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Branding Of Managed Services Products - Help!
Posted By: anoure on 11/6/2009 12:17 PM (CST) 250 Points
My client is a very successful IT solutions provider. They offer a full-range of services and products from the HP, Cisco, MS, SonicWALL, Trend Micro, etc. One of their offerings for the past 2 yrs has been managed services solutions. Which is a pretty broad term in the industry. They have had a difficult time selling this service as it is relatively new but white hot in the industry and so there's a bit of education that needs to go along with the selling and more specifically so defining of exactly what they do.

Recently, I've been asked to come up with some brand names to help define the products offered under this service.

The products are a basic monitoring service called "Basic", a proactive monitoring and response service called "ProActive" and finally a fully-managed service which is basically all you can eat buffet of managed services monitoring called, you guessed it, Fully-Managed.
All of the above 3 products have additional add-ons as well: 1) 24x7 onsite service and 2) backup and disaster recovery. These are two add-ons currently not called anything.

The sales team has not done a whole lot with selling this over the past two years as they are confused about what we actually do. We have done the homework of defining exactly what each product entails and exactly what each add on entails. Now we just need to rename them something that implies what they are. This is what I need help with.

Some competitors have used words like Safety-D, Watch Dog, Guardian, etc. I would like something that shows the multi-tiered aspect of this (basic is cheapest, fully-managed gives them everything and is most expensive).
I was thinking Silver, Gold, Platinum and then the add-ons maybe Plus. So Silver Plus, etc.

I would like some other ideas as these don't seem all that creative. Does anyone have any ideas of what I could call these 3 products and 2 add ons?



Posted by: NovaHammer Accepted Answer
11/6/2009 1:06 PM (CST)
Olympic references could be put to good use....with Winter Olympics around the corner the Medal Winner Levels should be clear spots on your Podium!


with any appriopriate Prefix ..Bronze, Silver Gold, with Limited and Unlimited as Extras /quantifiers.

Rocket imagery 1st, 2nd & 3rd stage Boosters??

 

Posted by: Jay Hamilton-Roth Accepted Answer
11/7/2009 7:03 AM (CST)
Highest: SWAT Team or Threat Level Red
Medium: Police Response or Threat Level Yellow
Lowest: Security or Threat Level Green

Options: 24/7 & Insurance

 

Posted by: stlubahn Accepted Answer
11/7/2009 6:36 PM (CST)
Having led sales and marketing at a network security and managed services provider, I understand the issues you are face. I would shy away from bronze/silver/gold as many IT firms are already doing that. Try to name your levels so it is clear to the buyer what the main difference is from the name of possible.

Also, I would suggest you might want to really consider if three levels is appropriate. More choices can equal more confusion. You might consider two levels - a standard and a premium. The more options you have, the more to explain, and the secret to selling managed services is two fold 1) get them to trust you, and 2) make IT understandable for the average customer.

That being said, do consider names will build trust. It could be as simple as Defender and Defender Plus (just using an example, not suggesting Defender is right for you). Also be sure your sales literature and proposals clearly show the difference between the levels, use a table or other methods so there are no surprises for the client.

Steve
 

Posted by: carrie77 Moderator Response
11/17/2009 7:21 AM (CST)
Hi Everyone,

I am closing this question since there has been no activity in 10 days.

Thanks for participating!
Carrie (Production Editor)
 



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