023: How IT Solution Providers Use Marketing Content to Speed Up Sales Cycles with Greg Hammer

July 16, 2019
Podcast


Overview

Cross-manufacturer content in the IT Channel can be a tricky topic. Solution Providers: help IT buyers procure, implement, and further adopt multiple technologies. They should create videos, infographics, and data sheets about the integrations. Their job is to make everyone play nice.


IT Manufacturers: create strong content about their core platforms. They provide handy partner portals, but unless resellers have the ability to customize assets they can feel too generic for buyers. They should enable the Solution Provider to play nice.


In this episode 023 of the podcast, Greg Hammer, Director of Agency Services at IMS360 Group, walks us through why a Field Marketer, Channel Manager, or a Solution Provider would want to customize content for an industry vertical or a particular reference architecture or solution.


He shares some practical, self-service tips for using Adobe Acrobat to customize content yourself, even without graphic design skills. We also discuss how just one pillar piece of content, typically a video for a complex solution, can be a powerful asset to speed up sales cycles.



Listen to the episode on iTunes here.


Show highlights:


02:30 – Greg Hammer, Director of Agency Services at IMS360. He has a background in coding/ marketing undergrad/ MBA, and now gets to be both technical and do content for the IT Channel. Greg even worked a job in Yellow Pages sales early in his career and has seen the marketing industry transform.

06:00 – Definitions for the IT Channel. What are OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), Resellers, and Distributors?

08:00 – The problem: resellers do solution selling and sometimes partner portal content is sometimes too blanket. Manufacturers therefore are starting to enable resellers to start “customizing” content.

15:00 – How are we defining content? (e.g. a PowerPoint, versus video, versus email) Content for loyalty/ existing customers, versus new customers.

19:00 – Content formats vary, but it always needs to support sales cycle and buyers journey. Best practices working with an agency.

22:00 – Content can be a bad investment if it’s not distributed. Marketing is both art and science.

25:00 – Ways to think about content distribution to the right contacts, including marketing channels AND enabling the sales team.

29:00 – Account-Based Marketing and Persona Development for content.

33:00 – Example of how video content helped a reseller tell an in-depth story of a complex solution with one effective piece of content. They built awareness and used it for follow-up with the buyers after sales meetings.

37:00 – Parting words.


Find Greg online: