The SMAs and Ice and a Slice - Meet the contenders

We interviewed channel marketing firm, Ice and a Slice, about their proudest moments in the last year and the current state of the channel

Thursday 29 June at Leonardo Royal Hotel, Tower Bridge, we will find out the winners of the Sales and Marketing Awards 2023 and in the lead up to the event we met with some of the contenders.

This time we speak to Ice and a Slice managing director, Rachel Ball.

Ball has been in the IT Channel for over 30 years, starting in Hutchison Telecom and working her way up to head up marketing communications at various Global telecoms companies before moving agency side and starting Ice and a Slice Studios almost 6 years ago.

Ice and a Slice are nominated for best channel marketing/PR agency at the SMAs 2023.

Why do you think awards like the SMAs matter?

The sales and marketing functions within any business are fundamental to its success, and this is just as true in the channel industry.

The teams who work tirelessly for the businesses and clients they work with or for should be recognised for what they do and achieve, and the SMAs are at the heart of this recognition.

Everyone wants to go and everyone wants to win such a sought-after award.

What would winning this award mean to your company?

For a small growing business like ours, winning an award from CRN means so much.

To receive the recognition from an important channel industry body acknowledges all the hard work our teams do for our valued clients.

We've been incredibly fortunate to be shortlisted for the SMAs before and to be recognised along side our peers in the industry is a brilliant buzz. Hopefully this year is the one we win.

What would you say is your company's proudest achievement over the past year?

Growth, despite the challenges that all companies are facing with the cost of living crisis and business costs surging and on the back of COVID, running a business is tough.

We are proud to be able to say we have grown our client base, employees and revenue by over 30 per cent in the last year, quite an achievement in these turbulent times.

What have been the biggest challenges of 2023 so far and how have you overcome them?

In the current climate marketing budgets are being cut, yet the need to create demand, pipeline and sales is ever greater.

We are focussed on creating innovative marketing programmes that offer value for money and the ability to measure success/ ROI.

This is increasingly important to prove what activities work and really deliver, therefore helping to secure further spend.

How have your people helped with that?

No team can be a success without every member of it mucking in and helping out.

This is never more true that with the team at ICE. Everyone is valued and everyone can be a part of something.

With the challenges we have faced, working as a team to overcome these which sometimes means moving outside of your traditional role has been fundamental to our success.

How do you think the channel has changed over the past year and what changes do you think it still needs to make?

The channel is constantly evolving (which is what makes it such an exciting area to work in.)

Over the last year we've seen a shift with our clients in their move back to face-to-face activity. During covid digital was king, and it definitely still is, but the channel is recognising that face-to-face still has a place and can't be ignored.

The opportunity for industry peers to come together, be that in a networking or a sales capacity is hugely important and we have seen businesses recognise this again which is a really exciting move.

The SMA awards for example are a highlight in the Channel calendar and that does come down to the fact you get to see and meet with other members of your industry in a single place which doesn't happen very often.

What do you see as the main opportunities for the channel in the coming year? How do you plan to capitalise on those opportunities?

With the vendors continued desire and business strategies to move to SaaS solutions and recurrent revenue models through the channel, there are huge sales and marketing opportunities to promote, engage and enable resellers and partners to grow their business with these new offerings.

Also the growth of the MSP market is a great opportunity for partners to offer broader service offerings to their customers and this creates further business opportunities for Agencies like Ice to develop growth programmes.

We are already designing and implementing campaigns for distributors and vendors for 2023 to capitalise and educate within these growth areas.