Imagine if you will. It was 25 August 1940. The British Royal Air Force was preparing for the first air raid on Berlin. 95 bombers were leaving England with the mighty purpose of bombing Berlin back to the Stone Age.
But, in spite of meticulous planning, huge hubbub, ballyhoo and brouhaha, the mission was a tad less than a great success. And well, while the psychological effect on Moustache Dolfie and his commanders was significant, the physical effect was slightly less.
Actually, according to some sources the first bomb of this first raid achieved nothing but killing the one and only elephant at the Berlin Zoo. And since this air raid wasn't about elephant-hunting, we can honestly say the earth-shattering effort accomplished precisely dick.
It was like a divine conspiracy against England.
On a side note, imagine the poor bastard whom the municipality tasked to bury the elephant. As a former gravedigger, although only for humans, I can sympathise with him, because I buried a few overfed folks who were close to the size of adolescent elephants.
Anyway...
Regardless of how good your copy is, you have to put it into a powerful strategy, so you can give it a decent thrust in the marketplace.
For instance, you can have the most kick-arse cold-calling script, but cold calling as a strategy is a losing game, so even the best copy is roughly as useful as a fart in a windstorm.
The winning recipe is great copy applied to a winning strategy. You can't go wrong with that. Ok, you can. If you get run over by a beer truck or the dreaded green lurgy kills you before the dough starts rolling in.
But apart from that, you're pretty much on the gravy train.
In today's market when, according to a study by the National Association of Professional Organisers, your average buyer has 59 hours of urgent work on her desk, the so-called push marketing strategy is out.
Push marketing means that sellers push, shove and elbow their ways into their markets like bullies. It's seller-focused, based on interrupting buyers in their normal work schedules and then insulting their intelligence with shop-worn marketing platitudes and puking idiotic sales pitches at them. Of course, they will run very fast and very far, and do their best to avoid these dumb peddlers.
Push marketing positions your company as a replaceable vendor, well, in plain English, a street peddler or bazaar huckster that sells mass-produced, widely available, undifferentiated solutions to anyone at any price. It's like backstreet hookers: "We do anything for anyone for money." Push marketers operate on high volume, high client- and talent attrition and low margin.
Besides, push marketing is both expensive and very competitive because most IT companies market this way.
By contrast, pull marketing magnetically attracts very specific prospects to you, so they can do business with you on their own volition, but on your terms, because they trust and respect you.
It's low-key, buyer-focused and there is very little competition. Pull marketing positions your company as a trusted, respected and in-demand industrial authority that sells scarcely available, highly differentiated solutions at premium fees and prices to the cream (top 2-4%) of the target market.
Pull marketers operate on low to medium volume, low client- and talent attrition and medium to high margin.
So, after making sure all the required ingredients are in place for a successful marketing programme, you have to fulfil three main criteria to become a trusted, respected recognised and in-demand IT authority...
But there is a snag. There is an inside reality and an outside perception of your company.
The inside reality is what's actually happening inside your company.
And outside perception is what the market perceives to be happening inside your company.
And no matter what you do, the outside perception always aligns itself with the inside reality. It's a sort of universal law. This is why high-volume vendors sweat bullets in the process of becoming high-margin authorities. And they usually fail.
For instance, if you do lots of push marketing, cold calling, RFPs, etc., (inside reality), your company becomes a replaceable vendor (outside perception). It's almost unavoidable.
And if you do your positioning well, then the market will hang the "trusted authority" shingle on you. What do you say?
On the final analysis, when it comes to client acquisition, using the analogy of chopping down trees, you can either hire an army of minimum-wage lumberjacks with axes and saws and try to manage them the best you can or use a smart system, like...
Sadly, many IT executives are obsessed with hiring more people. I guess they feel good about controlling and barking orders at more people. It gives them the proverbial penis extension in front of their peers in the pub...
"Man, I'm in charge of so and so many people."
And the silly sod doesn't realise that he's merely the part of a grossly overstaffed, screwed up company. I reckon, Einstein was dead right...
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
So, many IT companies just hire armies of peddlers who roam the land and scream shop-worn platitudes and self-aggrandisement from the top of their lungs...
This is not a client acquisition strategy but sheer hucksterism. While it seems cost-effective on the surface, it's a huge waste of time money and talent. Not to mention that these companies end up losing their best people and fail to attract the top 2-4% of the target market that offer sexy projects with juicy margins.
Hucksters usually end up attracting the bottom feeders of the market, the sludge.
So, before your salespeople go out for another day of land-roaming, yelling...
"We're the best. We're the cheapest. Highest quality at the lowest prices. Discounts and price cuts... only today! Buy now! Buy now!"
...think of what happened to the girl who kept crying wolf. Eventually the wolf came but by then the people of the village couldn't care less.
And the same happens to IT companies that try to sell their stuff without a good strategy. Their "discounts and price cuts" blend into the general noise of the marketplace.
And the market still doesn't give a shit about them.
Actually, the market kicks them aside like a decomposing gutter rat.
You need four key ingredients for an effective strategy...
Your strategy either leverages on people or on technology. While, considering the economics of scale, you need a certain number of people in your company, but the great leverage must come from technology.
Oh, but if this sounds a bit overwhelming and you feel that the minute details get on your tits and irritate the living daylights out of you, then let me know and I may be able to help out a bit. There is no point in tearing your hair out and kicking the cat in frustration.
Otherwise, I wish you all the courage, spine, guts and balls to pull it off with nipple-piercing success.