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How are the best advertising in the agencies?

What is the best way to sell technology products to advertising / marketing / interactive / PR agencies?

  • PBworks is doing well selling to agencies; I'd like to see what kind of ideas the Quora community has for how others can reach agencies as well.

  • Answer:

    I'm the head of technology for what is arguably a marketing agency, so here are some thoughts on how to get to me. The most important thing about selling a technology product to an organization is having the best product out there which fits that organization. Please whatever you do, don't send me direct mail. I know what it costs, I find it environmentally and fiscally wasteful, completely ineffective, and I don't want to subsidize that type/level of marketing (which I know is embedded in the product cost). I disagree with Eric about who you should target. IT management is really the only place to go (based on my "agency" experience). It's my budget and it's my department that's going to have to train people on it and support it. Everyone from the CEO to the receptionist is going to come to me about this. I think not targeting IT management to begin with is a waste of marketing dollars since there's going to be a conversation rate of X% of people who actually don't throw out/dismiss what you're saying and send it on to the IT management and then Y% of conversions once it gets to IT management. You'll probably have a higher conversion rate going directly to IT management. Though keep in mind, I always identify the  issues and do a full category review of the products available before making a purchasing decision. Do spend a lot of time on your website and web presence: Do buy search terms on Google. Do have a compare/contrast chart on your site of your product and your competitors. Get positive write ups in a credible technology news sources. Develop a positive reputation among IT professionals especially related to ease, stability, and support. Do give me screenshots (not video, screenshots) to look through before I go into the free trial option. UX is factor that gets the highest priority in my evaluation of a software product because of my userbase. If your UX isn't fully thought through, developed, and easy I'm not going to bother. Yes, I do evaluate the UX of your website as well. Registration forms for a free trial are a significant barrier for me. I don't care about the time it takes me to fill out the initial form. I care about the time the sales call I'm going to get is going to take and/or the distraction I'm going to have deleting their email from my inbox for the next hundred years. (Of course if you don't contact me within 8 business hours of my filling out a registration form I make judgments on how bad your internal operational processes are which does not bode well for tech support later on.) Hence, I like lots of information openly available. Which brings me to- Do not hide product pricing on your website. If my budget can't afford it, it can't afford it and I resent the time I've spent evaluating a solution that may be an option for me 3 years from now. (I'm also against SaaS pricing models for most everything except email service providers, but that's another topic.) These are more detailed/tactical and personally biased than Eric's answer, but I hope they help. I'm happy to add to, revise or clarify.

Alison Stanton at Quora Visit the source

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For a technology product like PBWorks you should be targeting the following people/ roles within an agency: Producers Project Managers Account Managers Agency IT Staff Ultimately you will end up dealing with COO and CFO types for the decision, but since they will normally be looking at recommendations/ options that bubble up from the people within the departments that would use the product. To reach these individuals I would recommend the following approaches to compliment your regular marketing efforts (regular = DM, Email Marketing, SEO/SEM, Direct Sales and Ads in Advertising publications): Thought Leadership: Build a following by developing a strong presence and reputation for topic-appropriate research, white papers, surveys, articles, video and live webcasts.  Study what is already out there and look for the hot trending topics. Become a Trusted Resource to Customers & Non-Customers: You don't always need to be selling.  As long as you identify who you represent the customer knows.  Offer your TL pieces (first bullet) for free to everyone, and join topic-appropriate groups in LinkedIn and other social networks where you can participate in discussions/ forums to offer answers and advice. Publish + Engage: Share all the TL (first bullet) on your blog, on your FB page, via Twitter, on YouTube.  In addition to communicating these outward, spend time sharing other relevant articles and information that is topic-appropriate that did not even originate from PBWorks (not competitors, but quality info).  Post open ended style, and ask the community to weigh in on things.  When people do offer up their opinion/ comments be sure to participate in the conversation when appropriate + thank the commenters (pubicly) for contributing. Identify the Actives/ Influencers: In all of the environments that you have established a presence for sharing + conversation, look for the individuals who are the most active/ frequent contributors.  Reach out to these individuals and ask them to help you ...not to shill for you ...but to help you with improving your product offering.  Get them involved as "experts" that get advance access to your TL publications and Technology upgrades and ask them to provide feedback and recommendations. Offer a Self-Serve Demo of Product: Require an email/name/info registration to demo it, but allow people to check out the product online without having to schedule a salesperson led demo. The good news is that most large agencies have abysmal solutions currently in place for what PBWorks offers. Hope this helps.

Eric Williamson

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