When Kurt Ling joined mattress maker Simmons Bedding in 1999 as its vice president of branding, he didn’t get a computer for three weeks. Needless to say, he couldn’t get much work done. The IT department finally procured a PC for Ling, but failed to consider that he might need a printer too. Eventually Ling blew his stack: "Do you want me to just buy a stupid printer on my own?" he hollered at an IT employee in his office. "Oh no. You can’t do that," the staffer responded flatly. Ling thought he had entered a Dilbert comic strip.

Yet seven years later...in spite of that and subsequent frustrating experiences with IT, Ling has become one of the biggest champions of Simmons’ 50-person IT department. He’s raved about them in presentations to executives at Simmons’ annual National Leadership Meeting. He believes that IT has become the most customer-focused group in the entire company. He says the service IT now provides exceeds his expectations. And, he says, "I know that our systems aren’t the most up-to-date, but I’ve got to tell you, I wouldn’t trade our IT department for anything."

How did this change in perception happen? In response to his own epiphany about bad service from IT, Simmons CIO Wade Vann launched an IT marketing campaign—a multipronged effort consisting of a brochure and articles, weeklong educational events for users and, most importantly, an ongoing effort to instill a service mentality and customer focus among his IT staff. Vann grades his employees on their contacts with customers (as Simmons users are now known) and tries to model, with his own behavior, his belief that every interaction with a business user is an opportunity to market IT.

It’s become a truism that CIOs must speak about IT’s processes and possibilities in the language of business. Yet some CIOs are uncomfortable with marketing efforts—the dreaded "M" word. They tend to regard marketing as an instrument of deception, manipulation or just plain hot air. CIOs have themselves fallen victim to technology vendors’ overblown promises, and they fear looking like blowhards in the eyes of users. Marketing even runs contrary to what many CIOs do, which is manage (read: downplay) users’ expectations of IT, says Paul Willmott, a partner in McKinsey & Co.’s IT practice.

Yet marketing can be a killer app for IT departments. A CIO magazine survey published in 2004 linked marketing efforts to more transparent IT value and cost, higher customer loyalty and increased productivity from IT staffers. (See "The Secret Weapon: Internal Marketing," www.cio.com/050104 and "IT Marketing Smarts," Page 22.) Done right, IT marketing goes far beyond slick brochures; it’s about getting to know your customers and demonstrating the IT group’s value, says Martha Inman Lorch, founder and president of Market Perspectives Group, a consultancy that offers training in marketing IT value internally. Or as Vann puts it, marketing "is really about giving the customer what they want and staying in touch with the customer." And what self-respecting IT department doesn’t want to do that?