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Special report: Take partners by the hand

Paul Bray investigates why vendors should spend on next-generation marketing campaigns to keep channel sales flowing

The man who builds a better mousetrap can sit back and watch the world beat a path to his door, as American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said.

What Emerson forgot to add is that this period of plenty may be short lived. Copycat mousetraps soon appear and direct sellers undercut prices. Cheesemongers claim it is the bait that matters most, not the hardware. Consumers get savvy and will not part with a penny until they have checked out deals on rodenttraps.com.

Soon, Better Mousetraps Inc is struggling to keep its brand alive in a congested and commoditised market, and instead of resellers beating a path to its door, it has to work its socks off to keep their custom.
Substitute PC products for mousetraps, and this paints a pretty accurate picture of how things have turned out during the past decade.

"In this age of technology commoditisation and convergence, most vendors lack the means to compel their channel partners to work with them simply because their product is the best or the only one available," says Mike Morgan, chief operating officer of web-based channel management solutions vendor Foundations Network Limited (FNL). "Today, partner programmes themselves have to be the differentiator."

Wise vendors provide what Morgan calls a "to, through and with channel marketing approach", treating their channel partners like customers and employing partner relationship management (PRM) in the same way that a retailer would use CRM.

Distributors do not often generate user demand for products, Morgan believes, so the focus of a vendor's PRM should be its VARs, system integrators and other resellers.

"They will really value the ability to get the tools, resources and support they need from a vendor quickly and efficiently," says Morgan. "PRM is definitely aimed at the second tier and it is here, where vendor relationships are typically at their weakest, that it can have the greatest impact in driving channel revenue growth."

Resellers still expect to receive written and statistical information from vendors. But traditional, static, generic marketing materials are expensive for the vendor to produce and are of little use to the reseller, says Michael Buck, director of channel marketing at Dell.

"What resellers want today are tools that can help them target customers more effectively, delivered via well-managed online portals, customisable e-templates, and downloadable information ranging from data sheets to white papers," he says.

However, his laudable aim can backfire if vendors pack their portals with so much information that resellers never have time to get to grips with it. "Channel partners ask for a lot of information and support, but the more you give them the more lost and confused they tend to get," says Ewa Johnson, marketing director at Oki, which is streamlining its partner portal to focus on supporting live interaction with customers.

Resellers used to be lucky to receive a few leads and some generic campaign templates from their vendors. But today they can reasonably expect vendors to tailor their approach to play to the strengths of each individual partner or at least, provide the tools for the reseller to do its own tailoring.

"With the right technology platform it is relatively straightforward to present individuals and companies with the materials and assets most suited to their specific expertise, target markets and customers," says Morgan.

"Vendors should provide their partners with a marketing toolkit customisable tools, assets and source materials to develop their own campaigns and synchronise them with those of the vendor to maximise market impact."

Marije Stijnen, director of corporate marketing at backup and archiving vendor Tandberg Data, says: "The beauty of a segmented partner programme that offers tailored marketing programmes is that our partners can identify appropriate material, produce their own e-shots, banners, promotions, p rofessional collateral, and even run events with minimal marketing overhead in keeping with their own needs."

Electronic systems should also enable a vendor to make itself easier to do business with, says Toby Jones, SME channel marketing manager at telecoms vendor Colt, which recently launched an online platform enabling resellers to view orders, bills, tickets and services for both their own Colt account and the accounts of their customers.

Increased distribution
White-labelled e-commerce systems are starting to appear, as vendors seek to increase their reach without burdening resellers with extra overheads. Hosted voice over IP (VoIP) vendor Inclarity recently set up a white-labelled online ordering service to enable its resellers to target small firms with up to ten users, where traditional marketing does not always deliver enough profit.

But vendors should beware of over reliance on electronic media, warns Stijnen.

"The mistake we have seen some of our competitors make is to become too automated, providing a portal as the only mechanism of communication. In 30 years of working with the channel, we have found that it is necessary for each accredited channel partner to have a single, dedicated channel account manager to encourage two-way proactive planning, communication and sales management.

"An emphasis on two-way communication is essential for success, and requires continuous access to a reliable and well-informed contact for each area," agrees Colin Birchall, Steljes account manager at reseller Rapid Technologies. "This allows the reseller to discuss areas of development and issues as and when they arise.

"This co-branded relationship benefits the reseller via the halo effect of big-brand association. However, the vendor also benefits from personalisation of its brand via the interaction between the reseller and its customers. It's a two-way relationship and the reseller expects a high level of involvement."

Many of the firms to which CRN spoke, including Colt, Infortrend, Microsoft, Steljes, Toshiba and Zyxel, agreed it was vital to actively collaborate with partners what Morgan calls "providing the channel with the means to wrap its value proposition around that of the vendor".

"The key is to work more closely with partners on targeted campaigns," says Tim Webb, EMEA general manager at Toshiba Business Communications Division. "This ensures the return on investment for both firms is maximised and allows the partner to draw on expertise it may not have in-house and take advantage of the purchasing power of the vendor's brand."

United efforts
Colt has set up a formal joint marketing development programme with its partners, which it regards as just as important to its own success as to that of its resellers. "The future success of vendors' marketing campaigns relies on their ability to
deliver truly innovative, integrated campaigns with a clearly defined objective, message and target audience," says Jones.

Vendors' marketing support is becoming more focused, says Rebecca Brookes, channel marketing manager at asset tracking vendor Zebra Technologies. "We have a dedicated marketing team offering partners important information such as market sizing, key applications, case studies and user testimonials within each market."

Collaboration can extend to creating solutions for individual customers, to the benefit of both vendor and reseller, says Birchall.
"Steljes and Rapid Technologies work together to provide total solutions designed around the customer's requirements," he says.

"This tailored approach positions the brand with the consumer as a total solutions provider, not just a supplier of disconnected products."

Morgan says vendors should treat their partners like extensions of their own marketing team, giving them all the information they need as soon as it is available and keeping it up to date for the duration of the product lifecycle.

The message seems to be percolating through to vendors. "We offer our partners access to the same training, support and level of marketing expertise we offer our direct sales team and, so far, it is paying dividends," says Martyn Lambert, vice president of marketing at networking vendor Avaya, which introduced a more streamlined and tailored channel strategy last year.

Vendors are realising the advisability of providing their channels with training and advice. Fujitsu Siemens' new reseller accreditation programme includes free product and solution training.

"This is a big investment to help improve the sales and technical skills for each accredited partner, and to counteract the effect of price erosion on hardware products by enabling partners to sell effective solutions," says Ian Newall, Fujitsu Siemens' director of commercial and channel business.

Networking vendor Novell's focus is to offer marketing strategy advice to its best resellers, says the vendor's partner director, Jill Henry. "We increasingly see that high-value partners want to feed off a vendor's marketing expertise to help build a real business case and provoke demand in key sectors. We run more and more of these types of sessions with our best, highest-value partners."

Networking opportunity
Storage vendor Overland hosts an annual two-day event for its top resellers and distributors to reveal the company's product pipeline and discuss the channel's support requirements. "These have a social aspect, with the most recent UK event including a paintball tank battle," adds Chris James, Overland's EMEA marketing director.

Co-branding is one way of building on the reputation of both reseller and vendor. Networking vendor Nortel has taken on a specialist channel marketing agency to manage the co-branding, execution and rollout of joint marketing campaigns to enable resellers to concentrate on following up the resulting leads.

Co-funding of marketing by vendors can also be highly beneficial, although they should focus their cash where it counts, says Morgan. "A targeted, co-operative, marketing funding programme, aimed at supporting only those activities with a predictably high return on investment for vendor and partner, is one of the best forms of marketing support a vendor can provide to its channel," he claims.

"When combined with easily accessible marketing tools, downloadable assets and campaign builders through a partner portal, this can be powerful provided that funds are awarded on merit and not automatically." End-to-end, lead-generation campaigns and lead-registration programmes can also be very valuable, adds Morgan.

On the campaign trail
James describes a model setup. "Overland runs direct mail and telemarketing campaigns to generate leads for its resellers. These leads are allocated to a specific reseller via Overland's web-based partner portal, which enables resellers to pick up and track leads. A loyalty points system has also been added."

To avoid messy competition within their own channel, a number of vendors are implementing lead registration programmes.
"Any smart vendor that relies on the channel will be keen to protect the efforts of its distributors and resellers when they have been working on a specific project, to ensure they are not undercut at the last minute," says Rick Dudson, EMEA sales director at RAID storage vendor Infortrend.

"This is achieved by registering projects against the partners which bring them to the table first, and providing them with technical, sales and, where applicable, price support. When channel partners have no leads protection programme in place, their focus and loyalty can falter."

So just what can resellers expect to gain from the caring, sharing, new-look, 21st century vendor? "Plentiful supply of demand and product awareness from customers. A steady stream of well-qualified and partner-matched sales leads; minimised channel conflict; and access to the tools and resources they need to market the vendor's products," said Morgan.