Understanding the complex business models that have developed over the past two years can be a difficult task for digital agencies, particularly with the rise of the cloud.

This gap in knowledge has created an opportunity for channel partners to expand their service offerings to include marketing-as-a-service.

The reality is, no one is better positioned to address this need in the market.

But the real question here is, are channel partners prepared?

Marketers want to ensure their strategies, programs and campaigns align with a business’ core drives and purpose for a higher return on investment.

So why engage?

There are countless marketing opportunities in the channel.

By investing in these opportunities; you can secure key accounts and help customers through a comprehensive digital transformation journey.

You don’t have to invest in ramping up and learning a new product.

Instead, you can focus on winning businesses and building a recurring services revenue pipeline.

You can simply do this by delivering white label services executed by a services partner.

As an IT professional, how do you engage with a marketing specialist?

First, understand their key motivators.

Often dealing with IT administrators, IT managers, CFO’s, COO’s, and CTO’s, woo-ing a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) can be unknown territory for some.

Marketing departments are accustomed to the abilities of IT specialists.

But, there are a wide set of opportunities for services that expand out of traditional IT and move into more engagement marketing.

Marketers are often expected to achieve successful outcomes in a short time with increased pressure to illustrate the impact of every campaign.

However, the work of IT experts addresses CMO drives and helps them seamlessly reach their existing goals.

By partnering with an IT professional who truly ‘gets’ marketing; marketing teams gain the services of a digital agency and the benefits of not having to worry about the installation, maintenance and operation of a solution.

Marketo, a company for marketers, by marketers, have designed complete engagement marketing solutions of marketing automation needs to cultivate the priorities of marketing departments.

Your personal guide

How to engage a marketing department.

Step 1: The first contact

Starting the discussion can often be the hardest part.

Perception plays a big role in this business and if marketing managers think you lack the knowledge they deem crucial to their business, they are less likely to forge a connection.

Overcome the perception of IT specialists by understanding marketing priorities and being across the marketing language.

What’s the marketing language you ask? Keep reading!

Step 2: What are the priorities?

You have between 0-8 seconds to persuade a visitor with a witty headline or eye-catching landing page.

Majority of marketers today focus mainly on growing traffic to their website.

In turn, this leads to converting their leads into loyal customers.

If a website takes a while to load or social media profiles are too difficult to locate, this will only leave a negative impression on a brand.

The changing technology landscape will continue to keep marketing teams on their toes, which is where IT guru’s come to play.

Marketing is about rich media.

Potential IT issues that can impact marketers are common problems that can easily be addressed by IT experts.

For example:

– page loading,

– transaction bugs,

– backup issues,

– lack of search engine optimisation and,

– website crashes.

IT experts should take on such tasks to ensure technology isn’t the reason for damaging brand perceptions.

This can also ensure marketing efforts are streamlined with the highest scalability.

Step 3: Speak the same language

Understanding the language spoken by CMO’s is key to quickly elevating yourself as a trusted advisor in digital transformation and marketing.

Just as selling a subscription-based solution is different from selling a onetime product or service, it is important that you demonstrate that you can continue to offer recurring value to the business after a big sale.

Take a look through this simple cheat sheet of common marketing phrases, translated into IT language.

With a variety of similarities and differences, familiarise yourself with the types of terminology marketing specialists use.

More importantly, take it a step further by understanding why they use them in their respective teams.

Step 4: Gain their trust

With a greater focus for businesses to build a more positive and active online presence in recent years, IT services are in higher demand.

Planning campaigns that have the right technology in place to enable marketers to measure ROI builds trust.

Marketing departments and IT professionals partnering up can result in long-term deliverables that may have been difficult for CMO’s to achieve using their available resources.

How can you sustain this trust?

– Monthly reports,

– Incident alerts and resolutions,

– Status updates,

– One-on-one phone calls and,

– Face-to-face meetings.

Regular communication is the sponge, and transparency is icing on the cake.

After making updates to the software behind the scenes or adding new features, communicate these changes and provide necessary training.

When it comes time to renew contracts, you will be in the best position to retain business.

Marketing 101

According to Marketo:

Combining steps 1 to 4 and with the guidance of our cheat sheet, SMB’s can be confident in interacting with marketing departments who before may not have been interested in outsourcing their efforts.

Recently joining forces with Marketo and a trusted services provider, we are empowering partners to provide digital transformation solutions as-a-service under a single monthly bill.

Combining knowledge from Marketo builds the service capabilities of a true leader, creating authentic and personalised experiences created for everyone, everything, at any time.

Marketing is one of the fast-growing industries and as an IT specialist, engage with marketing departments the right way.

To ensure businesses stay competitive, are heard through the noise and are engaging all sale leads, ensure CMO’s understand your value add and become that missing link that will take campaigns over the line.

Learn more about the opportunities available to you by contacting our team here.