2 Alternatives: Make Money or Save Money
February 2010
I was reading a techno-thriller recently* and one of the characters was quoted as saying “In a sense, computer systems needed to do only one of two things: make money or save money. Everything else was just details.” That’s actually a pretty succinct – and apt – statement.
While the software development business is focused on features and functions, and the hardware business understands that it is the software that provides value, marketing and sales must remember that companies buy systems for their ability to make money or save money. The rest is just details.
Your marketing message will only resonate with prospects if it clearly shows how the system will increase sales (make money) or reduce costs (save money). It is your job to translate ‘speeds and feeds’ that the hardware folks build into their boxes and the software’s ‘features and functions’ into dollars and cents for the user. Further, it’s better if there is a time factor – a reason to buy now (a call to action, in marketing speak).
That’s all. Sounds simple and obvious? Maybe so, but getting that message through is the essence of business technology marketing. Think about your current campaign, your current marketing slogans and headlines. Are they focused on how your clients can make money and/or save money? Do you have proof points – examples of your solution delivering on the make-money or save-money promise?
If your primary target is a replacement market (our solution delivers what your current solution cannot) then your task is to create a vision in the prospect’s mind of how much better off they will be once they replace their current solution with yours.
If you are selling something that they don’t already have, like a new application or a unique capability, then your task is to create a vision in the prospect’s mind of how much better off they will be once they add your solution to their current toolset.
Either way, they have to be able to see how they will get a return that exceeds the cost of buying and implementing your solution. So it all comes down to return on investment – how your solution will make enough money or save enough money to make them glad they spent money with you.
Everything else is just details.
* Suarez, Daniel. Daemon. Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA). 2009