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Episode 295: How to Get Your Partners to Market With Your Product with Michael Wise of Intelligent Contacts

Episode Summary

Michael Wise says he’s selling a solution not a product, and this is essential to all aspects of marketing and the customer journey.

As Director of Marketing & Strategy at Intelligent Contacts, a company that provides innovative cloud contact center communication, billing, and payment software for the healthcare and financial services industries, Michael focuses on brand management, lead-generation and strategy development for a technology product that can be difficult for clients to understand.

So that’s why he tries to look at it from a different perspective, showing clients how to leverage their use of the latest in data management systems and machine learning to hook their own new clients.

“The big thing is solution selling. We’re not selling a product, we’re selling a solution, so all of our communication is based on: ‘Hey, remember that problem that we both kind of identified that seemed to trigger some emotion in you that you want to get fixed immediately? Is that still a problem? We did agree that was something our solutions could fix.’,” Michael says.

They try to look at these relationships more as partnerships, working alongside client companies to help them understand how to market their own products and services by showcasing the solutions Michael’s company offers.

“We’re saying not only will this help your business grow from today, but it’ll help you get new business because you’re now using the types of technology that are required to reel in the big fish.”

Guest Profiles

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Key Insights

Episode Highlights

“We don’t do a lot of paid search but are heavy into content marketing. My philosophy has always been, I’d rather own traffic than rent it, so we do spend a lot of time just trying to be thought leaders in our space.”
“We do a lot of consumer research, that’s based on the customers that our clients are servicing. How they think, what their trends and preferences are, and then from that we position our products and even our dev team. We’re working to tweak our products so that we’re on that cutting edge of how consumers like to be communicated with, what’s ideal for them and their preferences.”
“From a strategy perspective, the thought leadership piece is built around technology, innovation and really putting feet to the buzzwords that they know about but don’t really know how to leverage or how it would work in their business. Really you’re just trying to make that transition as seamless as possible, so it doesn’t seem like it’s this big, huge thing.”
“To be a thought leader, you have to do more than just repurpose content. It’s got to be original. It’s got to have anecdotal backgrounds from real clients that are having real experiences. It’s got to include something resembling a case study or something that points to results because the people who want to know this information, they don’t want to know the concept. They want to know who you are helping and would they recommend you.”
“A lot of deals get lost in not addressing some objections early on and not connecting the dots and so I think some of the biggest hurdles are right after a demo of the product — where they have to go back and transfer that energy and excitement that they had on the demo to a decision maker. I think that any technology company has the same issue. Your biggest obstacle is, is your prospect doing nothing?”
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