Technology Companies: Beat Your Competition With This Advice

3 min read
Sep 30, 2016 12:29:14 PM

tech, beaty your competition. When it comes to inbound marketing for technology companies, many of you are missing out on the awesomeness. Too many tech firms are still relying on cold calls and advertising to generate business. Well, we are here to show you how to crush the competition by implementing inbound marketing practices into your sales approach. Like any strategy you need to set S.M.A.R.T. goals, if you are having trouble with this then the time to check out our free Ebook on how to do so!

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Generate a Plan

Even if inbound marketing is new to you, surely you have conducted some form of marketing (Outbound? Referral?) in the past, and they all start with a plan. When developing an inbound strategy, first assess where you are, decide where you would like to be, and then develop campaigns to help you get there. It’s ok to start small like trying to increase readership of your tech blog. Create a campaign and measure the result to determine its success.

Available Content

The entire premise behind inbound marketing is to get found by interested parties. People searching online want one thing—information. Your job is to give it to them in the form of content. Buyers in the awareness stage want to be educated, not pitched. Of course, you will have information on your products, but you should also have a blog, case studies, white papers, articles, and video content that entices readers.

Content in Context

It is important to remember that you must have content appropriate for buyers in all stages of the buyer’s journey—awareness, consideration, decision—since their needs are different. Inbound allows you to segment buyers.

“Inbound marketing matches the right content to where your prospect is in the sales process. A prospect looking for education needs very different information than a prospect ready to make a decision.” (Square 2 Marketing).

Always Have a CTA

If you are still fresh to inbound, CTA stands for call to action, and it is imperative to inbound marketing. A call to action is essentially the next step you want a prospect to take. For example, if you send an email to one of your buyer persona groups, you could include a CTA that encourages them to download a case study about how Company XYZ saved money and boosted sales. Once they click, they go to a landing page where you collect information in exchange for the download. Not only is it pretty straightforward, it is also an extremely effective way to build your list and nurture leads.

Befriend Social Media

Social media is one of the best inbound marketing techniques, and it is particularly important for the tech sector because people want data, lots of data. According to Quintain Marketing, tech buyers consume even more information online than the average person—14.8 pieces of info versus 10. As we stated above, they want content and if you don’t offer it to them, your competitors will. Social media is beneficial way to disseminate that info; every time you blog post it to all of your social accounts and engage with readers through questions, comments, likes, and tweets.

Nurture Leads

When it comes to inbound marketing for technology companies, you must respect the buyer journey and nurture leads appropriately. According to statistics, tech buyers typically spend 2.5-3.5 months self-educating before they are even willing to speak to a sales person, and 4-6 months for the entire purchase cycle (Quintain Marketing). That gives you plenty of time to nurture these leads and convert them to buyers. Remember, nurturing is NOT about hard selling; develop content and campaigns that foster a relationship with leads and make them want to select you.

So, there you have it, some of the ways that you can kill it using inbound marketing in your tech sales approach. Want even more goodness? Find out how to successfully target tech buyers on their journey. Don't forget to check out our free Ebook on how to create buyer personas. This will allow you to create focused content specific to the needs and wants of your segmented leads. Capture your Audiance with the ultimate buyer persona

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