Know-How Exchange : Strategy

I hope you have a co-spending model with resellers, meaning they pay part of the joint campaign. Preferably on a results-basis.

Example: we would ask resellers to organize a series of seminars for which we created all the materials (to be co-branded). We would then fund a base fee per event and add a per-attendee budget for the reseller. Follow-up was fully in the hands of the reseller. We changed this campaign to include a per-lead payout once we had a common lead tracking system in place.

We also organized a series of round-tables with our consulting partners, based on joint customer successes, where we would create the co-branded materials, do the send-out of invites (we combined our addresses with theirs). They did most of the presentations and had the reference customer attend.

Going through distribution, we created a specific solution package, which included our software and products the distributor sold. We created solution sales and marketing pieces for their resellers, did a sales and technical half-day training, created a solution web site, listing the resellers involved and provided sales material to the resellers. Note that resellers wanted a flexible package, where they could slot in some of their own preferred components.

Sarah,

你是一个100%的渠道公司,或你哈ve a direct sales component as well?

Do you provide your resellers with any marketing/sales tools? Some you should consider are:
*Regular flyers/advertisements that are end-user friendly and can be sent via mail or email blast.
*Recorded training programs for the end-user. (Webinars are good for this.)
*Education programs for the reseller.
*Promotional products for the resellers to give out.
*提供回扣或审判。
*Online virtual tours of the product and an extremely well designed website they can direct prospects to for information.
*Contest for the resellers with a great prize that will motivate the individual reps to push your products.

I also received an email today from BtoB Online that they have a new e-newsletter focused on planning tech-focused marketing campaigns. You may want to sign-up for it:
https://www.btobonline.com/



Promotional Idea:
If the resellers are B2B, maybe you could give them web keys with the product name/logo printed on them to hand out to prospects. The key has a button that automatically takes the user to a pre-programmed link. It can go to a page that gives a virtual demonstration of the product, a Whitepaper that contains information the end-user will find valuable or anything else you feel would increase interest in your product. For additional value out of this type of promotional product you can pick one that doubles as a USB Hub.

You can check out an example of these types of web keys at the links below. Feel free to email me via my profile if you want additional suggestions for unique promotional products to fit your campaign.
https://teamworld.logomall.com/ProductDetail/ProductDetail.aspx?Ntt=web+but...
or
https://teamworld.logomall.com/ProductDetail/ProductDetail.aspx?Ntt=web+but...

Co-op programs are the most abused sector of the distributor world. I have seen co-op funds used to pay for owners pet projects (Harley trips, box seats, fishing vacations.. you name it). I have also seen co-op programs that really add value to everybody concerned.

I believe strongly in using co-op funds as a tool to see that the right things are really accomplished. Targeting, Planning, Getting key customers back to headquarters and joint activity reporting are all examples of this. And there are good examples of organizations whose distributors have outperformed the market by 8-9% year over year for the past 25 years by doing this.

If you want specific examples, contact me and I will share them. I hesitate to pass along information like this over a public forum. I dont want to sound self serving but this is what we excel in doing.

Frank Hurtte