In 2019, worldwide IT spending hit $2.9 trillion. And, according to the Brookings Institute, IT was also the most “promising domain with respect to job creation between 2006 and 2016.”
All of this promise has lead to some serious competition in the industry. If you want your IT company to stand out from the crowd, you need an in-depth marketing strategy that takes advantage of every marketing channel.
While paid advertising can help boost sales in the short term, the high cost of paid ads for IT companies means most companies simply can’t afford the expense over the long run.
That’s why we’ve put together these long-term IT company marketing ideas that can help your B2B sales boom for years to come.
- Build brand awareness with social media
- Improve your online presence with SEO
- Use content marketing to attract more website visitors
- Try email marketing for strong ROI and customer engagement
- Get published in industry or online publications
- Create and optimize your free Google My Business profile
- Secure citations in industry directories to boost local lead generation
1. Build brand awareness with social media
It’s no secret every business needs social media these days. After all, an incredible 79% of all adults use social media in 2020.
So, if you run an IT company with no initial social media presence, what could you do to start building engagement and brand awareness with potential client companies?
The most successful social media platform for your IT company will depend on where your target clients are most active. If you cater to mid- to large-sized companies, traditional B2B platforms like LinkedIn are your best bet. Are your IT services best suited for small businesses? Expand your presence to include more personalized social media platforms where business owners are active, such as Instagram and Facebook.
All in all, LinkedIn marketing will almost certainly provide the best ROI among all social channels for B2B. In fact, 93% of B2B marketers find LinkedIn is the best for lead generation. That’s because 80% of leads from social media originate from LinkedIn, with Twitter and Facebook far behind.
While there’s no harm done in covering all your social media bases to build brand awareness, IT companies can save time and money by zeroing in on LinkedIn to drive B2B sales.
Here are a few examples of how to tackle this IT company marketing idea.
Veeam Software often shares videos on LinkedIn discussing the latest industry insights on data management for enterprises. Not only do videos directly engage with viewers without them having to leave the page, but they also establish a level of authority and encourage discussions in the comments.
Sharing industry insights from other sources that you think would generate buzz with your target audience is also another way to engage. If you find an article discussing the latest technology in cloud computing, for example, all it takes is a simple share through your company LinkedIn. This shows clients that you stay up-to-date on trends, signaling you’re a leader in your industry.
Even smaller IT companies can generate original, quality content by using individuals’ profiles, rather than just the company account. For example, this founder and president of a managed IT service company often creates blogs and insightful pieces on other sites like Medium, which he then shares on LinkedIn.
Posting through a personal LinkedIn account of an authoritative team member like the founder generates a personalized level of trust and encourages engagement directly. Rather than convincing businesses that your IT services are the best, you can let your social media do the talking and create direct connections with individuals.
Target the right audience with hashtag research
For Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, use hashtag research to find topics that are trending to post about and increase engagement.
The largest IT company in the world in terms of revenue, Accenture, commonly uses hashtags in their posts that are trending at the time.
For example, they posted this photo of one of their employees on vacation with the hashtags #AccentureMoments and #mindfulliving in early 2020. #mindfullliving is a trendy hashtag that will help the post reach people who weren’t just looking for IT posts.
Trending hashtags are great, but you can also use common IT-specific hashtags if you’re looking to attract a targeted audience. These might include:
No matter how you go about building your social media presence, the key to creating a social media presence is to be consistent with your posts’ messaging and target the right audience.
The fact is selling on social media can increase B2B win rates by 5% and average deal size by 35%. So remember to take advantage of this top IT company marketing strategy.
2. Improve your online presence with SEO
SEO for IT and Tech companies helps improve your website’s visibility in search engines, which in turn increases organic web traffic. And organic traffic can be far more valuable than paid ads.
The fact is 47% of all web traffic never clicks on paid ads in search engines! And an incredible 92% click on organic results more than ads.
Plus, paid ads on Google are especially expensive for IT companies at an average of $4.81 per click. That’s almost twice as expensive as the total Google Ad average cost of just $2.76.
If you want to reduce paid ad costs and improve your organic traffic for more consistent revenue, there are a few DIY SEO tips that can help you get started.
Install free SEO tools and run an SEO audit on your site
One of the first things you can do is install free SEO tools from Google like Google Search Console and Google Analytics. These will help you measure your site’s search traffic and performance. You’ll also gain insight into which queries your visitors search to find your site so you can better identify your direct competitors in your IT specialization.
More importantly, however, they help fix issues that are hurting your website’s rankings in search results. This will improve your organic web traffic.
You can also submit a sitemap to help Google crawl (read), and then index (rank) your website in search results.
Or if you’re looking for a more in-depth audit, try our free SEO audit. We’ve compiled more than 70+ top SEO audit and website review tools to help give you a clear idea of what you need to fix to improve your online presence.
Implement technical SEO to fix site errors
From improperly optimized images to bad meta descriptions and title tags, there are dozens of site errors that can harm your visibility in search engines.
One common issue that can plague IT services websites’ progress is duplicate content.
You see, IT services companies often have a lot of similar pages on their website offering one service to multiple different industries. This can cause duplicate content issues that lead to problems for search engines trying to crawl and index websites.
The best way to reduce duplicate content is to simply not create it in the first place. To do that, make sure your pages are all original and any unnecessary duplicate pages are deleted.
Of course, that can be easier said than done, so if you’re still dealing with duplicate content try rewriting portions of each landing page to be unique to each industry, location, or service.
From there, things can get a little technical. If you want to learn more feel free to contact us or check out our technical SEO page for more information.
Create an SEO content strategy using keyword research.
After you’ve fixed any glaring technical errors on your site, it’s time to start creating content to draw in organic traffic.
SEO keyword research helps IT companies identify areas they can target with content to attract an audience that is likely to convert into paying clientele.
It’s the basis of any effective SEO content strategy.
An SEO content strategy clarifies goals, ensures you are consistent in posting, and helps target the right audience for your posts.
And for IT companies working primarily in B2B sales, SEO content can help build the bridge between what your ideal client is looking for and what you provide.
That’s critical because recent data has shown half of all B2B purchases will be made online directly through a partner site by 2021. This makes the top spots in search engines more valuable than ever before.
For the uninitiated, SEO can be a challenge, so don’t be afraid to reach out for some expert help from a specialist on SEO for IT companies if you need it.
3. Use content marketing to attract more website visitors
If you want to attract more website visitors and rank for important keywords with SEO, you’ll need quality content.
Content marketing, and in particular, blogging, improves the quality of your website, creates valuable informative content for clients while increasing organic website traffic.
In fact, businesses that blog get 55% more traffic than those that don’t, according to data from HubSpot.
Just think, if a prospective client is searching online to decide whether or not to use IT support services, they might type in something into a search engine like “do we need IT support?”
When they do they’ll be hit with paid ads right away, which as we discussed cost a fortune, but then they’ll see an organic result.
And of course, that organic result isn’t a product page for IT services. It’s a blog from the IT company, the Blue Fox Group, responding to the question.
Blogs like these can be excellent lead generators because organic results are far more trusted than paid ads by most people. Plus, if you can offer prospective clients valuable information before ever meeting them, it can make the sales process a lot easier.
That’s important because these days only 29% of B2B buyers want to speak with a salesperson for B2B transactions. And, a 2019 B2B Buyers Survey Report found that 97% of B2B buyers said it was important to them that B2B websites “have relevant content that spoke directly to their company.”
With a blog you can share all the information your clients need so they can purchase online without ever talking to a salesperson. So if you’re an IT company looking to save on salaries and increase B2B sales, try content marketing.
Read more on IT and Tech Company blog topics.
4. Try email marketing for the strong ROI and customer engagement
Email marketing is known for its ability to help IT companies stay engaged with clients, but there’s much more to it.
For example, a DMA ‘Consumer email tracker 2019’ survey found the average return on investment for email marketing was $42 for every $1 spent. That’s an incredible 4,200% return on your original investment.
On top of that email marketing is a solid IT company marketing strategy.
Why? Because IT companies rely on B2B transactions and as millennials continue to take over as the leaders of the workforce, being able to connect with them is key. That’s good news for email marketing because 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses via email.
Don’t be afraid to try email marketing if you’re looking to stay engaged with younger clients or improve your marketing ROI.
5. Get published in industry or online publications
As an IT specialist, you have years of industry knowledge and experience that can help market your IT company.
How?
Share your knowledge with local or industry publications, free of charge!
Reach out to industry associations, IT blogs, or even local newspapers with a story idea. Let them know you’ll produce it free of charge and remember, it’s not a sales piece. You are sharing informative content to help the community.
For example, if you run an IT company that helps human resources organizations with their IT support, you could try and land an article on a site like the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). There, HR professionals will read your advice and may think of your the next time they need IT support.
Take this blog on outsourcing HR as an example. It would be easy for an IT business owner to share some advice on how they outsource their HR services.
The benefits of a post like this for your business are two-fold.
First, it’s a great way to provide valuable information for a B2B community that your product or service targets while positioning your business as industry leaders.
And second, if the article is online you’ll get a backlink, brand mention, or quote placement that will help improve your IT company’s online authority. More authority = higher positions in search engines for important keywords, and we’ve discussed how valuable that can be.
If you are worried about reaching out to the right publications, or if you just can’t get in touch, don’t worry, you can always hire digital PR services to help out.
6. Create and optimize your free Google My Business profile
With 46% of Google searches being local, targeting B2B clients in your area with a Google My Business (GMB) profile is critical. Just because you don’t need foot traffic for B2B sales, doesn’t mean you should miss out on this free marketing channel.
Claiming and then optimizing your free Google My Business profile is one of the easiest ways to increase your local client base.
GMB profiles feature your business in Google’s ‘local pack.’ That includes a result in Google Maps for local searches.
And even better, you’ll get a spot on the first page of Google results under paid ads, but above organic listings.
These prominent spots are excellent lead generators for IT companies.
Considering how tough it can be for smaller IT companies to rank on the first page of Google’s results, GMB profiles help to even the playing field against industry giants.
On top of that, they offer a place for businesses to review, verify, and vet your company before engaging in business.
However, you might have noticed there are pages of results, and not all businesses are featured. If you want to increase the geographic range and amount of keywords your IT company ranks for in Google’s local results, you’ll need local SEO.
Local SEO works to improve the three of the factors that Google says determine local search results: distance, prominence, and relevance. When done right, local SEO attracts consistent inbound leads without the need for paid ads.
Read more about how to optimize GMB profiles.
7. Secure citations in Industry directories to boost local lead generation
In the world of SEO, citations are online references to a business.
By securing citations in general and industry-specific directories online, not unlike the Yellow Pages of old, you can boost your IT company’s prominence.
Why is that useful? Google says prominence is one of the factors that determines your rankings for keywords in your local area. The more prominence you have, the better, and securing citations is one of the best ways to make that happen.
For example, below is a citation in the Better Business Bureau for a Phoenix-based IT company called INRS Enterprises LLC.
The citation features the business name, address, and phone number (often abbreviated NAP). Plus, they’ve included a link back to the company’s website, business information, reviews, and more.
Citations in IT industry directories help to improve local SEO by building prominence, but more than that they make it easy for prospective B2B clients to find your IT company.
Finally, citations in multiple different directories across the internet create a professional appearance and that’s a requirement for B2B transactions. That’s why securing them is a top IT company marketing idea.
Next steps for your IT company marketing strategy
From creating and optimizing your GMB profile to writing dozens of blog posts, IT company marketing ideas can be a challenge.
If you need help kicking off an SEO strategy with keyword research, digital PR, and technical SEO, feel free to contact us for some expert advice.
We’d be more than happy to help you get started on your SEO marketing journey.
Markitors is a digital marketing agency specializing in SEO. We help small businesses rank higher on Google to get more traffic to their websites and increase revenue. Explore what’s in our SEO toolbox: audits and keyword research, digital PR, technical SEO, and local SEO.
