“They all want to, they just don’t know how yet,” my colleague told me. I leafed through the ICT Valley Research in amazement. “ICT people are just about the smartest people in existence, how is that possible?” I said in amazement. ICT people are not very social on social media, as the research shows paradoxically enough. They cautiously blog every now and then, but publishing one blog per month doesn’t make much of a difference either.
And yet the ICT sector is extremely suitable for online marketing, as experts Kieran Flanagan, Marcel Molenaar and Jan Willem Alphenaar clearly demonstrated at the ICT congress Next Marketing 2013 (NM13).
IT professionals are hot!
At first glance, this team doesn't exactly look 'hot.' Because let's be honest: would you have invested in these nerds? list to data I wouldn't. Of course, we now know better: Bill Gates wasn't the richest man in the world for nothing. That world can't exist without ICT, something I know all too well.
bill gates
Behold the Microsoft team of 1978 (bottom left: Bill Gates).
Where I used to have to check my pockets to make sure I still had my keys, I now get a mild heart attack when I discover my Galaxy SII is missing.
Not to mention the hell that breaks loose (and that's an understatement) when I lose my connection to the outside world due to an internet outage. The opposite is true: ICT professionals have the knowledge and the gift to make our lives a little more pleasant, and that makes them incredibly hot! Because even buying nowadays no longer starts in a store, but on a device.
Today's customer: headstrong and 'in control'
65% of European consumers engage in self-education before making a purchase ( Consumer Barometer ). Today’s headstrong consumer is no longer captivated by the bleached smile of the salesperson. No, the consumer goes on his own research in the Google jungle, questions his own network and decides for himself whether or not to buy something from you. In short: the customer is in control. So what do you do as a company? Very simple: “ create marketing people love ,” according to Kieran Flanagan , Marketing Director of HubSpot Dublin and first keynote speaker of the conference.
No sooner said than done? The core of irresistible (inbound) marketing lies in creating valuable and attractive content, but is conveying the actual message enough to deliver quality content? A justified remark by Maarten van der Boon appears on the Twitter wall .
maartenvanderboon
A nice gift
A blog should be a gift. A nice one, that is, because nobody likes nasty surprises. However, giving a gift is not that easy. Every individual has his own taste and wishes. So what if your employees do not know how to make the perfect gift?
Knowledge sharing is prediction
Jan Willem Alphenaar , rock star among marketers, knows how to answer this question. He starts his story with a statement that only Alphenaar can make: “Sharing knowledge is actually foreplay. You create an expectation in people through your arts, technology and experience. It is a foretaste of what else is to come.”
knowledge sharing prediction
But guess what? Only 32% of ICT companies have a business blog, of which 70% publish a blog once a month at most. If sharing knowledge is foreplay, is creating knowledge dating? Because that would mean that many ICT companies don't even get past a first date with the customer. Ouch!
Alphenaar notes: “Many knowledge workers from the ICT sector spend idle hours or free time on improving their knowledge. A good thing. But what I want is for them to also use part of this time to share their knowledge. And then preferably via strong blog posts!” He formulates the following step-by-step plan for content marketing: