August 28, 2017 | by Chris McGovern
The roles that marketing and IT professionals have held within organizations has traditionally been very unique, with only minimal overlap. With most organizations, marketing was responsible for the brand and demand creation while IT was responsible for the systems and software utilized, typically on premise, and in many cases the website.
August 10, 2017 | by Nikki Wallen
Search engine queries make up the vast majority of traffic referrals to business websites. Google represents over 77% of all searches worldwide. This means, if your business listing isn’t near the top of Google’s page one results, you risk not being found by your target audience.
Let’s say a company in Tampa would like to purchase a new fleet of desktops for their staff. They may type in “buy business PCs Tampa.” Wouldn’t it be nice if your website displayed at the top of the list for this search query?
Let’s explore how utilizing Google Search Console can help your business establish a strong presence online.
August 4, 2017 | by Chris McGovern
Those in the IT channel are used to high competition. Many deals are won on price, and competition in every vertical is at an all-time high. With more options than ever to chose from, end customers can demand more at a lower cost.
Does this sound familiar to you? This is the case for most VARs & MSPs. The reality is, there are many IT firms out there that try to do everything for everyone. By trying to be everything for everyone, they essentially become nothing for everyone. People want experts that know their business better than anyone.
July 31, 2017 | by Nikki Wallen
For businesses looking to increase brand awareness and generate engagement, social media is an important marketing channel. This remains true even within the B2B space. The humble hashtag, when used correctly, can be an asset to your marketing strategy on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Let’s explore the intended uses (and common misuses) of hashtags and how you can best incorporate them into your daily posts.
May 30, 2017 | by Chris McGovern
Channel Marketing Managers have a difficult task - help grow a group of partners through marketing efforts when all of them have different strategies. They often are left juggling trying to help communicate all of the new initiatives and programs, checking up on in-flight campaigns, and attempting to find a way to report and track all of it in a consistent manner.
The reality is every partner likely defines marketing success differently. Having the conversation up front around which metrics to track and what the desired end outcome should be is critical to both the partnership and driving tangible marketing results.
When it comes to reporting internally on if a partner program or initiative is successful, a different approach is required. Traditional marketing metrics such as leads and traffic remain important, but other factors such as engagement are critical to track. These parameters must be consistent - and should vary little from partner to partner.
May 17, 2017 | by Chris McGovern
There's no longer a need to write an article on why IT channel partners need to focus on social media as an effective platform to communicate to customers and prospects. Social apps now consume >60% of the time spent on our phone, with the average person checking apps like Facebook more than ten times a day. The question now becomes how can VARs & MSPs best spend their time and resources within these tools. Our vote is on a single platform that is extremely undervalued based on the level of targeting and ability to do compelling account based marketing: Facebook's ad manager.
March 15, 2017 | by Chris McGovern
We live in a data-oriented world. Consider this: our route to work, our digital actions on websites, the type of content we like and share on social media, and more are daily things we do that create data points without even thinking. Smart marketers are using relevant business data points within their internal systems to create digital profiles for their customer base and prospects. The issue many companies face is the lack of consistency between systems and data points. The idea of one complete profile is obviously very appealing, but how to get there is an area many companies have not yet solved.
February 8, 2017 | by Chris McGovern
The effectiveness of co-marketing campaigns in the IT channel space varies significantly. There are always the success stories which are used time and time again, but the reality is that a large number of campaigns simply miss the mark. There are always reasons as to why, which often include blame being passed to the partner for not following up or to the campaign itself for having poor execution. These variables absolutely exist and often do contribute to a poor outcome.
February 2, 2017 | by Chris McGovern
In 2016, it's projected that more than 68% of internet usage was attributed to social media platforms. This is a staggering number and one that cannot be ignored for all companies. I've heard time and time again for business owners that they don't see the ROI in social media for B2B. I'll be honest, at one point that was myself. But things have changed as I now understand that social media is the state of the current internet. It's changed how we get news, how we communicate, how we learn, and so many other things.
