make a backup and restore solution pay for itself:

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Are you getting the most out of your marketing budget? The only way to know for sure is to take a close look at how your marketing and sales teams are performing. Dig into the data in your CRM system, and you’ll find a wealth of information. Even if you’re satisfied with the fruits of your labor, you may learn that you’re actually leaving ROI on the table. Here are five ways to find out if your organization has more ROI just waiting to happen:

1. Low closure rate
If you are swamped in highly qualified leads but aren’t putting many of them in the “win” column, you’re probably not getting the return you should be on your marketing efforts. This is a red flag and should be followed with a hard look at why so many leads aren’t turning into sales. This can require some tough conversations, but the outcome will be worth it for all involved. Your sales team will enjoy better numbers, and company revenue as a whole will increase.

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The dialogue on Twitter is fast-paced and has close to 60 million participants. So, it’s at once high-value and highly frustrating. How can you make your voice heard above so many others? Rather than delve into the “focused community” spiel that you’ve probably read hundreds of times on Mashable, here are five tips to help you with the basic blocking and tackling of marketing your IT product or service on Twitter:

1. Leave room at the end
You have 140 characters at your disposal … just like everyone else. So, if someone wants to retweet you, you’ll need to leave enough room for RT @[your name]. Some users may be willing to edit your tweet to make room for the additional characters entailed by retweeting, but you may miss opportunities when someone isn’t in the mood to work a little harder to help you out.

Note: With the retweet button on Twitter.com, you can’t edit when retweeting, so you’d have to expect someone to manually copy and paste your tweet before editing and retweeting. That’s a lot to expect from a perfect stranger!

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Five tips for marketing and selling disaster recovery and business continuity solutions: Disaster recovery and business continuity solutions should be easy to sell. Everybody needs them, and some businesses are required by regulatory bodies to meet specific and demanding standards. They also represent a place where IT solution providers and manufacturers can distinguish themselves because DR/BC is not only a cost, but one that will show a benefit only rarely. So, a company that can shorten backup and recovery times, consume less storage space and lessen demand on datacenter staff is likely to find a willing audience.

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Why It’s Hard to Find Corporate Blogging Topics: When Mark Hermann, an excellent corporate blogger, bid farewell to his blog, he pulled back the curtain. Among the frank observations he made, one in particular stuck with me: you’ll run out of topics faster than you think. I’ve been there, and it’s awful.

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Five Characteristics of a Highly Effective Marketing Partner: There is no shortage of IT marketing agencies on the market that would be thrilled to have you as a client. You get calls regularly, have listened to countless pitches and reviewed what feels like a never-ending stack of presentations on demand generation. So, how do you choose? If you have a partner in place, how do you evaluate its effectiveness?

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What Are Your Search Engine Marketing Challenges?: Whether search engine marketing is an important part of your online arsenal is beyond question. Google alone, with around two-thirds of the U.S. search market, warrants specific consideration. For IT manufacturers and solution providers, search engine marketing can be particularly challenging because competition is fierce for fairly specific search terms — both for products and vendors and for the IT issues that you seek to resolve for your clients. The latest research from MarketingSherpa reveals the priorities of search engine marketers.

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Turning Off Blog Comments: Technorati editor Don Martelli and I went back and forth recently about whether it makes sense for corporate blogs to leave the comments feature enabled. I’m among the few who believe that comments add little value (at best) on a B2B corporate blog. It’s counter-intuitive and likely to get me beheaded by an angry mob of social media gurus. But, if you think through the dynamic, you’ll start to see how it can make sense.

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Chart: Adoption of social media marketing metrics: The latest research from MarketingSherpa indicates that businesses using social media to promote their products and services — and fill their lead streams — are employing a variety of measures to gauge the effectiveness of their initiatives. Of course, the metrics you’d expect have been most widely adopted, but there are some important stats being watched by a small group of companies that signal where social media marketing is headed.

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Whether search engine marketing is an important part of your online arsenal is beyond question. Google alone, with around two-thirds of the U.S. search market, warrants specific consideration. For IT manufacturers and solution providers, search engine marketing can be particularly challenging because competition is fierce for fairly specific search terms — both for products and vendors and for the IT issues that you seek to resolve for your clients. The latest research from MarketingSherpa reveals the priorities of search engine marketers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati editor Don Martelli and I went back and forth recently about whether it makes sense for corporate blogs to leave the comments feature enabled. I’m among the few who believe that comments add little value (at best) on a B2B corporate blog. It’s counter-intuitive and likely to get me beheaded by an angry mob of social media gurus. But, if you think through the dynamic, you’ll start to see how it can make sense.

When I brought up the concept, Martelli noted, “I don’t think this is commonly practiced.” It’s true. I haven’t seen many blogs with commenting locked, though I have seen plenty of corporate and brand blogs that just have no comments posted. He added, “In those cases where comments are off, the blog is more of a news feed than an actual engagement tool.” Again, he’s right, but I suspect traditional views of social media (if there can be such a thing so early in the game) are clouding the ultimate objective: to connect with your market and get them to enter your sales cycle.

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When Mark Hermann, an excellent corporate blogger, bid farewell to his blog, he pulled back the curtain. Among the frank observations he made, one in particular stuck with me: you’ll run out of topics faster than you think. I’ve been there, and it’s awful.

You get started thinking about how much there is to say about your company and your industry, and soon enough, you’re flipping through trade magazines for inspiration. Well, it isn’t always that bad, but the reality is that you’ll soon find yourself struggling to find an insight to provide. Why is that? With rich marketplaces and unique developments in every market around the world, you’d think there’s no shortage of fodder.

Stop thinking about potential for a moment, and turn yourself over to the cold clutches of reality. Most of what you’re thinking you’d never put on a corporate blog.

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Five Survival Tips for Corporate Bloggers: Getting started is the hardest part. I remember when I launched my first corporate blog. I had a backlog of posts and had worked late nights and weekends for six months. Readership was almost nothing. I knew this would happen, but it didn’t make me any happier. It’s easy to throw in the towel during the first few months, but that means giving up all the return for the work you’ve already expended. Stick with it! The first 90 days are all about survival.

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Chart: How Effective Has Your Social Media Marketing Effort Been: As expected, social media marketing results vary across the B2B space. The general theme, according to the latest study by MarketingSherpa, is that, in general, social media marketing has been somewhat effective. What’s most encouraging, though, is that for most categories, few respondents indicated that social media initiatives were not effective at all.

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Corporate Blogging: Much Ado About Voice: Put yourself in your target market’s shoes. Your potential clients are short on time and have an abundance of information sources. What makes them choose you? If you think it’s the voice that comes through on your blog, then you’re making a bet on entertainment value: you’re trying to engage readers through force of personality.

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Five tips for marketing and selling disaster recovery and business continuity solutions: Disaster recovery and business continuity solutions should be easy to sell. Everybody needs them, and some businesses are required by regulatory bodies to meet specific and demanding standards. They also represent a place where IT solution providers and manufacturers can distinguish themselves because DR/BC is not only a cost, but one that will show a benefit only rarely. So, a company that can shorten backup and recovery times, consume less storage space and lessen demand on datacenter staff is likely to find a willing audience.

Read the article >>

Steer clear: Five charcteristics defetive marketing partners: A few weeks ago, we discussed what to look for in a marketing partner. While it’s always best to shoot for the ideal, it’s also prudent to know what to avoid. There are many mistakes waiting to happen, and being able to spot the warning signs can save you time, budget and a whole lot of aggravation. Here are five characteristics to look out for — and actively avoid — when checking out a potential IT marketing partner …

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And, you may have missed …

Corporate Blogging: Avoid the Wrong Role Models: When you’re launching a business-to-business (B2B) corporate blog, the worst thing you can do is look to the likes of TechCrunch, Mashable and Technorati for a starting point. The mass media blogs that are so popular — and which may have inspired your own initiative — are fundamentally different from what you’re about to kick off. Don’t get me wrong: I read mass media blogs regularly (and even write for a few), but the dynamics are wholly unlike what you’ll encounter with a corporate blog. If you have visions of turning your corporate blog into the next Gawker-sans-edge, take a look at the four tips below.

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Getting started is the hardest part. I remember when I launched my first corporate blog. I had a backlog of posts and had worked late nights and weekends for six months. Readership was almost nothing. I knew this would happen, but it didn’t make me any happier. It’s easy to throw in the towel during the first few months, but that means giving up all the return for the work you’ve already expended. Stick with it!

The first 90 days are all about survival. To help you get through them, here are five tips that I learned the hard way.

1. Be realistic
You’re not going to fill up the internet the first day. You won’t even fill up your blog. Start with measurable, attainable goals — the first being to get your blog up and running. Then, work on building a backlog of stories (this will get you some much-needed breathing room later). Once you get comfortable with your corporate blog and have worked it into your other responsibilities, set more aggressive targets.

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