VARs get the Xact message

Specialist channel marketing firm Xact Marketing has seen business double over the past 12 months as more resellers realise the importance of getting the right message out to customers.

Set up in 2007 by channel veteran Damien Harold, who ran VAR IT Partnerships for nine years, Xact was then joined a year later by Geoff Undrell, who previously worked as UK marketing manager at SCC.

Working as joint managing directors, the pair have amassed a team of 18, with more than 100 years of channel expertise between them, and are actively recruiting more staff.

The company works by offering a combination of telemarketing activities to generate new leads and marketing consultancy to help channel players portray the right image to their customers.

Undrell said as vendors get more savvy about how to dish out marketing collateral, resellers need to work in a smarter way to secure funding.

“We can help resellers get more out of their customer base by offering creative, high-value technology,” he said.

“A lot of resellers have hit a glass ceiling, where they are unable to take
their company beyond a certain size. Many think that throwing more sales people at the problem will help, but really it is about smart marketing and understanding how the buying dynamics of customers have changed.”

Harold added many resellers were still too stuck in their ways.

“There is a new breed of resellers out there that are not talking about products, but what to do with the products to make them better,” he said. “Most of these companies are succeeding. It is amazing how many resellers are still living in a bygone era, where services account for less than five per cent of their business. A lot of these firms have put marketing on the backburner, but more are now starting to see how it can make a difference.”

He added that Xact Marketing is also starting to see more work come its way from distributors and vendors.

One such vendor is Sunbelt Software, which has engaged Xact to help it build an EMEA channel.

David Parkin, EMEA sales director at Sunbelt, said: “Our product is classed as the next-generation of anti-virus software and we needed a channel to sell it through.

Xact is helping us put together end user campaigns and offer partners qualified leads of between 20-30 per cent margin per customer.”