How to market your IT business the best way possible

Though in an ideal world, all marketing would be organic and require very little input from you, unfortunately that’s not always how it works.

To promote your business, reach new clients, and retain existing customers, it’s essential that your marketing strategy is proactive and consistent.

In this article, we walk you through the seven steps to marketing your IT business in the best way possible.

Do your research

Before we look at specific ways that you can market your IT business, it’s important to take the time to do your research. This involves looking at your competitors and similar businesses, analyzing their marketing methods, like do they have a blog? are they active on different helpdesk Facebook groups? What do they do well that you think you could do as well? And take inspiration from that.

In addition, you should ensure you have a solid knowledge of your target audience and client base. This is not only about working out what type of marketing they’re likely to respond to, but also what kind of service they’re looking for, and what their specific needs are.

Develop a marketing strategy

Once you’ve conducted thorough market research, it’s time to put together a marketing strategy. As we mentioned earlier, a key element of successful business marketing is consistency and proactivity. For this reason, developing a watertight strategy with significant milestones and targets is important to ensure you have a reliable accountability framework in place. This will help you to measure your metrics and stats against your forecasts and adjust your marketing channels or strategies where necessary.

Revamp your business website

Your next priority should be to revamp your existing website.

Here are things you should look to improve:

• UX/UI — To maintain a competitive edge, you need to ensure your website’s UX/UI does justice to the caliber of your business.
  Sleek and captivating copy — Don’t overlook the importance of good copy that promotes your business without losing the attention of potential clients.
• SEO — SEO is a key consideration and a critical component of marketing nowadays. This is the best way to ensure your website ranks highly on Google. If you’re not well versed in SEO yourself, you should consider hiring a professional.
• Give content marketing a go — Content marketing should not be overlooked. When done right, it can increase site traffic by 30 – 70%. But content marketing isn’t just limited to blogs. Think about creating YouTube tutorials about how to fix commonly asked questions, write out a list of your favorite laptops/ headphones/ anything really, and more!

Consider investing in Martech

If you’re serious about marketing your business on a big scale, you may want to consider investing in ‘marketing technology’ or ‘MarTech’. MarTEch is designed to streamline the marketing process and consolidate your campaigns across channels.

Data is the crux of all successful marketing these days, and that’s why many businesses are turning to MarTech. These platforms can help to automate ROI measurement, email campaigns, analytics and tracking, social media management and more. All in all leading to more effective marketing efforts.

Activate your social media

When leveraged properly, social media can represent a serious asset to your marketing strategy. Rather than spreading your efforts thinly, hone in on the most relevant platforms for your target audience. For instance, if you’re mostly targeting professionals and businesses, chances are you should be focussing on LinkedIn and maybe Twitter or Facebook.

Success on social media is all about activity and content. You should be offering your followers and audiences genuine value through your content output. Not only is this important for reaching new potential clients but for building out your industry credibility.

Build credibility and expertise

Focus your content output and interactions with your audience on developing your credibility and reputation as an industry expert. This should also help to increase brand awareness and put your name on the map. Publish blogs on your website that offer expert insights and tips (this is also great for SEO), publish e-guides or industry studies, and organize events and podcasts that give your community the opportunity to connect with your brand across a different medium.

Additionally, when you get good client feedback, don’t just keep it to yourself! Make sure to publicize your positive customer testimonials on your website and across your socials. This third-party validation and endorsement can do wonders for your marketing.

Nurture and retain your existing customers

Although the temptation can be to focus on customer acquisition, nurturing your existing client base is just as important for maximizing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

You should continue to cultivate a long-term relationship with existing customers, and try to upsell them on new products or services that you’re offering where appropriate.

Digital advertising and email marketing

According to Forbes, email marketing promises the highest ROI of all marketing channels. Additionally, 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email. So it’s definitely worth ramping up your mailing lists.

You should also look into Google Adwords and Facebook Ads as a possible avenue for marketing your services. Again, just like SEO, when it comes to these platforms, it’s sometimes better to invest in an expert who knows their stuff.

Grow your IT Business with Atera’s Network Discovery

Marketing your business is critical for new client acquisition. But that doesn’t mean you should forget about the untapped potential of your existing customers within your marketing strategy. Implementing a strong customer retention and upselling strategy is key to maximizing the lifetime value of all your clients.

That’s where Atera’s Network Discovery tool comes in. Network Discovery gives you invaluable visibility over your client’s networks by automatically creating a real-time hardware inventory of the system you’re supporting.

It automatically monitors your client networks, identifies and lists every asset and component within the environment, and alerts you to any newly discovered devices that are unauthorized or out-of-scope. You’ll also be notified of opportunities such as if there is an area of the system that would be improved with the implementation of alternative technology. Each suggested upgrade or update is itemized with a price, so you can easily present the proposition to your client.

Atera Network Discovery equips you with the key data and insights to seamlessly upsell at your next client review, as well as continue to provide the best service possible, gaining you the credibility and trust that will pay off in the long-run.