How to market and sell software technology to enterprise customers

Introduction

Selling software technology to enterprise customers requires a strategic approach that focuses on understanding the customer's business needs, building trust and credibility, and demonstrating the value and ROI of your solution. Enterprise sales cycles are longer and more complex than selling to small businesses or consumers.

The decision-making process often involves multiple stakeholders and requires buy-in from various levels of the organization. To successfully market and sell to enterprises, software vendors need to develop a targeted go-to-market strategy, build relationships with key decision-makers, and clearly articulate the business benefits of their technology.

Understanding Enterprise Customers

The first step in marketing and selling to enterprise customers is understanding their business, challenges, and objectives. Conduct thorough research on your target industries, companies, and specific departments. Learn about the trends, regulations, competitive landscape, and key performance metrics that drive their business decisions.

Identify the different personas involved in the buying process, such as executives, IT leaders, end users, and procurement. Understand each persona's goals, pain points, and decision-making criteria.

Executives may be focused on high-level business outcomes and ROI, while end users care about features, usability, and how the software will make their jobs easier. IT will be concerned with security, scalability, integration, and ease of implementation and maintenance.

Buyer Personas: Every marketing engagement requires developing buyer personas and mapping out the customer journey for each one. This journey encompasses all the touchpoints a buyer has with your brand, from initial awareness to purchase and post-sales support. Understanding the journey helps you deliver the right information and messaging at each stage to guide buyers toward a purchase decision.

Prevail Marketing has a well-defined process to establish:

• Buyer Persona Report

• Buyers’ Sentiment Report

• Buyers’ Journey Report

This process involves the following three steps:

Step 1. Interview Stakeholders. We begin by interviewing your internal stakeholders, including senior management, marketing, sales, and customer service personnel. The information we want to learn from them is:

• Who they believe are their buyer personas

• What they think are their pain points and concerns

• What information do they believe they need to share with each

• Where do these buyer personas go for information and entertainment

Step 2. Interview Closed-Won Opportunities. We try to specifically target newly won customers who just completed the buyer’s journey so their use of the product or service does not influence their answers. This information will serve to establish the buyer insights and sentiments report and the content that needs to be created to engage them successfully. Our client’s representatives should not attend these interviews.

We want the newly won customer to feel no pressure when answering the questions.

Ideally, the interviewer will meet with the decision maker and the influencer persona for each customer interview. We recommend meeting between three to four customers for six to eight interviews.

Step 3. Interview Closed-Lost Opportunities. Remarkably, the closed-lost interviews garner some of the most important insights and information. For closed-won opportunities, you won the business, so you did enough right to establish a win. But that is not the case with lost opportunities. Something in your process, pricing, or product fell short of the prospect’s expectations. This is where you learn what fell short and have the opportunity to address those issues.

Defining Your Value Proposition: Articulating your software's value proposition is crucial for attracting enterprise buyers and setting your solution apart from competitors. Your value prop should concisely explain how your software uniquely solves customers' problems and helps them achieve their business goals.

Compelling value propositions for enterprise software focus on business outcomes and ROI, not just features and functionality. It is always important to describe the value proposition in terms of benefits and not features. Nobody cares what your product can do; instead, they want to know if you can solve a problem or issue that they have.

Quantify the benefits as much as possible regarding cost savings, productivity gains, revenue growth, risk mitigation, etc. For example: "Our software helps manufacturers reduce equipment downtime by 30%, saving an average of $4M annually."

It is critical not to assume that each buyer persona has the same issues, concerns, or problems. So, develop targeted value propositions for each key buyer persona that address their specific needs and objectives.

Test different versions of messaging and continuously gather feedback from customers and prospects to refine your value prop over time.

Building Trust and Credibility: Enterprise buyers look for software vendors they can trust to provide reliable, secure technology and responsive support over the long term. Build trust by showcasing your track record, expertise, and commitment to customer success.

Case Studies: Highlight successful case studies and testimonials that demonstrate your software's impact on similar customers. Buyers want to see that you've solved challenges like theirs for other enterprises. Provide relevant metrics and ROI data points where possible.

Thought Leadership: Establish credibility by creating thought leadership content such as whitepapers, research reports, webinars, and conference presentations. Please demonstrate your deep knowledge of the customer's industry and understand the broader technology and business trends shaping their market. Build your reputation by earning coverage in respected industry publications, analyst reports, and third-party review sites.

Influencers: Cultivate relationships with key influencers and thought leaders who can help validate your solution and reach your target audience.

Layers of Proof: Provide Proof Points Enterprise buyers require extensive information and proof points before making a significant software investment. Be prepared to demonstrate your software's capabilities and business value at each sales cycle stage. Offer detailed product demos and free trials, allowing buyers to experience the software themselves.

Demos: Tailor demos to each buyer persona, highlighting the features and benefits most relevant to their needs. Give buyers hands-on access to validate that the software works as promised in their environment.

Satisfy the Geeks: Provide comprehensive documentation such as technical specifications, security and compliance details, case studies, and ROI calculators. Make it easy for buyers to access all the information they need to build a compelling business case and address stakeholder questions and concerns. Gather data on how customers are using and benefiting from your software. Develop detailed success metrics and ROI reports to continually prove the ongoing value your software delivers after the sale. Buyers will want to see verifiable proof that your software is providing results.

Consultative Sales: Enabling Your Sales Team Selling to enterprises requires a knowledgeable, consultative sales approach. Reps must act as trusted advisors who can discuss each customer's unique business needs and map your software's capabilities to their goals. Invest in sales training and enablement to ensure your team is well-versed in your software's features, business benefits, and target industries.

Provide sales with tools such as ROI calculators, objection-handling guides, competitive battle cards, and email templates to handle common questions and challenges throughout the sales cycle.

Develop a sales playbook that outlines key activities and content for each buyer persona and stage of the journey. Align sales with other customer-facing teams in areas such as marketing, product, customer success, and support. Provide a seamless experience as buyers interact with different parts of your organization. Empower sales to bring in subject matter experts to address technical questions and implementation details.

Omni-Channel Marketing: Reaching enterprise buyers requires an integrated, omni-channel marketing approach that surrounds them with your message across multiple touchpoints. Develop a mix of digital and offline tactics to engage buyers wherever they spend time researching and learning.

Content marketing: Content Marketing is the foundation of most enterprise software marketing programs. Create educational content mapped to different stages of the buyer's journey, from high-level thought leadership to product-specific material.

Optimize content for search and promote it via your website, blog, social media, email, paid ads, and syndication partners. Tactics like search engine marketing, social media advertising, and display retargeting are effective for reaching buyers early in their research process to drive awareness and fill the top of the funnel.

Here are some tricks, tips, and suggestions for creating content that will resonate with each buyer persona:

• Discover How To Create Great Content

• Content Marketing Formula - Rules for Success

• Infographics 101: Secrets, Tricks, and Design

Lead Nurturing: Lead nurturing is developing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel and through every step of the buyer’s journey. It focuses marketing and communication efforts on listening to prospects' needs and providing the necessary information and answers. Lead nurturing is critical to ANY marketing and sales program. It begins with promoting gated content like whitepapers and webinars to capture and nurture leads with personalized email streams. Here are several articles that will help design a lead nurturing program that will convert leads into clients:

• Mastering The Art of Email Nurturing

• Lead Nurturing - Why it Matters and How to do it Right

Event Marketing: Events are a powerful way to connect directly with enterprise buyers. Host regional lunch and learns, roundtables, and user conferences. Attend key industry trade shows and set up meetings with high-priority accounts—sponsor virtual events like webinars and online forums.

There are strategies that will ensure your conference or event is going to deliver quality leads and opportunities. Here are several articles that will ensure your event and conference deliver results:

• The Importance of Trade Shows and Conferences

• Optimizing Your Trade Show Participation

Account-Based Marketing (ABM): Implement an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy to deliver personalized outreach to high-value enterprise accounts. Develop account-specific messaging, content, and offers. Coordinate efforts across sales and marketing to engage key stakeholders at target accounts through channels like email, direct mail, events, and executive briefings.

ABM works because it provides targeted outreach to companies you know would benefit from your services. It leverages a highly personalized buying experience directed toward decision-makers and internal influencers.

We believe this is such an important part of any enterprise marketing program that we created a 21-page ebook to help you design an effective program. Here is where to get your copy.

Partner Ecosystem: Most enterprise software purchases don't happen in isolation. Leveraging the time, talent, effort, reach, and relationship of third parties will expedite the creation of trust with prospective buyers. One of the most effective ways is to create a network of value-added resellers (VAR). Buyers want to know that your solution integrates well with their existing IT environment and other key technologies. Build out a robust partner ecosystem of complementary software, hardware, and service providers.

Establish technical partnerships and integrations that expand your solution's capabilities and make it easier for customers to adopt. Form go-to-market alliances with channel partners, resellers, and systems integrators who can help you reach new markets and provide implementation services.

Promote your partner ecosystem in your marketing and sales efforts. Develop co-branded content, events, and offers. Highlight joint customer success stories. Participate in partner directories and marketplaces to gain additional exposure.

Many companies find that over 65% of their revenues come from reseller programs. However, these programs only work if they are attractive enough for the reseller to actively change their business model to solicit your business. Some of the benefits of a reseller program include:

• Enhanced Reach - It allows businesses to tap into new markets and increase brand exposure without investing heavily in marketing and advertising.

• Reduced Expenses— A reseller program can also help businesses reduce their operational costs by outsourcing certain functions, such as customer support and order fulfillment, to the reseller. This allows businesses to focus on their core competencies and improve overall efficiency.

• Reduced Churn—The close and trusted relationships created between the reseller and their client will result in fewer cancellations and increased recurring revenue streams.

Post-Sale Customer Engagement: Landing an enterprise customer is just the beginning. Keeping them satisfied and growing account revenue requires ongoing effort. Have a plan for onboarding, training, and driving user adoption after the sale.

Provide resources to help customers get maximum value from your software. Develop a regular communication cadence through email, in-app messaging, webinars, and user communities. Share tips and best practices. Provide opportunities for feedback. Showcase customers' successes and ROI through case studies and testimonials. Build strong relationships with customer executives and decision-makers beyond the day-to-day users and administrators. Understand their evolving business needs and priorities.

Look for opportunities to expand usage and cross-sell additional products and services. Solicit their participation in case studies, references, and advisory boards. Monitor product usage and customer health metrics to proactively identify churn risks. Have a process for regular business reviews to discuss value delivered, challenges, and opportunities for improvement. Continually gather feedback and input to guide future product roadmap and marketing decisions. Here are some suggestions to reduce churn and promote upsells, and cross-selling opportunities:

• Customer Churn: The Struggle Is Real

• The Client Retention Lifecycle: Departmental Roles

• Client Retention - The Marketing Department's Role

• Customer Retention - Product Development and Sales Dept.

• Client Retention - Operations, Support, and C-Suite Roles

Conclusion

Successfully marketing and selling software to enterprises requires a holistic strategy that builds trust, demonstrates value, and supports customers throughout the buying journey. By deeply understanding your target customers, developing compelling messaging and proof points, enabling your go-to-market teams, and delivering ongoing value, you can win enterprise deals and build lasting, profitable customer relationships.

The enterprise software market is highly competitive but rich with opportunities for vendors who take a strategic, customer-centric approach. While tactics and technologies will evolve, effective enterprise software marketing and sales fundamentals remain rooted in understanding your customers and delivering undeniable business value. Master these principles, and you'll be well-positioned to drive growth and succeed in the enterprise market.