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March 12th, 2010 - Posted by tom
Is it worth thinking green for the datacenter?: Datacenter “greening” periodically goes in and out of fashion. Usually driven by broader economic factors, IT professionals tend to mull the notion of going green when the broader public debate over energy prices and climate change reaches a fever pitch. With the recent discussion at Copenhagen again bringing climate issues to the front of the global economic community, talk of green has again arisen in the IT world.
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.
Training: The marketing opportunity at the end of a client technology implementation: After a sale is completed, all attention turns to implementation. Your client is looking to you to help turn its expenditure into an investment. The deployment and configuration of systems is crucial, of course, to the creation of value for your client. At the end of this process, there’s usually a knowledge-transfer exercise, in which you prepare your client to take full “ownership” of the new environment. This is also a sales opportunity: leave your client ready for anything, and the odds that you’ll be the first call for the next initiative skyrocket.
Selling IT solutions to a world at risk: You need to connect with the CIO or IT director, of course, when you are selling a solution. Also, you’ll need to show the CFO the value to what you are proposing. Getting a new system’s ticket punched by these two executives is standard practice in IT sales. But, there may be another angle. If your client has a risk manager and you don’t know him — find a way to get on his calendar.
Social Media Marketing Processes Emerging: Social media marketing may have trouble shedding its “Wild West” image — which is a shame, given how it’s being used. Even though it feels unstructured and wide open, the reality for most companies is that the use of social media is carefully managed. According to a new study by MarketingSherpa, 68 percent of the businesses surveyed have either a formal or informal process for monitoring target audience dialogue about brands and the competition. Sixty-six percent have informal processes regarding defining objectives for social media space.
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You need more than IT expertise to help your clients: If all you’re selling and implementing is technology, you’re going to have a tough time in today’s market. Your clients don’t need technology — well, they don’t need technology without an attendant business driver. This means that you need to have more than a passing knowledge of your clients’ business, and any solution you are selling should correspond directly to a business need. Of course, the more you know about your clients’ business, the better you’ll be able to make the connection between problem and solution.
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