Grabbing the gold dust

Is the channel missing out by failing to harness the web's power to bring easy leads to its door, asks Doug Woodburn

With quality sales leads currently like gold dust, some believe the channel is missing a trick by failing to tap into the full potential of the web to generate prospects.

Consumers shopping for insurance products commonly start their search on price comparison sites such as Gocompare or Moneysupermarket.

But now a new portal has emerged which aims to repeat that trick in the B2B IT space by "putting the market in touch with the channel".

Although IT search portals for the channel are nothing new - Conjungo being one example of a more established player (see bottom) - Comparetheware.com hopes to be the first to take the UK reseller and vendor community by storm.

With a bloodhound as its mascot, the venture has grown out of distributor Computerlinks and already enjoys the backing of 25 vendors in the security space, including Check Point and Websense. It is slated to hard-launch to end users in the second quarter of 2012.

Comparetheware.com aims to help IT buyers make their purchasing decisions based on impartial and reliable information, which it claims is currently scarce on the web.

It drove home this point by citing research suggesting that although 70 per cent of B2B buyers start from a search engine, 65 per cent maintain they cannot easily find the information they want.

According to the poll, which was carried out by Vanson Bourne, some 39 per cent of buyers said that unreliable information is a problem, with 40 per cent rating time as an issue in making decisions.

One-to-many

End users visiting Comparetheware.com are matched with up to three resellers based on the technology they are searching for, their choice of vendor, and the services and support that they require. Resellers register for free but have the option of purchasing leads generated through the site, starting at £25. Vendors must stump up from £5,000 annually to list their technology.

Comparetheware.com co-founder Craig Moody said the portal will help resellers by accelerating the sales cycle and gener-ating affordable, high-quality leads.

"The web is an untapped area for prospect gathering and the channel is still working out how to approach that," Moody said.

"Other forms of lead generation like tele-marketing could cost anything up to £300 per lead. With Comparetheware.com, the end user has made a conscious decision and is halfway through the buying cycle. It is probably one of the most qualified leads you are ever going to get, as the end user has picked you."

The site launched to the channel last week and already has some reseller recruits, including Storm Technologies. It aims to recruit 1,000 resellers and 50 to 100 vendors in its first year.

However, Etienne Greeff, director of security integrator SecureData, expressed doubts that "one-to-many" marketing techniques still work in the social media age.

"This is a message that is about eight years old. It is not how demand generation works any more," he said.

"Eight years ago, you used adwords, but now it has moved on to personal recommendations. End users go onto forums, LinkedIn and blogs to pose questions to people with similar problems, and it is all based on one-to-one recommendations, not one-to-many."

Greeff said VARs are better off honing their social media strategies by getting technical staff to tweet and blog to build a reputation as experts in their field.

"One of our Juniper guys is known to be a world expert in his area and it is all to do with social media," claimed Greeff.

More than a directory

However, Moody stressed that Comparetheware.com is more than just a directory. Enhancements, including a chat zone and five-minute tender builder for end users, will be added through the course of the year.

The portal will also soon begin offering other technologies including networking, storage, VoIP, cloud, virtualisation and client hardware, added Moody.

And he stressed that Comparetheware.com is designed to complement the channel's existing dynamics, not to "take over and change things".

"We are drawing on the best of consumer sites, such as Gocompare and Moneysupermarket, but not all of it," he said. "The leads are competitively priced and there is no obligation for the resellers to accept any of the leads that are passed on to them. It is a low-risk, low-cost route to market and another tool in their marketing tool belt."

Barrie Desmond, group marketing director at distributor Exclusive Networks, liked the concept but questioned whether it would gain sufficient traction.

"How much money are they putting behind this? Are they going to be doing national advertising?" he asked. "If I am a security guy refreshing my firewalls, I'll probably be going to Gartner. If Comparetheware.com offers a comparison of the technologies and links them to resellers, I like the sound of it. But I don't know if it has the longevity to get into the end-user community."

Moody countered: "There is a substantial budget in place for end-user marketing and we will use a pilot-and-refine approach."

Conjungo proclaims death of directory model

Comparetheware.com is not the only IT search portal mounting a channel offensive this year - established rival Conjungo is also courting resellers with a refreshed business model.

Founded in 2008, Conjungo now claims to list 11,406 resellers, 2,280 of which have a premier listing with the firm.

Gill Buley (pictured, left), Conjungo's EMEA director of channel sales and marketing, admitted the directory model with which it launched has become outmoded. The firm consequently rolled out a new platform in November, Conjungo2market, focused on measuring RoI.

Buley said: "Directories are a simple platform to generate leads for vendors and resellers, but having been established in the market for some time now, with more than 133,000 registered users and about 14,000 hits per month, we have learned that it is not about quantity - it's about quality and real measurement. The market has moved on."

Conjungo2market allows resellers to see how many views their profile page has received, as well as who has viewed it. Resellers can also upload and manage their own digital assets, such as white papers, case studies and videos, and can benefit from a free listing in government procurement system SourceUK.net.

The cost of a premier listing on the site for those who sign up before the end of February has been halved to £70, added Buley.

"It is all about RoI," she said. "Not just how many leads were generated, but did they close and, if so, what was the sale worth? We don't think anyone else is in the position to do that."