How to Reach Data Center Decision-Makers

Joshua Feinberg discusses the evolving process of reaching data center decision-makers, emphasizing the importance of early engagement in the buyer's journey.

He highlights that modern buyers prefer self-guided research before involving sales teams, necessitating companies to provide educational resources.

Feinberg advises leveraging success metrics to build ideal client profiles and target account lists.

He stresses the importance of understanding buyer personas, including primary, secondary, and negative personas, and aligning content strategies with their goals and challenges.

Effective strategies include marketing automation, content creation, and leveraging team dynamics to maximize engagement and impact.

This video is excerpted from the podcast Ep. #59 Joshua Feinberg, CEO of DCSMI | Data Center Go-to-Market Podcast.

Action Items

Conduct internal discussions with stakeholders to reach a consensus on the target buyer personas' biggest goals and challenges.
Gather external research through face-to-face or video conversations to get a representative understanding of the target buyer personas' goals and challenges.
Develop a content strategy to create and promote helpful, educational content that addresses the identified goals and challenges of the target buyer personas.
Implement a marketing automation email campaign to encourage the initial point of contact to share the company's content with their team and decision-makers.

Outline

Understanding the Buyer's Journey

Joshua Feinberg emphasizes that most data center decisions are now made through a self-propelled buyer's journey, especially for six-figure purchases.
He notes that potential buyers are trying to gather as much information as possible before their initial meeting with a company.
Companies should invest in creating educational resources to engage buyers early in their journey, rather than just providing product catalogs or spec sheets.
Ignoring 90-95% of potential buyers who are not ready for a sales conversation can lead to missing out on good-fit clients.

Identifying Ideal Client Profiles

Joshua suggests looking at successful past cases to build an ideal client profile, including location, company size, industry, and business model.
Companies can create a target account list of potential clients from this profile for future business.
Understanding the definition of a company and identifying key stakeholders within it is crucial for effective targeting.
Prioritizing buyer personas, including primary, secondary, and tertiary personas, and filtering out negative personas early.

Researching Buyer Personas and Their Needs

Understanding key stakeholders' goals, challenges, and frustrations is essential for reaching decision-makers.
Internal discussions with team members should be weighted at 20%, while external research, ideally face-to-face or video conversations, should comprise 75-80%.
Understanding what drives stakeholders' goals and challenges helps develop a content strategy that supports their needs.
Identifying what causes stress and frustration for stakeholders can lead to creating content that addresses these pain points effectively.

Leveraging Content and Events to Engage Decision Makers

Developing and regularly promoting content that supports stakeholders' goals and addresses their challenges is key to engaging them.
Hosting events that align with the content strategy can further strengthen the relationship with potential clients.
Effective marketing automation emails can help get more people from the same company to attend events or access resources.
The goal is to create a strong impact by aligning with stakeholders' goals and making them feel the content is helpful and relevant to their needs.

Measuring Success and Building Relationships

The strategy's success can be measured by the number of registrations from the same company and feedback from initial meetings.
When stakeholders quote content or methodology in meetings, it significantly impacts their decision-making process.
Building relationships with key stakeholders and understanding their needs can lead to long-term business opportunities.
The key is to monitor stakeholders' goals and challenges and continuously adapt the content strategy to meet their evolving needs.

Resources

Watch the full podcast Ep. #59 Joshua Feinberg, CEO of DCSMI | Data Center Go-to-Market Podcast

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