Sell IT Services
Selling IT services is different from selling other business services because a company's internal staff may frequently provide its own IT services. Use the strategies below to help differentiate your services from your target market's in-house IT services.
Steps
- Identify your value proposition. Your value proposition is defined as the value you will deliver to your customers. You might be selling remote database administration or maybe custom software development, but you need to determine what benefits your service will provide to the customer.
- Determine what makes your service unique so that you can differentiate yourself from the competition. For example, ask yourself if your company has unique expertise or extensive knowledge of a certain industry.
- Identify your target market. Determine whether you will target businesses, consumers, or both.
- Targeting businesses presents a very lucrative opportunity as companies tend to have bigger budgets than consumers.
- Companies are always in need of vendors and they tend to treat vendors as needed suppliers of inputs and business services unless they can cover the need internally
- You will have more competition if you choose to target businesses than if you target consumers.
- You'll want to consider the size of the businesses you decide to target. Selling to Fortune 1000 enterprises will require a longer sales cycle and the approval of more decision makers. Selling to Fortune 1000 companies may also require purchasing liability insurance. Contracts received from Fortune 1000 companies will be larger, but will be more competitive. Targeting small to medium sized businesses is often touted as pursuing "low lying fruit" and can be a good place to start.
Aspects to Consider When Targeting Consumers
- Less competition
- When you offer an IT service to consumers, you're offering something they don't already have and they may think it is something they don't need. Be prepared that it may take more effort to sell IT services to consumers.
- Determine your target sector. Are there particular industries that would benefit from the type of IT service you are offering? Are there particular industries that are unlikely to use your service? For example, machine shops are not very likely to utilize software development services.
- Decide on your approach to the market.
- Cold calling prospects is an old fashioned way of getting business. Start off by buying a list based on certain specifications from a reputable lead supplier and then contact the decision makers.
- Optimizing your website for keywords or phrases that potential buyers might enter when using search engines can create a steady stream of inbound traffic. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is an effective way to generate warm leads.
- Do a case study marketing campaign. Perform a case study on one of your first customers. Being able to describe the services you provided and the results obtained is crucial. Be sure to include any metrics quantifying results as they are very important along with a calculation of ROI. Convincing potential clients they will get their money's worth is critical to obtaining their business. Display a completed case study on your company website and allow prospects to download it in exchange for their contact information. This exchange provides a supply of warm leads.
Tips
- The market for IT services is competitive and having impressive intellectual property such as case studies can help differentiate your company from the competition.
- Building credibility and establishing trust are crucial to selling services as a service does not exist until after it is sold.
