Small IT firms tweak up sales pitch to woo clients

The chief executive officer of an IT company gets a greeting card one day asking her if she would like to save $30 million in a year. Next week, another card reaches her desk giving her the names of the major IT companies that have saved the said amount by implementing a certain solution.

The week thereon, she gets the final card that informs her about the company and the solution. She would have junked any other ordinary mailer with the same content. But the innovative format had her hooked.

There's no denying Thomas Friedman's account of how the world is flat. The knowledge-driven industry has woken up to the fact and is raring to meet global competition.

But with the number of IT and ITeS companies increasing by the day (the National Association of Software and Service Companies in India itself has more than 1,000 members), it's a struggle for the small and mid-sized companies among the billion-dollar stalwarts.

Marketing initiatives are, therefore, either being strengthened or being innovated upon to grab a toehold in the global IT market.

Says Amit Prasad, promoter of SatNav Technologies, a Rs 2.08-crore provider of navigation, telematics and facilities management-related products, "Today we have about five full-fledged implementations and a dozen first stage implementations for our facilities management product. While these include big names such as Satyam and Genpact, the client list is not formidable enough for potential customers to proactively approach us. We have, therefore, launched a teaser campaign targeting 367 potential customers to register more business."

The teaser campaign involves three mailers sent one after the other. The first two mailers try to grab the attention of the CXO by naming SatNav's clients that have saved an 'X' amount by deploying a certain product. It is only in the third mailer that SatNav introduces itself and the product that is on offer.

"Companies receive hundreds of mailers every day. We have to stand out among our competitors and thus this initiative," Prasad reasons.

Karri Sriram, director, branding and marketing, NowPos Online Services Pvt Ltd, an R&D-led online-voice technologies company, says it's cold calls that work for them.

"The idea is to rope in marketing professionals who are good orators. Collating a database of potential customers is not a difficult task, what with each company posting its contact details on its website. Evidently, it is the first conversation which is the clincher. Therefore, your sales talk has to be loaded with interesting statements."

Sriram explains that a person may refuse to spare five minutes of his time for a sales talk. But the moment you use a different statement like, "Can I have seven-and-a-half minutes of your time," he is intrigued.

The idea then is to sell your product like it was an elevator pitch, Sriram says. NowPos is a start-up and has seven clients.

Companies that have gradually moved up the value chain consider recognition as a better sales pitch. Anuradha Acharya, chief executive officer of Ocimum Biosolutions, which operates in the bioinformatics space, says that the strike rate for mailers tends to be low at about three per cent.

Therefore, one way to stand out would be to make the potential customers aware of the company's achievements. "We tend to sign off e-mails with a brief mention of the awards or recognition that the company has received," she adds. Ocimum Biosolutions has more than 200 clients.

YASU Technologies, a player in the business rules management space, considers international forums as a blessing in disguise. "We ensure that we visit global conferences in areas that we operate. It's easier to meet possible clients and partners at such places," said Vishwakarma Desai, business development manager, YASU.