3 Marketing Initiatives to Help Your Tech Consulting Firm Grow in 2020
Marketing Planning
Tech consulting firms face many marketing challenges in 2020. The toughest challenges include consistent execution and predictable lead generation. When these challenges are not met, firms struggle to achieve growth, and revenue and profits will plateau.
This situation results in customer concentration risk, the position where most of your revenue is generated from one or a few customers, and fear-based customer retention. You’ll do almost anything to keep the customers you have, even though that only increases the customer concentration risk.
It’s a downward spiral.
Here are three (3) strategic initiatives your firm should undertake in 2020 to achieve growth.
Initiative 1: Building Authority
When you focus on building an authority brand, you provide the means to differentiate yourself from the competition. Demonstrating thought leadership and giving evidence you successfully solve your customers’ problems, are two building blocks of authority.
Your firm cannot solve every problem. It’s detrimental to try. Concentrate your firms’ marketing and delivery efforts on a specific solution area. Use your knowledge, experience, and track record to help you establish an authority position in the market.
In-depth content that guides your customers through the process of solving their problems will allow you to communicate expertise and strengthens the probability of being found when prospects are seeking solutions.
Authority brands and thought leaders are recognized and often become synonymous with the solution they provide. They regularly use speaking events, podcasts, and guest posting of content to educate and inform their audience.
As you gain momentum in build authority, you must also analyze your brand. Your brand is like your reputation, its what people say and think about your firm. The implementation of your brand uses various elements to communicate that sentiment; color, style, logo, etc. As you build authority, the best practice is to assess and update your brand.
Learn More: Brand Guide
Initiative 2: Elevate Your Content
Content is the voice of strategy and the fuel for the marketing engine. Without content, your firm will be challenged to meet your planned growth. To grow in 2020, you need to elevate your content game.
You’ve probably heard that your firm’s marketing efforts require content. I imagine you fundamentally agree. But content for content sake isn’t the fuel that propels your growth.
Growth requires strategically planned and continuously produced, authority content.
Growing firms and thought leaders utilize content in the form of podcast recordings, in-depth video presentations, proprietary research, and comprehensive guides.
This content goes beyond attempts to build awareness. It satisfies the prospects’ need for information and education, helps reduces buyer vulnerability, and builds trust.
Content elevation requires an understanding of the buyers’ journey and the customer experience you want to deliver. It requires content that gets you found, communicates your authority to solve the prospects’ problem, and guides them in the selection of the right firm to engage.
Learn More: Content Guide
Initiative 3: Mature the Sales Process
You may think it weird that a marketing and firm growth article would promote the sales process. But I assure you any successful tech consulting firm marketing leader will admit that marketing should result in customers, not leads. And new customer results involve sales effort or the Sales Team.
Firms implement “sales” in a variety of ways. It can be the owner or partner-led referral conversions, inside sales efforts, or a dedicated salesperson or team. Whatever the implementation, marketing needs to help support and mature the sales process.
Maturing the sales process involves an understanding of the multiple steps of the buyer’s journey and identifying actions and assets that will guide the prospect and remove friction, all the things that impede or prevent the buyer from moving forward.
Marketing managers and teams can’t merely throw leads at sales and expect them to successfully close deals. Marketing needs to support the sales team and the process. This support entails sales collateral and tools, at-the-right time touchpoints and content, support for developing initial offers, and onboarding new customers.
By working together to mature single-lane (owner) and brute force sales tactics, firms can leverage marketing to ignite growth.
What are your 2020 Marketing Initiatives?
These three (3) marketing initiatives will help your firm achieve growth in 2020. While the concepts may appear to be simple, simple is not the same as easy. Each initiative requires planning and capable management to succeed.
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About Valens Point
We help early-stage tech companies accelerate growth by building brand credibility, establishing repeatable lead generation, and supporting sales and partner teams. The result — effective marketing up and running in a fraction of the time it would take to recruit, hire, and train an internal marketing team.
