effective services marketing at different phases
TRANSCRIPT
Services Marketing
It’s Not a Roll of the Dice
Cynthia J. Curtis
Curtis Consulting
20 October 2009
Support the
Product
The Evolution of IT Services
Provide a
Major
Source of
Growth
Contribute
to Profitability
Improve
Customer
Satisfaction
Product-led
Product-centric Customer-centric
Solutions-led
Source: ITSMA
Challenge #1: How is Marketing Defined?
• 4 Ps (Product, Placement, Pricing, Promotion)
• Advertising
• Branding
• Sales Support
• Communications, collateral (aka brochures)
• Events / tradeshows
• PR/AR
• Website & social media management
• Strategy
• …
Topics for Discussion
• Product lifecycle vs services business lifecycle
• Services Marketing in the different phases of
business lifecycle
• Alignment of business strategy & marketing
execution
What is the Current Relationship
Between Marketing & the Business?
1. Integral member of management team
2. Involved with management decisions,
as needed
3. Solid communications support function
4. No dedicated services marketing
resources
Introduction Growth DeclineMaturity
Marketing Focus in a Product Lifecycle
Product Marketing
Resource Investment
Scale
Mainstream
Growth
Start-up
Services Business Lifecycle Curve
Services Marketing
Resource Investment
Scale
Mainstream
Growth
Start-up
Services Business Phase Attributes• Adoption
• Traction w/sales
• Helping to drive deals
• Building backlog
• Customer examples
• LOB
• Equal player
• C-level; reports to CEO
• Services sales arm
• Thought leader
• Significant backlog
• Services tax
• Slows down sale
• All about the product
• Dogfight for everything
• After thought for sales
• Zero backlog
• Known value
• Expands deal value/scope
• Advocates within Sales
• Healthy backlog
• Leveraged model
Scale
Mainstream
Growth
Start-up
Services Offering Examples• Same, plus:
• More complex integration
• Health checks
• Product consulting
• Deployment
• Migration
• Education & Training
• Same, plus:
• Business consulting
• Outsourcing
• Solution creation
• Basic assessment
• Installation
• Design
• Simple integration
• Some Free offerings
• Same, plus:
• Growing non-
product focused
portfolio with
solutions
orientation
• Managed Services
Where are you in the Services
Business Lifecycle?
1. Start up
2. Growth
3. Scale
4. Mainstream
Applying Services Marketing to the Curve
Scale
Mainstream
Growth
Start-up
• Adoption
• Traction with sales
• Customer examples
• Services Marketing getting heard by corp. marketing
• Services sales arm
• Thought leader
• Full cycle marketing org
• Strategic partner to the business
• All about the product
• Dogfight for everything
• After thought for sales; no references
• No voice/ understanding in corporate marketing
• Service = Support
• Minimal website visibility
• Known value
• Advocates within Sales
• Marketing seat at the table
• More marketing resource
• Solution-oriented offering development
Moving to the Next Phase can be Daunting
Scale
Mainstream
Growth
Start-up
• Full-cycle marketing
• Established thought leadership
• Strategic, VoC research feeding corporate direction
• Sought out for press commentary & speaking events
Transitioning to the Next Phase
• Internal customer examples
• Sales champions
• Marketing & offering fundamentals
• Initiating analyst relations
• Initiating thought leadership
• More real estate on website
• External customer stories
• Primary research
• Press engagements
What Holds You Back?
• Getting stuck in the marcom rut
– Effective communications are important, but don’t
help strategy & service development
• Ignoring the basic ‘blocking and tackling’
• Inside-out versus outside-in
– Winning over the internal customer (i.e., Sales) is
critical, particularly in early stages
• Mis-alignment with the services business and
with product sales
What Propels You Forward?
• Alignment with business
– Effective stakeholder management
– Measure what’s important to achieving
business objectives
• Finding & exploiting a beachhead
• Understand how the business makes $$
• Try new programs & initiatives and measure
them – do more of what works
• Direct customer communication
Services Business Examples
Scale
Mainstream
Growth
Start-up
High Stakes
• Situation– Excellent (free!) support services
– Lacked PS infrastructure
– Product was the only game in town
• Actions taken– Isolate services marketing; focus on fundamentals
– Multipronged communications strategy, sales references
– Strategy: VoC research; portfolio management; pricing; segmentation; customer satisfaction measurements
• Results: The bet has paid offSignificant revenue contributor (51% software & services); strong delivery capability
• Actions taken
– De-emphasized product
– Placed big bets on consulting and outsourcing
• Result: Ball still in play; Marketing got ahead of
execution; significant drop in stock price
Roulette
• Situation
– History of ‘big iron’, innovation,
quality, skilled employees
– Vertical expertise in government, transportation &
payment systems
– Strategy: Become a services company
• Actions taken
– Top-down services strategy, coordinated & systematic
– Data-driven strategic marketing
– Facilitated renewed portfolio mgmt
– Developed service product lines for
more cost-effective, efficient offerings
• Result: A winning hand!Star of services business; largest
backlog in the industry; 91% of profit from software &
services
• Situation
– Silo-ed product business & marketing
– Services brand = support
Blackjack
Where Do You Place the Bets?
Scale
Mainstream
Growth
Start-up