What should be included in a marketing strategy?

What are some of the key differences included in an annual B2B marketing strategy for a service-based company as opposed to a product-based company in the enterprise software industry?

• Drafting a mock annual marketing strategy for an Oracle software consulting firm. Looking for some key tips for the marketing plan that would be crucial for a service-based solutions company.

• Answer:

  I might suggest that the biggest difference between service marketing and product marketing would be the foundational assumptions you have going into Marketing planning. Here are some items you'll have to keep in mind coming from a product marketing mindset: Consistent activity (without peaks and troughs) is very important. With software Marketing you can do a massive Marketing campaign and drive lots of activity at once, particularly if your website and other Marketing allows people to be largely self-serving during the Sales process. Having peaks of activity in services means you have to scale up quickly which is tricky at best and dangerous to reputation at worse. Troughs means you have valuable human resources that you need to find others ways to keep busy. Quality control is more difficult. Your people are the majority of your product (there's also some IP in there). The customer's experience with your "product" is dependent upon the talent and performance of individuals, which varies not only from person to person but also day to day depending on what is going on in that person's life. One bad experience with an individual and with social media being what it is negative word of mouth can sink your reputation even if you let the person responsible go. Your product description is more flexible. The feature set for a software product is typically fairly well set. Some packages offer configuration and module choices, some facilitate a great deal of customization, but there is a core set of features that are easily defined and confined. With services there's a world of different tasks you could perform given your expertise. Maybe an implementation company will be asked to offer training or strategy... they've got the know-how and if the price works out there's little reason not to do it. This makes it more difficult to include a lot of meat in service descriptions (of course we've all experienced how much difficulty some product marketing folks have providing meat to their descriptions too). Prices are less fixed, almost everything is a custom quote. Even with a lot of modules and options it is possible to reference a price list, spreadsheet or app to put together a quick quote. Establishing even ballpark quotes for services can be quite tricky, requiring a depth of understanding of needs and current situation that one simply cannot get without digging into the prospect. This requires a more intimate relationship with prospects than is typical for software sales. So what does this mean for Marketing? Well I am one that believes Marketing strategy should be highly tailored to your unique company, market and sales force in order to be more sincere and trustworthy. So I can't go into a lot of depth, but with that said here are some thoughts: Consider Marketing campaigns that can be spread out over time. This will also allow you to be more targeted in your messaging and adapt over time. Testimonials make a lot more sense. Although a bit risky given the decline in employee loyalty (and companies being worthy of that loyalty), you might consider tying some of those testimonials to specific individuals, someone who will be heavily involved in the project. The individual connection and trust will be easier to establish than a connection or trust with a company. Consider case studies to talk about not only what you did for other clients but your process for determining true needs and wants and then accommodating unique requirements in the services. Content is just as important for service marketing as product marketing, case studies can be your content. Consider touting your "Sales Consulting" process as something of value, a unique experience that makes it worth while for itself.