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“Large” creeps its way into just about every social media marketing endeavor. Companies want legions of Facebook fans and Twitter followers. And a blog that isn’t highly trafficked and packed with comments almost feels neglected.

Resist the temptation to believe that big is beautiful, and refocus on marketing basics — you’ll get a greater return on your social media marketing investment.

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Right now, the buzz around cloud computing is endless. But, it’s just the latest trend. In the past, it’s been B2B marketplaces, best-of-breed solutions for targeted business challenges and even the internet as a whole. The hidden cost of innovation is that IT solution provider’s need to explain the value and viability of these emerging technologies to skeptical decision-makers who are heavily invested in the status quo. Eventually, you know, today’s innovation will become tomorrow’s legacy platform, but that doesn’t make getting over the hump any easier.

So, how do you approach a CIO or IT director with something new, like private cloud computing solution?

Well, cautiously.

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Virtualization is among the hottest technologies in the IT market right now. Even though datacenter penetration is still low, your competitors are pushing it just as hard as you are. There’s no guarantee that you’ll be the first person a CIO or other IT decision maker has spoke with about virtualization, so you need to make sure your message is a bit different — you need to make it pop. The easiest way to do this is to make it about the competition.

In your own market (i.e., among you and your competitors), you’re seeing the importance of virtualization skyrocket. Do the math — this means a lot of IT solution providers are talking to a lot of IT departments. Virtualization is on the move, and a CIO that doesn’t get on board soon enough will be left behind, leaving the entire organization at a disadvantage in the marketplace. A company that lags technologically will have trouble supporting its business users, serving its clients and managing its operations.

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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.

We’re still pretty early in the millennium, but if the first decade is any indication, the next thousand years will be the domain of the risk manager. Financial busts have become commonplace, and natural and manmade disasters (including those resulting from terrorism) have caused profound loss. With these threats looming, businesses need to conceive of a broader set of business continuity/disaster recovery solutions than they did in the past — while also gauging the systems and applications needed to help them identify, monitor and remedy financial risk.

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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.

But, there are factors that can frustrate the DR/BC sales effort. There’s plenty of competition, making it harder for our voice to be heard and causing sales fatigue to set in among CIOs and other IT decision-makers. Further, the technologies that can have the greatest impact can disrupt IT — and end-user — operations, a situation that many IT departments seek to minimize. So, what’s intuitively an easy sell can become rather complex.

Here are five ways to tip the odds in your favor:

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The penetration of virtualization technologies is still low, but that only means it has room to grow. By 2014, according to a new report from Citrix, virtualization will dominate IT enterprise savings — and thus the agendas of CIOs. Citrix surveyed more than 700 CIOs from around the world and found that virtualization has led to IT cost savings of 16 percent, and they expect it to hit 27 percent in 2014.

While 31percent of CIOs estimate that 5 percent of their IT budgets or less are dedicated to virtualization technologies, 26 percent of them expect virtualization to account for a quarter of their IT budgets in 2014. The UK is leading the adoption of virtualization, with 27 percent of CIOs rolling out desktop virtualization over the next year and 41 percent planning to extend their use of server virtualization. In the United States, server virtualization adoption is currently only 17 percent.

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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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Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the nation’s workforce became a lot more productive in the third quarter. People have learned to the live the cliché “do more with less,” as productivity surged 8.1 percent. Yet, unemployment remains at 10 percent, and companies are looking for more ways to bolster results without having to hire.

The economic situation remains tricky. There are signs of a recovery, but businesses are remaining cautious, especially when it comes to assuming the ongoing expenses associated with new employees.

The notion of using technology to increase employee productivity isn’t new. Over the past several decades, we’ve seen the impact of prudently purchased and deployed systems on the efficiency of a workforce and a company’s ability to manage its costs. Today, the situation is more of a priority than ever.

There are three factors converging to make businesses refocus on IT investing: unemployment, productivity per employee and increased competition. When you put all three together, you can see how IT spending is increasing – and should continue to do so – even when executives are approaching economic conditions cautiously.

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Put yourself in your prospects’ shoes for a moment. You are an IT decision-maker. Thousands of manufacturers and thousands of resellers want a piece of your time and a chunk of your budget. The noise is deafening, but the pressure to support revenue initiatives and cut costs remains. Tough choices are made tougher by the array of voices around you.

So, who gets through? Those with general messages vaguely talking about “value” and “industry leadership”? Or, would you respond to a focused message that solves a specific problem in your IT environment?

CIOs and IT directors need results, and your best shot at getting an appointment is showing from the start that you understand their needs and pain points … and that you’re their best choice for delivering – and implementing – a solution.

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