Think Points blog

8 Digital Marketing Tips for ServiceNow Partners

Written by Simon Hendery | Apr 23, 2022 1:56:59 AM

The Marketing Challenges ServiceNow Partners Face

ServiceNow’s growth as a business solution has been phenomenal. What started out as an ITSM tool is now the ‘Platform of Platforms’ that’s reaching deeper and deeper into the enterprise with each six-monthly family release.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean partners are finding it easier to market and sell their ServiceNow services and expertise. Value-added selling of top-end SaaS solutions is challenging, no matter how great the product is.

Here are some of the challenges you may be facing:

  • Generating sufficient qualified leads
  • Articulating your expertise and experience with the platform
  • Standing out from other ServiceNow partners
  • Producing sales and marketing collateral that clearly presents highly technical concepts
  • Effectively aligning your marketing initiatives with your sales initiatives

Tips for Building a Better Marketing Strategy

An effective digital marketing strategy will address these challenges and is a vital requirement for growth in the ServiceNow ecosystem.

Developing and implementing a comprehensive digital marketing strategy takes time and effort. But regardless of where you are on your marketing journey, here are eight tips to help you progress towards closing more deals:

1. Focus on your areas of ServiceNow expertise

Every ServiceNow partner is different. These days, the platform is so expansive that unless you’re one of the largest partners in the ecosystem, it’s impossible to deliver expertise across every module, competency or vertical.

Instead, you’ll have a Unique Value Proposition which, along with your company’s purpose, vision and mission statement, will form the basis for developing a marketing strategy focused on attracting your ideal clients.

2. Get the marketing basics right

Having a clearly defined mission will enable you to put some marketing fundamentals in place, including choosing ideal keywords to drive your SEO strategy, which in turn will lay the groundwork for your content strategy.

While keywords are still the foundation of an effective search engine optimization strategy, these days, SEO is no longer about stuffing your content with keywords; Google’s algorithms demand much more than that. To be ranked in search results you need to offer up quality content that provides value to searchers and delivers on the intent of what your prospects are looking for.

3. Make the most of your Subject Matter Experts

Your architects, developers and the other super clever people on your team possess a wealth of knowledge you can use to build brand authority and demonstrate your company’s expertise.

But your Subject Matter Experts don’t have the time (or possibly the inclination) to create polished content. Therefore, you need to put systems in place to extract your SMEs’ knowledge effectively so you can turn their insights into captivating sales and marketing collateral.

4. Target the marketing channels your prospects prefer

Your marketing strategy will undoubtedly include initiatives to engage with prospects via email, search and social media. But make sure you’re not excluding any other obvious channels.

According to HubSpot's 2022 Marketing Industry Trends Report, when asked how they’d most like to learn about a product or service, 69% said they’d prefer to watch a short video over a text-based article, infographic, or ebook. This means, if most of your product-related content is in ebook format, you could be missing out on the majority of consumers who prefer video.

5. Align sales and marketing efforts

One of the keys to your company’s success is ensuring your marketing and sales teams are aligned around a common set of revenue-driving goals.

While this alignment has traditionally been difficult to achieve for many companies, it’s the secret to unlocking results that aren’t attainable if sales and marketing remain siloed.

This alignment involves: creating ideal buyer profiles and buyer personas, defining where the handoff between marketing and sales occurs, creating lead views for the sales team, and creating SLAs between sales and marketing.

6. Use Account-based Marketing

An account-based marketing approach—where marketing and sales work together to create personalized buying experiences for a select set of high value prospects—is an ideal option for ServiceNow partners to consider.

ABM is ideal for big-ticket sales such as ServiceNow when it’s common to be selling to buying committees of at least three people. ABM helps you assemble those committees and win them over.

ABM’s power is that it transforms your marketing and sales teams into focused, collaborative task forces that build better buying experiences and drive better results.

7. Learn from what others in the ServiceNow ecosystem are doing

If you want to improve your marketing performance, check out what other partners in the ecosystem are doing.

Undertaking competitive analysis is an ideal way to pick up ideas to improve your own marketing initiatives. This includes investigating which keywords your competitors are ranking for.

8. Leverage the ServiceNow Mothership

ServiceNow employs some top marketing talent and the company has won awards for its B2B marketing initiatives.

The mothership produces a significant amount of quality content you can utilize for your own sales and marketing purposes, so take advantage of the opportunity.

Remember, however, to craft the content so it speaks specifically to your target prospects.

Need Help with Your Marketing Strategy?

A successful digital marketing strategy for ServiceNow implementation services involves defining a clear message and a targeted approach to engaging with your prospects.

Our ServiceNow expertise means Think Points is ideally positioned to help you develop the ideal marketing strategy attuned to the unique solutions you bring to the place in the partner ecosystem.

Book a meeting with Simon to discuss your digital marketing strategy.