This is a guest blog post by Stacie Hill, Head of Marketing at Ultima.

I’m thrilled to be on the hot seat at the next episode of the Citrix Partner Marketing Masterclass series on Wednesday May 18! 

I’ve been at Ultima for over six years now and have grown through the ranks to my current role as Head of Marketing.  

Like many of you, the pandemic changed our business and we were forced to pivot. While the past couple of years presented several challenges, one benefit we were afforded was the time to pause and rethink how we want to communicate and interact with our market. 

Talking Like Humans 

Like most MSPs, we were guilty of talking in tech jargon. It’s how our technical people are comfortable talking. And for a long time, it’s how my marketing team assumed our prospects wanted us to talk and demonstrate our expertise. However, we realized that if we stick only to tech terms, then differentiating ourselves from our competitors is very difficult. 

So we decided to focus on talking like humans. Astonishing, yes? 

Now I should mention that my company is rather progressive and open to change. I’m fortunate that my COO and the rest of leadership appreciate marketing and the impact it can have on our success. And I think everyone on the team had an inkling that we probably needed to change how we spoke to our prospects and customers. 

Our Event Series 

One initiative that bolstered the idea of connecting in a more human way was an experiential event series we conducted. In the past, we would invite people to attend technical webinars that would last 30 minutes. The engagement would be OK, but the audience was typically limited to technical roles. 

We decided to change things up.  

Our goal was to access the C-suite (CEO, CTO, IT Director), and we knew that a standard, technical presentation wouldn’t be compelling since they receive loads of invites. So, we started hosting events where people could enjoy a fun experience and still learn. We did guided tasting events which worked for both live and virtual settings. In the virtual instance, we shipped a package of goodies to attendees to get them involved in the event right from the start. 

To our surprise and delight, clients opened up and started engaging more! We got to know them better and learned more about what they were trying to achieve, including the business outcomes. Our sales team loved the new conversations they were having and noticed a huge improvement in engagement as our attendance at these events skyrocketed. 

Register for the Citrix Partner Marketing Masterclass 

This is only one of the innovative ways we’ve evolved our marketing strategy in the past couple of years. I’m excited to share more about this story, the company rebrand that we conducted in eight weeks (yes, you read that right), and more on May 18 during my episode of the Citrix Partner Marketing Masterclass. I also look forward to getting the opportunity to chat with you and answer any questions you may have live during the session. 

Register for my Masterclass Episode, and be sure to catch past episodes on demand. 

I hope to see you there!