Why IT company marketing strategy

Companies in the IT sphere with excellent products, but unsophisticated in marketing, often lose the competitive race. The budget is drained, clients appear from time to time, which makes managers think about the laws of promotion in the market of information technologies.

What is a marketing strategy

Marketing strategy defines the mechanism of using the company’s available resources to increase sales and profits in the long term. The roadmap defines the key business goals and the feasibility of their implementation. A sound strategy plans the path to the goal, making all actions feasible.

The strategy contains a unique selling proposition of the company, key information (where the customer is, what he looks like and what exactly he should offer), allowing you to focus on the most important processes for business. It is developed as a part of the corporate strategy, indicating the company’s actions on the market, ways of interaction with competitors and customers.

The intensification of competition increases the requirements to the marketing strategy. To develop IT-companies you need a long-term plan of actions, leading to the leading position and sales growth. It is necessary to understand how to attract consumers and convert them into clients. The goals set can be achieved by means of integrated marketing, corresponding to the trend of omnichannel.

SEO alone is not enough, you need to see the big picture of promotion. Only in a complex it is possible to determine what results require certain tools and to change them promptly.

Different factors influence the formation of a marketing strategy:

• current goals;
• market position;
• amount of resources;
• prospects;
• activity of competitors.

Marketing strategy is based on four key components:

• Objective. It is consistent with the business plan and meets the criteria of specificity, measurability, achievability, comparability and time constraints. Most often the goal is an increase in sales, the launch of a new product, the development of a niche. Always takes into account the ambition of the company, but allows a realistic view of the future.
• Positioning – information, with which the IT-company enters the market. It creates an image in the consumers’ mind, forms mission, legends, prices, demonstrates the detachment from the competitors. Positioning forms the basis of the unique selling proposition, influences the development of corporate identity and pricing policy.
• Demand. Products released to the market, takes into account the pains of different segments of the target audience and offers a solution to the problem.
• Marketing plan is based on the knowledge of target audience portrait, includes a list of channels for active promotion and advertisement, considers strong and weak points of IT products, forms the loyalty program. All items of the plan must be confirmed by performance indicators (KPI).

Marketing strategy is characterized by high dynamism, flexibility, instant restructuring, taking into account changes in the market.

What does a marketing strategy for an IT company provide?

A marketing strategy describes how a company should achieve its key business goals. It does not develop specific actions, but sets their vector:

• Increased market presence, the ability to occupy new niches and strengthen presence in competitive segments.
• Increase of profits, based on knowing the audience, sales promotion and positioning for a positive sales trend.
• Competitiveness, understanding own advantages and using them to achieve high performance.
• Makes a sophisticated IT product attractive to consumers.

The most successful types of marketing strategy are those that produce visible positive results. These are:

• market niche consolidation – relevant for start-ups and young IT companies, as well as for companies that are exploring new areas of the IT market;
• increasing clients – this is achieved by scaling the business, entering new markets, and working with regions;
• Launch of new IT products – a risky strategy, but highly effective at the same time;
• Power strategy – available for medium and large companies, capable of providing a powerful advertising campaign and a wide distribution network;
• niche strategy – work with mobile applications, website development, IT consulting, information security;
• creation of a fundamentally new market segment, development of innovative solutions.

Developing a marketing strategy

The process of developing a marketing strategy involves several large steps.

Analytics

• The market, its volume, prospects, players are studied.
• A PEST analysis is performed (any factors – economic, political, technological, affecting the business).
• The strategic analysis stage details the client’s portrait and the path to problem solving after purchasing an IT product or service.
• Reliable information about the company is grouped into a SWOT analysis, which answers questions about strengths, weaknesses, risks and prospects.
• To become stronger than your competitors, you need to understand them. Strong competitors, the niches they occupy, their successful and unsuccessful marketing solutions, differences, threats are studied.
• The strategic gap of the company is defined, the planned indicators are compared.

Developing a marketing plan

This is necessary to implement the approved strategy.

• Goals are set.
• Characteristics of the IT-product are defined (what pains are solved, desirable cost, packaging).
• Detailed action plan, sales channels, advertising policy, CA segmentation.

Performance control, strategy adjustment

• Marketing strategy is relevant for no more than three to five years, as new IT-solutions appear, market and client needs change.
• The main metrics evaluating the effectiveness and adherence to the plan are turnover growth, CA coverage, brand awareness, company traffic, number of leads.
• The divergence of milestones (planned and actual) requires an immediate adjustment of the strategy.
• Having established milestones for, for example, a three-year strategy, the path should be broken down into stages, placing milestones at shorter intervals (quarters, months).

Main marketing channels

A marketing strategy takes into account the various channels that contribute to the goal. Each has its own cost and time frame required to get the first results.

The tools introduced are:

• Internet marketing: SEO, contextual and targeting advertising, SMM, CPA networks;
• CRM-marketing: mailing to client and partner bases, nurturing leads;
• Event-marketing: participation in specialized offline and online events, holding their own conferences, webinars, mitups, participation in exhibitions;
• PR and advertising: media presence, participation in contests and ratings, research, influence-marketing, creation of expert content, case demonstrations
• Direct marketing, which takes into account direct work with decision-makers on the purchase of IT products.

To successfully achieve the goals, it is necessary to constantly analyze the market, sales, customer satisfaction, advertising channels, competitors. It is required to promote the IT-company brand, increasing the value of the product, work with partners, train and develop employees, making the company attractive to qualified personnel.

For IT-companies, aimed at high efficiency and development of new niches, it is recommended to make an audit in the sphere of marketing. Metrics analysis allows to make adjustments in marketing strategy, choose effective schemes of work, improving market positions and increasing profit growth.