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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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.

Training and knowledge transfer often become casualties of engagement fatigue. Both your implementation team and the client are eager to reach the light at the end of the tunnel, at which point the disruption associated with an implementation recedes, and everything returns to normal. Succumb to the temptation to rush training and knowledge transfer, and you assume two risks: client readiness and a tainted solution provider perception.

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The first decade of the 21st century will be remembered, at least in part, as one of the most complex regulatory periods in U.S. business history. IT departments have had to address the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the USA PATRIOT Act and many others. As we begin to sort through the implications of the recent financial crisis, expect more to follow. Some changes to financial oversight rules are already in the works.

For your clients, this means IT changes to address new regulations may become an ongoing effort: essentially, there will always be a new reg to consider. This, of course, comes on top of managing existing compliance frameworks. As the complexity of this environment accumulates, your clients will want to know they are partnering with a solution provider that has the technology knowledge to complement their compliance programs.

Does this mean you will need to become a compliance guru: No.

Does this mean you will need to know which solutions are best-suited to your clients’ needs? Absolutely.

If you haven’t reached out to your clients on how they can use technology solutions to increase transparency, security or information and process control, contact enter:marketing. We’re ready to help you develop and implement a strategy for connecting with IT buyers on this crucial issue.

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You can run down the list of enhancements and show that your solution could beat the competition head-to-head. And, it’s cheaper – a lot cheaper. It goes on and on. You’re talking to a prospective client and keep hitting a roadblock: he doesn’t want to switch from what he has now. In the IT sales and marketing space, this could be the most difficult challenge you’ll face.

There are countless reasons why CIOs and IT directors tend to stick with what they know. Below, you’ll find a few, but I’m sure you’ll come up with a few more before you get to the end of this article. What’s important, though, is the one reason that CIOs and IT directors will change from one system to another. Hit this mark, and you’ll find it easier to meet your clients’ needs.

1. Not a matter of cost
It’s tempting to think that everything has a price, especially in a world of constrained IT budgets. But, merely beating the incumbent on cost isn’t enough. Remember that you may be pitching the person who chose the existing solution … which can feel like a judgment. Also, you’re trying to overcome an existing relationship, which may be quite positive. IT decision-makers invest in solutions to their problems; they don’t browse the discount racks.

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If you think all it takes to keep a client happy is a straightforward implementation that tracks directly back to your proposal, you could be in for a surprise. The latest Enterprise IT Services Survey from Forrester Research shows that clients in North America and Europe are looking for more of … well … everything. In addition to not realizing all the advantages they’d hoped for, many would like to see more innovation from their IT services vendors.

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All the buzz has been focused on online and social media marketing, but it would be unwise to forget about direct mail. According to the Direct Marketing Association, direct mail marketing is set to increase by more than $1 billion in 2010. In 2009, $44.4 billion was spend on direct mail, with the 2010 total expected to reach $45.5 billion.

The DMA has also found that non-catalog direct mail is still delivering a solid ROI. For every dollar spent on non-catalog direct, the DMA found that it returned $15.22 this year. E-mail, on the other hand, isn’t as effective as the marketing community once believed. Commercial e-mail led to $26 billion in sales in 2009 — compared to $445.8 billion for non-catalog direct mail.

[Via deliver magazine]

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.

Dell says that it has generated more than $6.5 million in sales via Twitter alone. The company’s broader social media presence – which includes Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube – has more than 3 million members, according to Manish Mehta, vice president of social media and community for Dell.

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?

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Doing video for the sake of doing video is a losing proposition. You’ll spend a lot of time and marketing dollars on content …yea, that’s it. Content. For most companies, videos are just moving visuals of what they’d normally express with words. Treat video as a different animal, though, and the opportunities open up. To make your videos valuable marketing assets, think of them as a cog in a four-part marketing machine that includes your blog, YouTube and webinars.

1. Webinars: This marketing tool is a known winner in IT marketing, but it has untapped value. Record your webinars, and they live forever.

2. YouTube: This environment is good for more than hosting. It will also send traffic to your blog and put you in touch with a wider audience.

3. Blog: Post your video to your blog – pulling it in from YouTube is very easy. Now, your blog is a multimedia platform!

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The notion of expanding your view of the competition is not new. For decades, companies have been encouraged by the greatest minds in corporate strategy to look beyond the businesses with which they go head-to-head, and there’s no shortage of cases where entire industries have overlooked a major competitive force (the newspapers will forever be the first to come to mind). Today, however, the net you cast has to be even wider. In addition to indirect competitors, you need to be able to overcome the “noise” generated by companies that have little or nothing to do with your business.

The average IT buyer – the average person in general – is bombarded constantly with sales and marketing messaging. We see banner ads, drive by billboards and have products “placed” in front of us constantly. It’s unavoidable … and it could drown out your company’s attempts to be heard.

Often, the first instinct is to “raise your voice.” But, running more campaigns, making more cold calls and sending more event invitations means sacrificing quality – and merely creating more noise.

Instead, refuse to play by the prevailing rules. Find new ways to reach your target market, and you’ll gain an unparalleled competitive advantage. This means throwing away the playbook on which you’ve come to rely. Give me a shout at tf@entermarketing.com, and we’ll help you be heard in a noisy market … without even having to raise your voice.

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Channel Marketing Tools Don't Work!

An entire email campaign template is posted to a marketing tool download site…

But if nobody uses it – does it really matter? Many technology vendors spend tremendous time and energy creating a dizzying array of marketing and sales support materials. Many even make these tools readily available to their entire channel through menu-based downloads of PDFs, email templates, HTML files, PowerPoints – basically everything channel partners would need to pick up and start marketing and selling like a pro…

Here’s the first problem: NOBODY USES THEM!

You may think you’ve done the hard part for your channel partners by giving them all the ingredients. The problem is, they simply don’t have the time, expertise or focus needed to put those ingredients together.

Let’s look a little closer at those “ready-to-use” email campaigns and think through the obstacles your channel partner may face:

• Who is going to figure out which of the different email campaigns available is best suited for their market?

• Who is going to make sure the partner’s logo and contact information is placed into all the materials?

• What service should they use to send out the HTML email? What kind of  tracking tools should they use?

• Who is going to pull together the appropriate prospect email list?

• Who is going to set up and host the landing page(s)?

• Who is going to inform the sales team of what is being sent to who, why, and what they should do about it to capitalize on any opportunities that arise?

• Who is going to do the follow-up to make sure email responses get moved into active sales cycles?

• Who is going run the reporting for the channel partner and the technology manufacturer for both of them to assess the effectiveness of the campaign?

Clearly there is a lot to be done, simply to turn that “email campaign in a box” into an “email campaign that generated huge sales opportunities.”

This is where we can help.

enter:marketing is known for creating some of the most sophisticated marketing tools and campaigns in the industry. But sometimes the biggest value we can bring to the table doesn’t involve us creating a single new thing. We can work directly with channel partners to activate the tools and materials YOU ALREADY HAVE.

Talk to us about how our team can help put your current channel marketing program into action.