Changes in tech marketing are far greater than adopting new technology like Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse. Since consumers have more access to information and the ability to make purchasing decisions with fewer third parties, there’s also a shift in consumer behavior and mentality. This change results in longer sales cycles and more opportunities to interact with prospective buyers.

Explore the complex world of modern tech marketing and ways you can provide the personalized and data-based experience today's IT audience expects.

Key Takeaways:

• IT marketing's greatest challenges are attracting quality leads and web traffic and tracking their results
• Data plays an essential role in creating and tracking modern marketing strategies
• To succeed in tech marketing in 2023, focus on customer loyalty over making single sales

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Challenges with Modern IT Marketing

Here are three of the top challenges IT marketers face today:

Generating Quality Leads

Marketers today have access to a larger pool of consumers because more buyers are connected to the Internet, social media, and search engines where they can find new products.

However, getting leads isn't enough, especially since most of those leads don't want or need your product. IT products have a niche market with particular buyers.

Quality leads are those prospects that are most likely to buy from your brand. However, to get your marketing content in front of that audience and collect their contact information for nurturing requires insider knowledge of their online behavior and needs. It isn't easy to find that data or turn customer behavior information into actionable strategies without data management systems in place.

Attracting Web Traffic

There are over 1.88 billion websites online. Nearly every business has a website. However, attracting traffic to your website isn't as easy as creating a website. While search engine optimization (SEO) has long been celebrated as the magic formula for generating traffic, not everyone sees the results they’re hoping for.

Over 90% of webpages don't see any traffic. SEO alone isn't enough to gain the traffic you need to increase your brand awareness and generate leads. Marketers need to turn to alternative methods for targeting their audience instead of waiting for the audience to find them.

Proving Return on Investment

Only three-quarters of marketers report their efforts' impact on their revenue. The other quarter isn't monitoring the financial impact of their marketing strategies. Without measuring the return of your efforts, you can't guarantee that you're making a wise investment.

However, measuring the return of marketing is challenging since many marketing efforts don't directly lead to sales. Rather, they lead to other returns like generated leads or more web traffic. Those metrics, in turn, translate to sales.

How Tech Marketing Is Changing in 2023

Use these five insights of how tech marketing is changing so you can succeed in 2023.

1. Data Is King

First-party data is the key to a modern marketing strategy. You can't succeed in marketing without insights into who your customers are, what they need, and what motivates their actions.

Through data, you can:

• Personalize your interactions
• Create relevant and timely marketing content
• Perform lead nurturing to address their concerns

Data also helps you analyze how successful your marketing efforts are and where you can adjust your strategy for a more significant impact.

2. Quality Content Is Dominating the Algorithm

"Content is king."

You might hear that phrase often about content marketing. However, if that were true, more businesses with blogs would succeed. Unfortunately, the content itself isn't enough to win at content marketing for tech companies.

Quality content is far more valuable than content that just meets the checklist for SEO. Quality content is marketing content that educates your audience, offers them new information, and provides value.

The best way to create quality content is by targeting your strategy for your specific buyers. Avoid writing general blog posts that appeal to the masses with common knowledge. Instead, curate your marketing content to the buyers of businesses that use your tech products and services. You can address key decision makers, their pain points, and their needs in the language they use.

By crafting customized content, you also bring in quality leads and rank in the searches that matter most because they’re by key buyers in your market.

3. Customer Loyalty Is More Valuable Than a Sale

Your chances of selling to a current customer are 60%-70%. In addition, 80% of the average business's profits come from just 20% of its customers. Therefore, your marketing should focus on long-term goals and a customer's lifetime value.

Marketers today want to build trust and mutual respect with their customers. This process takes longer but results in a larger loyal customer base.

One example of this personalized approach is account-based marketing, where providers of high-value products focus on connecting with a few quality accounts rather than spreading their resources over dozens of strategies to reach thousands of customers.

This targeted approach allows you to offer more customized content and address more of each buyer's concerns. As a result, over one-third of businesses use account-based marketing today.

4. Customers Are More Informed

Customers have access to more information today than at any point in the past. With knowledge comes more power to make smarter purchasing decisions based on research rather than being swayed by a single, well-placed ad.

Because of this larger emphasis on customer research, marketers have a more prominent role. Your job is to provide content for your consumers in their research phase. Marketing content like frequently asked questions (FAQs) pages, educational webinars, and email newsletters are all strategic ways to reach customers with relevant information about the industry and show them how your business is different from your competition.

5. SEO Is No Longer Enough

If SEO isn't enough to attract traffic and generate leads, what can a marketer do to cut through the online noise consumers hear daily from competitors?

Rather than abandoning SEO practices, you need to combine them with additional strategies that get your marketing content in front of your target audience.

Some other examples of targeted marketing in a tech company include:

• Content syndication services
• Social media marketing
• IT webinars
• Paid ads

What Is Your Marketing Strategy Missing?

ActualTech Media is a tech marketing company that has been helping tech marketers for over 10 years stay on top of the latest industry trends with modern marketing strategies. Our webinars, content syndication, and content marketing services use the latest technology and most valuable industry data to ensure you target the right audience and generate quality leads.

Contact us to learn more about our IT marketing services.