If you’re looking for from-the-trenches B2B marketing strategies and tactics that work, you’ll want to check out what two marketing gurus from Service-Now.com have to share.
Tuesday night in San Diego, two marketing superstars from 4-year old startup Service-now.com delivered an in-depth, insightful view of a business and marketing success story.
Matt French, Brian Surritt, Marketing Director, and Rhett Glauser, Communications Manager, at the the only enterprise service desk (ITSM) via SaaS (Software-as a-service) help-desk company, shared killer marketing insights.
The program title was “Achieving Leading B-to-B Brand Awareness On a Shoestring Budget” but their tactics/strategies have resulted in mouth-watering business growth and customer engagement. The Service-Now.com approach makes other ‘branding’ strategies look wimpy by comparison.
It doesn’t hurt that Service-Now is loved by its customer base (F1000 to Global 2000 companies) and has tons of loyal fans that spread the love via word of mouth. The big takeaway for me was how smart Service-Now’s (small) marketing team (we had half of them in the room) has been about integrating traditional marketing, social media and word of mouth. They stay in touch with analysts, the press and since “Our clients really want to see us grow…” as Rhett said, they really leverage word of mouth.
Results? According to San Diego Business Journal on February 13, 2009: “Service-now.com, an information technology support company in Solana Beach, said it has generated $20 million in revenues in fiscal year 2009, which ends July 1, following a record first half.”
Here are some of Service-Now.com’s marketing strategies:
Let their raving fan customers speak for them. Customers regularly join the company’s webinars as guest speakers and participate on panels at trade shows. Word of mouth marketing doesn’t get any better than that. The company captures the testimonials for re-use.
Event marketing. The company puts on 6-7 events per month. Webinars attract 300-500 attendees. They never miss the IT industry key trade events and leverage them for all they can. Service-Now.com’s customer fans stand in their trade show booth, pull in passers-by and rave about the service.
Regional Industry events: They are finding more success at Regional events with the tight economy and lower travel budgets (Have you looked for regional industry events to participate in and find new customers?)
Leverage Partners’ databases. They use partners’ databases to promote webinars. Could be how attendance numbers are so enviable. (Think about your partners—can you create a cross-event-promotion partnership?)
Social Media & Web 2.0. Service-Now offers customers and prospects a number of ways to participate with the company, and each other online. Transparency is their mantra; they require user, web visitor registration in very few places. Here is a list of all Service-Now.com employees on Twitter. CEO-Founder Fred Luddy included. The company was nominated for a Groundswell Award from Forrester.
Wiki: all product documentation and info about software update is provided here.
Community: 7,000 of Service-Now.com’s 36,000 users participate in their online community. Forums are here Groups here and there are several employees blogging.
On demand Demos: here http://www.service-now.com/what-we-do/demo/
Free instant access to the software—no registration required.
Customer Advisory Board: Members are listed here from companies like Qualcomm, UBS, Staples.
Training Videos are here. These are in big demand by customers—even though the web-based software is very intuitive.
Thanks to the sponsorship of Southern California BMA (Business Marketing Assn.) and local HTMA (High-Tech Marketing Alliance) San Diego for the event.
P.S. Service-Now.com is looking for a web-designer, developer to hire among
P. P. S. Update 5-26-09: I got Brian Surritt’s name wrong! That’s what happens when you forget to ask for a business card–Brian is a great presenter.
These guys have definately raised the profile of SaaS in the ITSM space. Alot of vendor bashing, but that is just the bad with the good.
Hi @ITSMguy @BMCsoftware,
Even more proof that the social web is leading B2B industries, like ITSM, to open conversations. This will only benefit users, buyers, and everyone I believe. Thanks for your comment and keep the ITSM conversation going.
Cheers,
Cynthia
Nothing but the internet with its social media is leading all business whether online or offline..mostly! We cannot imagine a business without social media..