This presentation covers the main subjects from a report by Alan Howard at Applied Computer Research that information technology channel marketing managers can use to discuss target markets with their partners. It describes three concepts that channel managers should introduce to their partners to broaden their perspective and understanding regarding the importance of defining their most optimal target market. The report itself can be downloaded from www.itmarketintelligence.com.
The order of these three components is important. If the audience is defined incorrectly, offer and creative will not substitute. Offer may impact how you define the audience. Creative will be a function of the audience and offer.
Market Definition: An VAR/reseller etc. may serve multiple markets, but an individual marketing campaign or program will most likely target a specific market and audience. Defining they types of organizations to target is of primary importance, then choosing the types of contacts. Beyond vertical market, geography, and technology profile the size of an organization is often a key factor. Size is typically discussed in terms of revenue or employees, but for most IT related product/service offerings those numbers should be converted into IT specific size characteristics. Detailed information on how to do this is available in reports at www.itmarketintelligence.com. Market Sizing: Sizing can be done by using various data sources including Census Bureau, third party data bases. Understanding the market size helps to identify how well you are covering the market when you compile the marketing data. Market Identification: In house data is generally the starting point, but third party data sources should be reviewed to see if they can complement existing data. More than one source is the most optimal approach. Avoiding duplicate data should be addresses. Many data companies don’t make duplicate suppression easy, but it can be cone and shouldn’t have to be particularly expensive. Evaluate data accuracy from potential vendors before you purchase. 50-100 records should be called to achieve a reasonable level of statistical significance. Market Prioritization: In many cases there will be various reasons to prioritize the data. If there is too much data to purchase the market definition should be refined. If email is the primary media, contacts without email addresses may merit either a direct mail piece or phone call. If there are not enough resources to contact them all using an alternative media they will need to be prioritized.
Money is pretty simple, there is always a limited amount. It is important to consider that in most cases the amount of money you spend on data is small compared to how much you will spend using it. Good data and a well targeted market is value for your money. Bad data or poorly identified markets mean a poorly performing campaign. Not only did you lose the money you spent, you lose time in the market that can not be recovered. The Time Value of Marketing is not losing that time from a poorly designed campaign. Media choices are many, but email seems to be the most popular. There is evidence to most databases only cover email addresses for up to 40% of the market. Manpower needs to be available to both execute on a campaign and follow up. Beware assigning employees to perform tasks like phone calls if they are not devoted, committed, and absolutely required to execute. Market in the context of designing a campaign includes additional considerations not covered in the Market Definition as described earlier. Will the campaign be to existing clients, net new clients or both. Will there be a change in the typical geographic focus. Should there be a focus on specific vertical markets to focus messaging.
