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Selling Technology: What Appeals To Customers?

Software vendor Tibco has commissioned a video series (sans Tibco branding) called Greg The Architect, a hilarious spoof of business technology organizations that’s aimed at the software architect.

The fourth episode, titled “Off The Grid,” pokes fun at Gartner and other analyst firms. View that fourth installment here:

Tibco’s role-based marketing approach jibes with a recent Forrester report which maintains that tech vendors are increasingly targeting customer titles and job functions rather than vertical industries. An informal Forrester survey of tech companies’ Web sites found 37 vendors “with messaging geared to the needs of job holders.”

Among the most common technology and business roles vendors are segmenting, according to Forrester, are software architect, database administrator, network manager, CFO, risk and compliance officer, and HR manager, as well as more vertically oriented business ones. The report gives the example of UPS Logistics Technologies, whose main customer focus is the router/dispatcher. The vendor’s Web site asks three questions -- What do you do? What’s important to you? What do you need to do today? -- before walking potential customers through its solutions.

A standard question for vendors making the “press tour” rounds is which set of customers they’re targeting. Most often, they respond by citing industries or company sizes: We sell mostly to financial services companies and government agencies, they say, or to small and midsize businesses or large enterprises. When the vendors are pressed on which individuals they’re targeting within those customer organizations, they usually insist that they go straight to the top -- to CIOs and VPs of IT -- even when they’re selling the most rudimentary of IT infrastructure.

Cisco Systems, for instance, segments its customers according to 11 “industry solutions” as well as by size (home office, SMB, large enterprise, service provider) and product category (data center, mobility, network systems, security, etc.). Meantime, its marketing now focuses more on CXOs than on its core base of networking professionals. Perhaps Cisco figures it needn’t preach so much to the networking faithful.

As a buyer of information technology, which tech marketing/sales approach do you see as most prevalent? Which do you prefer -- one that targets individual titles and roles, the special needs of your industry, or the size of your company? Perhaps it’s some combination of all three. Please give us your thoughts below.

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