Inbound Marketing Tips for IT Service Companies

IT service companies are increasingly focused on touting the solutions they offer in a myriad of industry segments. The CMOs at those same companies, though, are focused heavily on the marketing solution to generate more leads and customer conversions.

As the IT service company seeks to stand out in a densely populated, competitive industry, these strategies for inbound marketing success can make a difference. Marketing for IT companies demands the application of contemporary best practices, data analysis, and a keen focus on continuous improvement.

Content Marketing: Publish. Publish. Publish.
In academia it’s all about “publish or perish.” Demand generation isn’t as dramatic about it, but a huge part of successful demand generation is content creation. Publish educational and authoritative content. Regularly. This isn’t about quantity so much as providing quality content adding value for your target audience and addressing their pain points in the IT service arena — improving efficiency, reducing costs, powering business, or driving innovation.

Conversion Rates: Optimize All Efforts.
Optimization of landing pages and the website demands an unemotional review of what’s is driving current conversion rates (or the lack of conversions). The intent is cut wasted efforts and make additions to those pages that are working or which can be further overhauled to optimize conversion rates. Don’t focus on scaling efforts too soon. A sound inbound foundation is needed to move the conversion rate needle in a favorable direction before turning attention to scaling best performing efforts, sales nurturing and lead management.

Educate Your Prospects: Give Stuff Away & Share Ideas.
IT prospects are human, too, which means they will enjoy free stuff. Especially when the giveaway is the good stuff. Perhaps an IT service company will offer a free tool or resource. This will make your brand look good, and help you to establish trust for your company and enthusiasm for your product.

Do this via gated content, though. Let the “price” the prospect pays be the information they fill out on your form. Then, you can use that information to generate even more customized, high quality content.

By providing an incentive in the form of gated content, you can increase your opt in form conversions by 300%. – JustUno

Be Data-Driven: Pay Attention to Metrics.
With the content you’re generating, the stuff you’re giving away, and the partnerships you’re making, it’s critical to study the data to determine what is working best. Compare trends, monitor conversion rates, and track workflows to identify the tactics you need to rework entirely versus tweak and repeat.

In such a competitive market, you need to align your lead generation efforts to appeal specifically to your market.

Lead Management: Score Your Leads.
Evaluate your prospects actions on your site and interacting with your other demand generation strategies to gauge their level of interest. Score prospects based on their progress through the customer journey funnel to qualify better quality leads for your sales team. Marketing automation can automatically attach a value to each new IT sales lead, making it even easier for your company to differentiate between those who are ready to buy and those who will never pull the purchase trigger.

Competition in IT services grows at the same fast pace as the industry. Not only do organizations need to establish prominence over other IT consultancies and service providers, but they also need to prove their value in the face of the ever-growing self-help SaaS industry. Inbound marketing tactics can help.