Pick me! Pick me!

According to Rebekah O’Flaherty, Hewlett-Packard’s VP/GM Imaging & Printing Group South Pacific, it is essential to drive both push and pull marketing in order to grow market share.

"That is pull from customers and push from the channel. On the pull marketing front we drive demand to the channel through innovative products and cost leadership," she says, citing examples such as the WebJet Admin, toner and ink alerts, instant-on fuser with no warm-up time, and the first print in 20 seconds offers.

"Our colour LaserJet products also use in-line technology, which allows faster, quieter, better quality and more reliable colour printing. We also use tactical tools like attractive bundles and value adds like rebates, cash backs, trial and trade-in programs."

On the push channel marketing front, HP has invested heavily in education, training and demo programs designed to support HP sales reps in the channel.

The company claims, for instance, that its annual business new product introductions are attended by an average of 1500 reps, and HP’s Education Department trains on average 1500 channel sales people per annum. The channel also has ongoing access to the online HP Partner Academy for product updates and training.

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But as any marketing person will tell you, finding the right promotion for the right time is ultimately very difficult and can mean exhaustive meetings and hours in front of the whiteboard. And so the only way that vendors really have to control the process is to ensure they collect as much information about the promo while it is running.

"The most important thing is measuring the effectiveness of promos," Pleasants says.

HP’s O’Flaherty agrees that it can be difficult to design the best promotions all the time in such a dynamic market, and what works one week may not work the next, while a program that works well in one category may not work well in another.

"Put simply, we have to stay flexible and adapt to the market."

"Incentives are part of the business, always have been and always will be," Pleasants says. "The key is respecting the integrity of the sale made by the reseller."