Channel & Co-Op Marketing

Somewhere between 40% and 70% of sales are sourced through a channel partner, dealer or reseller. With so much dependence by manufacturers on their channel partners, the relationships need to be made stronger than ever. Research is showing that there is an alarming trend towards the severing of these alignments at worst, or an increasing tension at best. KL&P can help you give a renewed focus and connection in the channel. We do this by targeting four main drivers:

1. Research is King: By integrating channel, end-customer and employee research, you can identify critical drivers and existing gaps to better align your channel around activities that drive business results for both you and your partner.
2. Understand the differences: Because all your partners are not the same, you need to chart and segment them by the audiences they serve, demographically and culturally. You'll go a long way towards developing the right tools to help make them effective communicators.
3. Develop missionaries and mavens: Building brand advocates in the channel requires enabling distributor and VAR employees to become trusted business partners, co-creating business plans that connect the goals of both parties and communicating best practices through new and existing channels.
4. Reward and recognize performance: Reward and recognize your top and middle performers through awards and self-funding points-based incentive programs that capture mindshare. KL&P has some robust and engaging solutions.

MULTI-CHANNEL MARKETING

Much higher returns are gained when organizations use personalized communications in multiple channels. KL&P can help you develop an effective campaign that breaks through the clutter. One recent client in the financial services sector wanted to increase exposure of a new retirement investment product. The first step was to do what we all have been doing for many years- collecting data about the prospective customer audience using key demographic factors. That was the end of what was traditional.

A full-color brochure, personalized to the individual recipient, was generated explaining the investment returns over the long term based on that customer’s current income bracket. The CTA (call to action) in this direct mail piece is a PURL (personalized URL) that drives them to a website with a personalized welcome page. Interactive and intriguing, the site guides them to learning about the company, researching the offer and enticing them to either chat live with the company or be called by a representative.

Timed with the direct mail drop is an e-mail campaign with identical branding and messaging with a link to the same PURL. Once the company monitors click-through results at the website, telemarketing is initiated for those who clicked on a page that invited the company to make contact.

The effectiveness of this campaign is easily analyzed and optimized in real-time by marketing managers with robust web tools, enabling a closed-loop system. As such, the comparison of returns became clear to the client as we summarized the results:

These are not unusual rates of return for multi-channel campaigns when they are energized by personalized strategies. When expected average order sizes are multiplied by massive increases in effective capture, your sales revenue is increased by leverage, not more sweat. KL&P wants to help you work smarter, not harder. Disjointed, uncoordinated marketing is not only a waste of money. It can also lead to a degradation of your brand by allowing what we call “message creep”, the slow dilution of your narrative as competitors fill in the gaps. Let’s get together and plan a coordinated, multiple-channel campaign that is creative, one-to-one and makes you lots of money!

CO-OP MARKETING

Trade dollars are certainly available, but are they being effectively applied? KL&P is not an administrator of co-op marketing funds. But we do know how to get the best bang for the buck out of these budgets. Product manufacturers with reseller networks know how vital it is to coordinate and leverage marketing activities. More than ever your marketing budgets are under scrutiny, while at the same time there’s ever growing pressure to achieve sales goals. Your reseller co-op marketing budget is one of your major expense line items.

KL&P offers powerful alternatives to the bland and boring tradition of newspaper ads. Trade allowances can be applied in much more effective ways, tied into personalized marketing strategies as we’ve discussed in the section above. Promotional products, direct mail, event marketing, social media and sales promotion can fill out the picture in ways that allow you to test, track and tweak your campaign. Your vendor fairs and events can be super-charged. Your VAR’s can be enlisted and motivated to go above and beyond. Don’t settle for mediocre results.

A dynamic approach to your trade allowance initiatives can turn your national TV, magazine and newspaper programs into more than just local versions. The right approach can drill your message down into the very households you need to reach.