Become the market leader

While there are a number of avenues for partners and resellers to take their product to market, there are some pitfalls as well.
Lowe says one aspect that everyone falls down on is following up their leads.

“An enormous amount goes into planning and executing but it is being able to track and report back that is paramount,” she said.

“If you spend the money and you get the leads you have to be able to follow up and sometimes it is a long lead-time. It could be three to six months or even a year before the deal is done.”

Lowe said a lot of organisations have a lot of information but they don’t do enough with it.

“They should be looking at doing it electronically in websites and web optimisation.”

Wayland said know your customer and vendor objectives and you are halfway there. He explained that marketing is all about turning a “suspect into a prospect” and then shortening the selling cycle.

“Even if they are not good at marketing they can keep a good record about customers and segment them into a logical database, which will be a value to the vendor,” Wayland added.

“A lot the vendors’ marketing development funds (MDF) go unspent because they can’t find a cost effective or risk-free activity to get results.

“Golf days are gone and vendors are looking for ROI. What they want from a reseller is a relationship and product relevance.”

Wayland said the next step is for the reseller to understand vendor MDF.

“A good idea will usually get funded and the vendor will find funds to do it,” he explained. “Too few resellers come up with good ideas to drive reseller and vendor value-added activity.”

It is not all about the vendor, it’s about the reseller. If they understand vendor MDF policy, they will understand the list of activities for vendors that they will fund.

Wayland said the other part is to understand how the reseller gets paid and a lot of MDF is on a 50-50 basis.

“The vendor wants to see that the reseller has got some skin in the game and it is not just throwing money around. You have to understand the vendor and how to add value, but the reseller shouldn’t expect marketing dollars to be thrown at them.

Wayland said successful marketing also boils down to the basics of being able to write a document or marketing plan and being able to set out the objectives of a proposed activity and outcome.

“If the reseller can do those simple things, if it works the first time it is likely to be repeated,” he said.

With a lot of emphasis on regulatory requirements by vendors, they have to make sure any money spent is spent prudently, and seen to be spent prudently.

“Understanding MDF policy is essential for the reseller who has to know when and how they get paid because it may be that the cycle of invoices is going to Singapore or US and this will affect payment.”

Costigan said many organisations fall down because they think the company’s marketing strategy is the same as the sales strategy and they view the marketing activity as producing brochures.

“Marketing becomes an afterthought,” he said. “But through our business partners we work with them to understand the power of marketing and the need for strategy and building a marketing plan.

“Establish a marketing strategy and enlisting help is important,” he added.

Simple, but effective, tools can be used in strategic marketing such as sending out an online newsletter once a quarter. Asking for customer feedback is another basic, but useful, method.

Costigan said marketing is a more strategic aspect of the whole process to drive the interest, desire and action of consumer, whereas selling is going out and clinching the deal.
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In marketing it should establish relations with the customer and a long-term relationship is easier to retain than get new customer.”

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