One of the best ways you can get a competitive advantage is to utilize the right IT marketing plan. But, how do you know what this plan should comprise of? That’s easy: you must ask the right questions.
For most of us, the art of asking questions is something that we were experts at when we were children, but these days, as adults, this is a skill that is mostly lost. However, it doesn’t have to be. There is much you can learn and discover by asking the right questions, and the answers can help to improve your marketing strategies in ways that you might have never imagined.
Before you start asking questions, though, you must realize that asking different types of questions can lead to different types of results.
Clarifying Questions
When you ask a clarifying question, you are trying to better understand something. Let’s look at this in a way that relates to your IT marketing. Asking your clients what they are looking for, for example, is a clarifying question that is helping you to understand what your clients’ needs are.
Funneling Questions
Funneling questions are like clarifying questions. In this case, these questions are used to get even more information. In other words, you can use funneling questions to dive even deeper. So, using the example above, when you get an answer about what your clients are looking for, get more detailed with funneling questions. Find out specifics and other details that you might have missed with the first answer. By knowing these details, you can better meet the needs of your customers and they will see that you are taking that extra step.
Adjoining Questions
Adjoining questions are those that are a bit different from clarifying or funneling questions. In this case, adjoining questions are questions that you might ask to learn more about related aspects of what you are trying to find out. Again, let’s look at our previous example. An adjoining question here might be to ask how processes for marketing might affect a specific group of clients. In most cases, you won’t have clients that come from a single industry, so ask questions about how one industry might be affected by your marketing policies in comparison to another.
Elevating Questions
Finally, you should ask some elevating questions. Think of elevating questions as those that allow you to zoom out and get the big picture. Sometimes, if we focus too much on the small, finite details, we have a very difficult time seeing the bigger issues. By using elevating questions, not only can you get more insight into what your customers need from you, you can also see different connections and take note of how everything is fitting together. If things aren’t fitting together, some adjustment might be in order.
When we think about the art of asking questions, it is normal to feel like the question answerers are seen as “better” than the question askers. However, think about the insight that you can gain by asking bigger and better questions. At the end of the day, those who learn how to ask questions are certainly going to get more information than those who spout off the answers without a second thought.
In your MSP marketing, it’s imperative to know that your efforts are being picked up by the right people. However, you can’t know that unless you start asking the right questions. Though asking questions can put you in a vulnerable position, it can also help to boost all your IT marketing efforts.
