Impress prospective customers with your
domain expertise. . . then objectively
lay out a path for their success
Your marketing campaign will not succeed. . . unless you can persuade
VITO.
VITO? Yes, VITO -- the Very Important Telecom Officer -- the key decision
maker,
the executive with the authority to buy your solution when all the
non-decision maker
“Seymours” still want to “See more” details about your product.
Unfortunately, while VITO needs to get your message, it's tough for you
to reach VITO.
You see VITOs are very popular people. Everybody wants to reach them. So
VITOs
are swamped with advertising, email, magazines, and other messages from you,
your
competitors, and a lot of other people with good ideas.
As a result, the effort it takes you to win even ten minutes of face time
with VITO can
sometimes be extraordinary.
That leaves you with one big question:
What can I do to increase the odds that when VITO receives my message, she understands the business value of what I'm proposing and takes the first step to become a customer?
Why a white paper is not enough
At first glance, you might consider writing a white paper to VITO.
After all, a white paper is a highly targeted message designed to cut through the clutter.
However the problem with most white papers is they are written
to influence only a
technical audience.
But your goal is to reach VITOs. And key decision makers
often don't have time to absorb the
technical nuances of your solution. What peaks their interest,
though, is hearing how your solution is delivering real
business value to other telecoms.
They are also interested in knowing how
your solution
saves money, boosts revenue, or increases staff productivity.
In short, to influence VITO you need a paper with a different focus. You
need what TRI calls a "value proposition paper",
Quite simply, a value proposition paper is a tight, jargon-free document that puts your company’s innovation in language that C-Level executives understand and find compelling to read.
Hire TRI to Write Your Paper
OK, so how do you begin?
Writing the paper in-house is certainly an option. And if you're so inclined, you may want to read our advice on the subject: How to Deliver Bandwidth-on-Demand to Your Customer's Brain, a simple do-it-yourself guide we wrote in 2001 that still rings true.
But many of you will prefer to outsource the details to a professional.
Now writing a value proposition paper is not a task you can easily hire a
free-lance writer for because a working knowledge of the OSS/BSS and telecom industries is needed.
As you know, TRI is an OSS/BSS research/analyst organization, so we make a living writing market research reports. And in-between authoring those studies, we also write value proposition papers for industry clients.
Here are some reasons why we think TRI is uniquely qualified to write your paper:
- Market Knowledge -- TRI has been tracking and writing about the OSS/BSS industry since 1994. Each year we interview scores of people as we develop our reports. So we have a good feel for the competitive climate you operate in. And that's a big help when it comes to distilling your value proposition onto paper.
- Unique Positioning -- Often when we work for clients, we discover valuable new ways to position their solution in the market.
- Proven Methodology -- Having already written value proposition papers for many companies in the OSS/BSS market, we've developed a process for quickly grasping a client's value proposition and moving the writing project along.
- Constant Dialog -- When you're developing an important paper like this, you and the writer need to be in synch. That's why we get your approval on the content and flow of the story before we write the final draft. In fact, at each step of the process, we get feedback from you to ensure we’re headed in the right direction.
- Low Cost -- Since writing papers in the OSS/BSS and services industry is time well spent for TRI, we can justify keeping our custom writing fee low. Our typical charge for a white paper including promotion through Black Swan Telecom Journal is $3,000.
- Fast Turnaround -- With speedy input and cooperation from your staff, we can usually complete your paper in less than 30 days.
Having a powerful, business-oriented value proposition paper may be just
what you need to capture VITO's attention. When you meet
VITO for the first time, can you afford not to be armed with a
powerful business-benefit story?
Sincerely,
Dan Baker
Research Director
P.S. If you'd like more details on our value proposition paper program, please send us a note via our contact form. We'll arrange a call to explain all the details.
Testimonial
Like many telecom
solution companies, we know how to recite our technical strengths backwards
and forwards. But when it comes to explaining the business benefits of our
solution, we've struggled to tell our story in a compelling way.Then along came TRI. In three weeks -- and with very little effort on our part -- TRI wrote an executive paper for us, "Why the Last Mile of the Telecom Super Highway is the Roughest Part of the Journey." That paper really hit the mark. It not only communicates our value proposition, but its straight-talking, informative style has enhanced the professional tone of our message. TRI's paper basically energized our marketing. And we're now leveraging it in several ways -- in direct mail, on our web site, and in our sales presentations. |
Don Prokopetz, Vice President, Software Solutions
SaskTel International
Inc.