How Data Center Marketing Teams Generate More Website Leads

Why Data Center Markeing Needs to Change to Partner with Sales

Ten years ago, a prospect or client needing data center- or enterprise- IT kinds of services spoke with someone on your sales team about what that person was, perhaps 10% to 20% into their buyer’s journey and 10% to 20% into their decision-making process.

Those days are long gone. Today, it’s very common for data center marketing and sales teams to discover that prospects have already completed at least 60% to 70% of their decision-making before they’re ready for any sales conversation -- like a consultation or tour.

So the role of marketing needs to evolve and change to be all about making their sales teams look like rock stars -- before, during, and after that 70% point. Otherwise, when prospects start talking with your sales team, those prospects have already fallen in love with other competitive options. Your sales team is only being pinged to try to undercut price -- which destroys profit margins and morale -- while giving your CFO, CEO, and board members chest pains and other forms of financial anxiety.

Your Action Plan for Dramatically Improved Lead Generation, Sales Cycle Acceleration, and Sales Opportunity Generation

So what can data center marketing teams do to generate more of the right leads from their companies' websites?

• Know your buyer personas -- especially the most important core two to three personas, as well your company’s negative buyer personas (bad fit customers)
• Map out the buyer's journey (key stages) for your most important buyer personas
• Create lead generation offers that are specific to who each person is (their buyer persona) and where each person is (their buyer's journey stage: awareness, consideration, or decision)
• Invest in premium content creation that promises exceptional value to your website visitors in return for trading their contact information

• Leverage your premium content to educate and build trust with strangers, visitors, and leads
• Build out a lead nurturing sequence that adds more value while accelerating leads into sales opportunities
• Integrate your marketing software with your CRM or ecommerce software so you can implement closed-loop reporting -- and specifically identify which leads and campaigns are leading to the most desirable new client wins
• Support your lead generation campaigns with multi-channel efforts, including email marketing, blogging, social media publishing, PR, video, paid search, and paid social

What else should marketing teams at data center providers do to generate more right leads from their websites? Chime in down in the Comments box below.

And if you want to be the first to know about new reports, events, podcasts, and blog posts like this, subscribe to the Data Center Sales & Marketing (DCSMI) Update Newsletter.

Learn more about Colocation Data Center Providers and Go-to-Market Strategy (GTM) for Growth.