Episode 147 of the Data Center Go-to-Market Podcast features Joshua Feinberg, CEO at DCSMI.
- Identify and understand critical decision makers and personas in the sales process.
- Define your ideal client profile with precision, including geography, company size, and industry.
- Build a focused target account list using Account Based Marketing (ABM) principles.
- Research and document buyer personas, capturing their real professional goals and challenges.
- Develop educational events and content tailored to your audience’s most pressing needs.
- Differentiate between paid and owned marketing strategies to effectively drive awareness.
- Launch targeted outreach campaigns to connect with key stakeholders in specific organizations.
- Analyze and leverage insights from registration and engagement data to refine your approach.
- Execute hyper-local and long-distance marketing playbooks for both in-person and virtual engagement.
- Foster relationships with entire decision committees to accelerate buy-in and funding approval.
- Transform your sales approach by embracing the role of trusted expert, consultant, and educator.
Host:
Joshua Feinberg, CEO
DCSMI
Joshua Feinberg discusses strategies for penetrating new accounts and creating awareness in the data center industry. He emphasizes the importance of understanding ideal client profiles, including geographic location, company size, and specific industries.
Feinberg highlights the need for targeted educational resources and events to engage potential clients and build trust. He also stresses the significance of identifying key decision-makers and stakeholders within accounts. A
Additionally, he addresses challenges in securing funding by building broader relationships within accounts and leveraging educational content to drive consensus and engagement.
Action Items
- Define the ideal client profile, including geographic, company size, and industry details.
- Build a target account list of 100-1000 companies that fit the ideal client profile.
- Research and document the primary and secondary buyer personas, including their top goals and challenges.
- Create an educational content and events calendar focused on addressing the buyer personas' goals and challenges.
- Implement a mix of paid and owned media strategies to drive awareness in target geographic markets.
- Identify the full decision-making committee within target accounts and build relationships across the team.
Outline
Understanding Decision Committees and Educational Resources
- Joshua Feinberg emphasizes the importance of understanding the different personas on the decision committee within an account.
- The need to create great educational resources and events to motivate decision makers to spend significant time with the team.
- The goal is to get decision makers to bring their colleagues and bosses to these events.
- A recent webinar on the topic of sales changes and a Q&A session followed, addressing the question of whether sales teams are living in the past.
Ideal Client Profile and Target Account List
- Joshua Feinberg discusses the importance of having a simple, one-page ideal client profile that includes geographic location, company size, and specific industry needs.
- The need to normalize and standardize based on employee headcount or revenues.
- The significance of understanding compliance certification and accreditation issues specific to certain regions and industries.
- Building a target account list using the ideal client profile, known as Account Based Marketing (ABM).
Buyer Personas and Their Goals and Challenges
- Joshua Feinberg explains the concept of buyer personas, which are semi-fictional representations of ideal stakeholders within a company.
- The importance of conducting actual research with personas, not relying solely on internal input.
- Identifying the top five to ten biggest professional goals and challenges for each buyer persona.
- The need to understand the language and specific challenges faced by different buyer personas, such as CFOs and CTOs.
Educational Events and Content Strategy
- Joshua Feinberg advises using buyer persona research to build an educational events calendar or content calendar.
- The goal is to create educational content that is highly relevant to each buyer persona's goals and challenges.
- The strategy should aim to make the content so specific that it immediately resonates with the target audience.
- The importance of positioning the team as experts and trusted advisors through educational events and content.
Creating Awareness and Promoting Services
- Joshua Feinberg discusses the two broad ways to create awareness: paid media and events, and owned media and events.
- The importance of educating and building trust with the right people through events and content.
- The difference between organic and paid strategies, with paid strategies offering more precision in targeting.
- The significance of outbound strategies, such as targeted ads and outreach, to reach specific job titles and companies.
Long-Distance and Hyper-Local Marketing Strategies
- Joshua Feinberg explains the need for two different go-to-market playbooks: one for hyper-local marketing and one for long-distance marketing.
- The hyper-local playbook focuses on getting people to visit the facility in an educational context.
- The long-distance playbook relies on virtual events, email, social media, and personalized video tours.
- The importance of respecting the fact that most technical buyers don't want to spend much time with a sales team until they are ready to buy.
Building Relationships and Securing Funding
- Joshua Feinberg emphasizes the need to build relationships with multiple people within an account to understand the decision committee.
- The importance of creating great educational resources and events to motivate decision makers to spend time with the team.
- The strategy should aim to surface who cares about what within the account.
- The significance of asking registration questions to gather insights about the biggest challenges and goals of the target audience.
Challenges in Securing Funding
- Joshua Feinberg discusses the common issue of securing funding for initiatives.
- The need to understand the different personas on the decision committee and their professional goals and challenges.
- The importance of creating great educational resources and events to motivate decision makers to spend time with the team.
- The strategy should aim to surface who controls the budget and can give funding approval.
Final Thoughts and Contact Information
- Joshua Feinberg shares final thoughts on the importance of repurposing sales professionals as consultants and teachers.
- The need to build consensus with team members before bringing it back to the decision maker.
- The significance of having highly relevant educational resources and events that focus on the budget, return on investment, and other factors.
- Joshua Feinberg invites participants to connect with him on LinkedIn and encourages them to share their success stories.
Resources
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