Become the market leader

According to Lowe, having a presence on the Microsoft site means ASI is able to play on both sides of the fence.

“We are working with the customers going into the MS site and we are also looking for SMB customers,” she said.

Michael Costigan, marketing director at Avnet Technology Solutions, said online marketing is increasingly becoming mainstream.

“It offers electronic direct mail and allows for short, succinct and targeted addresses to business needs,” Costigan said.

“You can provide an embedded hot link to drive to vendor or partner sites and you can also use blogs etc.

“While we haven’t yet seen the blog take a huge effect in the channel area, it offers huge potential, as does social networking.

“Online search marketing is essential. There are one or two sophisticated partners looking at Google and how to optimise their names and we as an organisation actively pursue Google.”

Lowe said the Internet offers a wide range of marketing tools and different schemes to attract a user’s business such as frequent flyer programs.

“We get a lot of Google referrals and emails and we are getting a huge amount of interest. So make sure you are on search engine lists.”

Lowe said having a website that is up-to-the-minute and continually updated is essential and ASI is currently working on a major graphics redesign of its website.

“You have to make sure you continually update your site if you are working with multiple verticals and multiple customers.

“Because of the variety of customers logging on you have to provide the most appropriate information around the particular user, while keeping it succinct and simple.”

Lowe said that a lot of companies with a web presence run into difficulties when they don’t provide even the most essential contact details.

“A lot of people, when they log onto the websites, want to search and then contact you. But contact details are often embedded and they can’t actually call you and this business is selling, so email and phone numbers must be up-to-date and consistent.”

She also said having terminology that is current is essential. What was acceptable just two years ago might now be obsolete.

“For example to get consistency in organisations what they might previously have called a help desk, is now referred to as a services desk. You must have consistent terminology but also offer a site where users can get service quickly.

“Getting that right and conveying simple messages, while making it easy to access and continually updating and upgrading the website, is essential.”

Anthony Toope, national marketing manager IT, Samsung, said the key aspects to successful marketing for resellers come from what are available from vendors and what is online.

“If looked at it from conventional support for resellers, we have a dedicated reseller website, samsung.com online, which provides a whole list of facilities and technical information and point of sale material and brochures.”

Toope explained that the significance of being online as a vendor and as resellers is that a lot more focus has been placed on online advertising, with online spending doubling in the past two years.

“The vendor and reseller cannot afford to ignore the “youth-minded consumer” who aspire to be young of mind but are not limited by age and are looking for greater use of a product delivering a higher benefit,” he said.

According to Toope, research shows that customers are twice as likely to go online.

“So then we ask where are the customers going to get their information online? The most popular items are reviews and blogs as reliable sources of information, along with the vendor’s website,” Toope said.

He also added that content is king. Independent information and reviews are seen as being more valuable to the user than generated content.

“If you could make the site content-rich and linked to independent reviews, the user is able to go online to gather information rather than just going to a brochure. Customers more than ever are conducting online research to make their decision.”

Amy Zammit, IBM business partner marketing manager, said resellers should be aware of the dollars as well as the relationship between reseller and vendor.

There is the possibility of sharing marketing activities and a lot of the time the vendor can run events on 50-50 basis.
Zammit said that business partner marketing is a huge focus for IBM and its strategy to go to market through the reseller.

“We drive most of our business through resellers. Our hardware marketing budget is up 50 percent over the last year,” she said.

IBM’s focus is on trying to ensure the vendor’s marketing dollars are providing enough funding for their resellers.

“Funding goes to key partners but we try to make marketing resources available to our resellers so our partners can leverage bigger budgets so they can focus on a bigger market coverage,” she said.

Zammit added that common problems among resellers include little or no marketing budget focused on business and sales and they find it hard to justify a marketing budget that doesn’t show immediate return.

“One of the key areas is that partners go to market but don’t really know how to market,” she said. “This gives us an opportunity to provide solutions – not just product – but the complete package to enable our sales reps to sell to the partner.

“We have a 10-day approval process, in which all information gets packaged up and put it into our marketing program which keeps rolling every quarter while adding value to our partners.”

Zammit explained that IBM also offers a campaign designer tool online.

“Any partner can access the website and register for free. It allows them to customise templates to add to their own solution and details,” she said. It offers a complete template already formatted and if they want to do direct mail or email.

“We have also trialled this year Campaign in a Box. Resellers operating in a space such as blades or storage can enter their own details and messaging and then send the solution to customers across Australia and New Zealand.