Circa 65's Blog

Strategy or Tactic? Battle or War?

2011-07-06T18:25:00Z

by Linda Hartman

Which do you have, a marketing strategy or a calendar of tactics; are you planning to win the war or simply a few of the battles? I recently read Katherine Neville’s novel, ‘The 8.’ If you are a Dan Brown fan you’ll enjoy this book. The theme of the book revolves around a human chess match. Throughout the book there are quotes regarding strategy and the game of chess. Two really left an impression:

Tactics are knowing what to do when there is something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do. ~ Savielly Tartakover (Polish chess Grandmaster)

Tactics are short-term moves to position yourself. But strategy is how you win the game.
~ Catherine Neville

This rings true about reseller marketing. Often times, many VARs will plan a calendar of events, that are merely a slew of one-off events. Those are tactics VARs are typically engaging in to satisfy a vendor partner. The outcome of those events aren’t measured and most vendors are happy when a reseller channel partner appears to be ‘driving’ new opportunities. However, how often is a VAR marketing strategy built to satisfy the goals of the organization? A marketing strategy sets the tone of the game and helps to build your willingness to invest in winning the war, not merely the battles.

VAR businesses that know what to do, when no one is knocking at the door asking them to do an event or campaigns, are few and far in-between. As the vendor’s critical connection to the end user, set yourself apart, create a strategy or let us help you create one, that helps you win the war, then in turn, the vendor partners will win in the long run as well.

Top 6 Things to Think About When Creating Your Strategic Marketing Plan

2011-06-30T18:53:00Z

by Linda Hartman

1. Establish Long Term and Short Term Goals
You need the ability to measure anything you plan to implement. Your marketing plan should bring you closer to the goals for your company. Each tactic executed should bring you closer to tangible goals, whether they are revenue, margin, new customers, etc...

2.    New Customers vs. Existing Clients
Within your plan you need to develop a strategy to build your existing client base as well as expand further into current clients. The tactics for each will likely be very different.

3.    Time
Make sure you have a firm grasp on your sales cycles. If you have a plan to find 10 new customers within the next year and your sales cycle is 18 months, then failure is inevitable. Build a realistic time line to plan your events that will drive sales in a timely fashion to meet your goals.

4.    Budget
Have a budget. This will make planning tactics much easier for the entire year. An established budget will allow you to map out an annual calendar of tactics and not worry about funding for each campaign.

5.    Messaging
Make sure you have a strong messaging platform. Everyone from the receptionist to the technical engineers should understand and have the ability to communicate what you do and the value you provide. This will also aid in working with outside agencies to help them understand who you are and your value proposition.

6.    Communication
Create a plan that includes external and internal communication. Touching a customer (in some way) 52 times a year is currently the best in class expectation. That communication can come in a variety of formats, phone calls, webinar/seminar invites, a newsletter, lunch with the sales rep, etc… A VAR marketing plan should also involve vendor communication. You want to make sure your vendors are aware of your proactive marketing and your successes. Ideally, this sets you apart from other channel partners, thus allowing for an unfair share of leads, marketing development funds and creating a go-to-partner relationship with that vendor partner. Internal communication is important to let your employees know what is happening in the company, whether it be events, promotions, successes, change to the strategy, etc…

Bottom line, you need a plan, if you need to remember why, re-visit our previous post, http://blog.circa65.com/blog/circa65/0/0/planning

What You Need to Know About Outsourcing Social Media

2011-06-28T18:31:00Z

When an article on the subject of outsourcing social media came across my desk quite a while back, http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-outsourcing-social-media/, I thought it would be a good idea to get our resident expert to give our VAR audience a few tips to help you with your channel marketing plan, specifically your social media segment.

Leanne Holitza is an integral part of the Circa 65 team and offered the following insights:
Tackling that “where do I start?” issue with social media for any channel partner can be a daunting task. Outsourced marketing, particularly social media, to a knowledgeable expert can be helpful. However, there are some things to consider when outsourcing.

1)    Make sure they know your industry
Just because they are social media experts, doesn’t mean they know how to talk to your audience. The key to social media is to engage in relevant, interesting and useful conversations. If your social media expert doesn’t understand your audience, they won’t know what your audiences wants to hear.

2)    Planning is key
You aren’t going to be able to do everything all at once, nor are you going to want to set up one page that you update only three times a year. Make sure your social media expert is asking you the right questions and planning a strategy and content calendar you can commit to for at least a year.

3)    Get your company on board
No matter how much expertise your social media expert has, this strategy isn’t going to work without your involvement. You will want to work with your social media expert to get recommendations on how to get your company involved at the right level to ensure optimum success before launching the plan.

4)    Monitor
While it is true social media is more challenging to track all the way through a sales cycle, than traditional methods of channel lead generation, there are ways to measure success. Be sure your social media expert has a plan to measure your progress. It is possible.

Bottom line is, if you want to get into social media and you have no idea where to start, outsourcing the effort is an excellent idea. Being paired up with the right partner is crucial to ensuring your effort will yield success.

Strategy - Don't Sell the Marketing Dept Short

2011-06-21T18:08:00Z

by Linda Hartman

On a phone call today with a client, one of the marketing managers made a comment regarding how marketing doesn’t drive the strategy in the company. While I agree that marketing doesn’t necessarily drive the goals of the organization, it does drive the strategy to meet the goal at hand.

In a VAR business, it is the marketing department’s job to create the plan that will lead the business to the goals the leadership has set out. This is highlighted in an article in BtoB On-Line Magazine,http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100118/VERTICAL/301189966/1354/FREE. The article discusses how the Toshiba marketing team took the time to understand the behavior of various influencers at their customer. Once they understood how their customers learned about technology, the marketing team sprang into action with a strategy. The marketing strategy enabled an 11% average annual growth in the medical imaging marketing over the past five years. Recession? What recession? The company has been unaffected by the recent downturn because they knew where to focus. As I noted to my client, don’t sell the marketing department short on its ability to make a difference in any organization.

Marketing to the Pain

2011-06-20T18:04:00Z

by Linda Hartman

In reviewing various channel partner websites, my eyes glaze over from repeatedly learning how ”Company X offers unique scalable, technology solutions that fit your business… and how our comprehensive offering includes storage, servers, application software, etc. ” BLAH, BLAH, BLAH…..

So often, VARs get caught up in the technology and forget to look at why the ‘solution’ was created in the first place. The Field of Dreams mantra of “If we build it, they will come” has died when you weren’t looking.

Resellers need to start looking at their solutions from a customer perspective. Companies have a multitude of sales people vying for attention weekly, and often, daily basis. VARs can set themselves apart by speaking to the pains the client may be experiencing and the business impact of the solution - not technical geek-speak, but in real life business terms. Customers want to feel like someone is listening and addressing their problems. If you have a plumbing problem that is on the verge of flooding your house, does the manufacturer of the pipes and parts that the plumber will use make a difference to you? Probably not. You want to know the plumber has a thorough understanding of your problem, a good idea how to fix it and above all is someone you can trust to get the job done right. The same holds true for technology

What is Your 'Pop Tart'?

2011-06-16T18:21:00Z

by Linda Hartman

On a previous post we discussed knowing your customer and the importance of a profile. Once we hook a new client, then typically we move on to the next conquest. But what if we analyzed our existing customers and learned something?

Crazy talk, right?! Yes, I know.....learn something from the mounds of data we have stored in the same data storage we actually sell......BRILLIANT!

Data intelligence was the focus of an article in the Economist magazine. Back in 2004, Wal-Mart analyzed what products sold prior to a hurricane. As you can imagine, they sold batteries, flashlights and.....Pop Tarts! It makes sense, right? But what buyer might have thought to stock up on Pop Tarts before the analysis was done?

I realize VAR marketing and B-to-C marketing is very different, however the marketing strategy is not that different. Any marketing strategy, whether its technology marketing or pre-packaged sugary goodness marketing, requires understanding your successes and repeating them where possible. From a sales perspective, wouldn't it just be easier to take what has worked in the past and repeat it, instead of recreating the wheel every time?

Having done my fair share of technology marketing research, I can attest to the fact that VARs often have so much information within their own customer data that outside lists can't support the opportunities your current customers can offer.

So, what is your 'Pop Tart'?

Supplier Partner Marketing Funds - Are You Getting Your Fair Share?

2011-06-14T18:21:00Z

by Linda Hartman

At the end of every year vendors such as Sun, IBM, HP, etc… put millions, yes millions, of unused dollars for channel market development funds to the bottom line. The vendors would rather see their VAR channel using the funds to grow their business.

I can hear the groans from the audience as I type... "Getting these funds are too difficult." "There are too many rules about eligible expenses" (i.e. they won’t approve golf tournaments). These are common, and in some cases, valid complaints. But a well-formulated, long range reseller marketing plan and great communication can help a VAR business of any size get more than their unfair share of marketing dollars.
These are some required steps:

Clearly state your goals

Example: Expand deep into my current customer base

Try to encompass your supplier partner’s needs

Example: Expand deeper into current customer through a storage solution offering

Create an integrated campaign that involves your vendor partner at some point

Example: A multi-touch email campaign with an offer for response, leading to a live in-person event, that will be followed up by a sales call

Create a sales follow up plan with expected number of leads, the time it will take to cultivate those leads and the expected revenue from those that are closed. Then follow through on the plan.

With this kind of pre-planning, most of the detail that suppliers will ask for on their submission forms is done! Vendor partners are looking for revenue and those that can create well-thought-out, executable sales and marketing strategies will be the ones who get the largest piece of the pie!

Marketing Growth

2011-06-09T18:02:00Z

by Linda Hartman

Marketing in the channel often conjures up notions of seminars, webinars, telemarketing campaigns and the like….. However, what if, for one second you stopped and considered marketing as the growth engine to your business? Imagine the possibilities of every tactical implementation leading to a tangible organizational goal, such as, better sales penetration of current customers. Wouldn’t that be a great thing?!

In a previous post, we discussed the importance of commitment from senior management. Part of that commitment is sharing the future vision of the organization with the entire company. The point of this is to get everyone on the same page. The value of an organization having everyone on the same page means every marketing campaign can have a goal that ties back to the overarching company strategy. The sales team that understands the end game strives to participate in whatever way necessary in order to help the team meet the company’s objective. This is much more than merely gathering the troops in a circle to sing “Kumbaya”. Embracing the belief that good marketing drives real growth, and good marketing comes, in large part, from the power of everyone working in unison toward a common goal. BRILLIANT!

Planning

2011-06-08T19:29:00Z

by Linda Hartman

Often times when working with a VAR business I will pose the question, ‘What does marketing mean to you?’ Needless to say, the responses are all over the board. One of the most common responses is “events”. When most VARs or channel partners think of marketing strategy they think of events. This is certainly one of the most widely accepted tactics. So, if this tactic is the bread and butter to most reseller marketing, then why do we spend so little time planning such important events? 30 days seems to be the general time frame for planning, but I’m here to tell you 30 days is setting yourself up for failure. 60 days at the least, should be spent on putting together an event. 90 days is optimal.

When planning for a current customer event, isn’t the goal to WOW your clients and get them to partner with you for more business? If the goal of the event is to drive demand generation, why wouldn’t you spend at least 2-3 weeks profiling who you want at the event and creating a fine-tuned list of VIP customers? The money being spent might be marketing development funds from a vendor partner, and if you prove the value with a high ROI, you are more likely to get funding for similar events plus other tactics in the future.

The time spent in the planning and execution shows and will be recognized by those that attend the event. Details are paramount in events and take time to organize. Give yourself enough time to make sure all the planning is thorough – including how you will follow up with attendees and how you will measure the effectiveness of the event.

Take 60-90 days to plan and on the day of the event, you can relax and enjoy the networking opportunity you have put together - and close some business!

Winning football teams and winning sales and marketing teams have a lot in common!

2011-05-18T13:26:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

There is an ages old debate between sales and marketing people which attempts to define the purpose of marketing – namely, does marketing exist to provide sales with the materials and support they need (e.g. collateral materials, lead and demand generation programs, etc.) or does marketing in fact, direct and enable the efforts and success of a professional sales organization? In my view the answer is surely the latter.

I like to think of the workings of sales and marketing as akin to a professional football team. The coaching staff (marketing equivalent) creates a playbook, scouts out future opponents, prepares a game plan, teaches correct technique to the players and during the game (unless your QB is Peyton Manning) calls the plays. The players (the sales team) run, pass, catch, blocks, tackle and kick. If the team wins, there is plenty of credit to go around. Likewise, if the team endures a losing season (or several), the starting QB may get traded before or after the coaching staff is relieved of its duties – but everyone is going down. Success in sales or on the football team depends on:

• the establishment of common goals

• the development of a playbook (or strategic marketing plan)

• excellent communication (from coaches to players or marketing team to sales team) of the game plan (or tactical marketing plan)

• the measurement system which will be used to measure results

• agreement on expectations of each party’s role and responsibility for execution and performance

Winning the Super Bowl requires great talent, a great plan and great execution by coaches and players. Your company’s sales and marketing success happens the same way.

Building a target customer profile

2011-05-16T13:33:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

Effective reseller marketing starts with having a plan outlining tangible goals and then proceeding to build a connection between the company and customers and prospects with business problems the reseller can solve. Clearly, understanding who those customers are and how to identify them is imperative for marketing ROI to become a reality.

The process of building a target customer profile begins with taking a good analytical look your existing customers. Develop a view of who they are and whether or not the existing customers are prototypical of the customers you want to have or if you will need to reach into new customer segments to achieve your goals.

Things to consider in the initial analysis include:

How many do you have?
How many customers make up 80 % of your revenue (and profit)?
What business are they in – or said another way, how do the sales break out by vertical market?
If the top 2 customers are removed from the calculation, do different vertical markets become more prevalent?
Where are customers located? Is there a natural geographic concentration of business?
What unique business needs do existing customers have?
Who are the key decision makers AND influencers?
How do they view your value (i.e. understanding of and ability to solve their business challenges)?
How are their needs satisfied today (if not principally by your company)?

The result will be some pretty clear answers regarding whether you can reach your goals by modeling the success you have had historically (with top customers) with similar prospects or if you will have to identify and pursue completely new customer segments.

Only having completed this step can you move onto determining the appropriate messaging, marketing and sales tactics to identify and achieve success with the new prospects you will need to expand the customer base and achieve your financial goals.

Demand Generation or Demand Location?

2011-05-12T13:41:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

For years I have listened vendors talk about needing VARs and other channel partners to “create demand” for their products. They even target vast amounts of their channel marketing spend (i.e. market development funds and coop) for partners to conduct demand generation activities on behalf of the vendor. This always strikes me as being an unreasonable expectation. Really – shouldn’t the creator of the product or intellectual property be responsible for creating demand for their own product? Resellers and other channel partners can LOCATE demand and perhaps can even SHAPE or DIRECT (to a particular brand or technology) demand. Channel partners make themselves valuable to vendors by establishing, maintaining and expanding the number of relationships with end users who are desirable and appropriate targets for the vendor. Reseller credibility with these end users creates the connection necessary for the vendor’s product marketing activities to reach the desired audience. Having product or technology expertise may help the channel partners “pitch the vendors wares” but it can’t take the place of the vendor’s need and responsibility for creation of brand awareness and loyalty and familiarity with the technology.

That's my opinion. What's yours?

Sustaining your marketing efforts

2011-05-10T13:49:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

Keep it up!

No, this isn’t a (borderline offensive) tag line for one of the so-called “male enhancement” drugs. Rather, it is a little bit of cheerleading on my part to convince you of the need to sustain your marketing efforts. Too often, I see companies launching a standalone marketing program or event only to sit back and wait for the results (i.e. sales) to pour in before deciding whether or not to do any more marketing. From my vantage point, this is akin to calling a prospect or taking them out to lunch and then have no further contact until you see if an order shows up. Marketing is an ongoing activity that needs to take place constantly – in good economic environments and bad. I am perplexed by companies deciding to curtail or severely reduce their marketing efforts – a critical driver of VAR business growth - at the very time the business climate turns south. At the same time, these same companies will go out and hire more sales people – kind of like signing a new quarterback for your team, not giving him the playbook and firing the coaching staff.

Good marketing is a symphony of concurrent activities with events and programs being launched – and followed up on – day in and day out. Only thru this consistent behavior can you look back over time and see if the desired results (real ROI) have been achieved. Sustained profitable growth requires a sustained marketing effort.

Do resellers really need a brand of their own?

2011-05-06T13:42:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

Where have all the good times gone?

Once upon a time, resellers, system integrators and other channel partners were known by the brands they carried. The designation "Authorized Reseller (or Partner) of vendor XYZ, was sufficient to get you in the door at many target accounts. I know – I owned a reseller business way back then. Sparse competition and an element of “black magic” (associated with getting the technology to work), made for some unknowledgeable and very dependent end user customers. Fast forward 20 or 30 years and what have you got? An ultra-competitive market with competitors on every (physical and virtual) street corner, technology better understood by the masses (can you say commodity?) and an abundance of functioning out-of-the-box (though not necessarily intuitively so) hardware and software, can easily leave a reseller feeling not so special. So, what are you going to do about it? You could decide the business is forever a commoditized one and proceed to merely advertise low prices. You could look for the most obscure technology products around in an effort to fend off competition.

Or, you could BRAND YOUR COMPANY! This does not require spending boatloads of money on TV ads during the Super Bowl. It merely means taking the time to define your value proposition and then create a messaging and branding platform. Finding something that makes you special (beyond the products you carry), understanding who it is important to and articulating a well crafted message to these same people, are critical in attempting to carve out a place for your company to shine.

Good tactic/bad tactic – which ones work, which ones don’t?

2011-05-04T12:53:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

Seemingly every day, we are asked our opinion on which tactics are most effective. I hate to say it, but the answer is “it depends”. Can’t say I blame anyone for asking – we all want to know whether a given program, tactic or event is going to be worth the necessary investment of money and time. And, unlike large manufacturers, availability of market development funds for most VAR businesses and other channel companies is typically very limited. Too often, companies make the mistake of deciding on a particular tactic without taking into account the fit of the tactic or program to their overarching marketing strategy. To me, the title question posed makes no more sense than asking Peyton Manning (or Drew Brees), "Should you throw a long pass or short pass on the next play?" Without knowing something about the opponent, the score, the down and distance, field position, time in the game and weather, the answer is nothing more than a guess based on gut feel.

I think the best advice is that any tactic can work in the right situation and conversely, any tactic has the potential to be a complete waste of time and money. Stay focused on your long range goals and work "backwards to the present" to develop a tactical plan that makes sense for you.

At the risk of over-generalizing and the above notwithstanding, I do not want to completely avoid addressing the core question. Namely, do I have a tendency to prefer a certain type of marketing investment? Yes, I do. Assuming your company has articulated a distinct message platform, I have a strong bias towards for face-to-face contact with small gatherings of both customers and prospects with some common business challenges. This does not say that larger scale, traditional lead generation activities don’t have their place – they do. But I believe the process of lead and/or demand generation/identification - done well - should be part of the process to earn more of that face-to-face contact.

Don’t waste your field sales team on cold calls!

2011-05-02T13:36:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

I have never quite understood why resellers will utilize what they often refer to as their most precious resource – the outside sales team – to make cold calls. Two notions lead me to this state of confusion. If you have an experienced, high quality sales team why wouldn’t you want this “precious resource” calling on qualified prospects rather than the ROW? Second, if you buy into the philosophy that marketing is responsible for directing and enabling the efforts of the VAR sales team and the sales team is responsible for execution, isn’t your investment misplaced?

Whether you have a robust in-house marketing team or rely on outside contractors and service providers, cold calling and other “lead identification” activities don’t belong being performed by the sales team when they could be closing deals – in other words, selling!

Care to offer another point of view?

Are they talking behind your back?

2011-04-28T13:29:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

The “they” in question are your employees, and for your sake I hope so - but also hope you have a direct and positive influence on what they are saying. Employees who can (and will) evangelize a company’s value proposition, brand, capabilities and culture are invaluable to any organization.

Imagine one of your employees at a party: it’s Saturday night and you aren’t around to monitor the conversation. When your employee engages in conversation with a stranger and the discussion turns to what each does for a living, what are they saying about your company? How are they likely to respond to the question about what your company does? Is the person they are talking to a potential customer? A vendor? A potential employee? Never mind the huge influence your employees have during working hours, what about these more informal and less controlled environments? Would you want to work for, or do business with, the company your employee is describing?

It is for these reasons that I strongly believe frequent employee-focused marketing communications are critical for any company (large or small) engaged in B-to-B commerce. I would even regard this as a higher priority than external communications. In addition to far-reaching effectiveness, a well-informed employee population makes the balance of your marketing investments much more effective in growing the business - and significantly more efficient.

Why You Need a Marketing Plan

2011-04-27T13:23:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

Every company needs a marketing plan - why? One reason and one reason only: to achieve and sustain accelerated, profitable growth! If a consultant, agency, outsourced marketing company or any other so-called “expert”, tells you anything else (e.g. to build awareness for your brand); run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Building a brand can be an important tactic in reaching your goal — but it is not, in and of itself, a goal. Nor are lead generation, customer loyalty programs or value propositions. All might have their place for your company – but they are NOT goals.

You might ask, “If marketing can really contribute to sustained profitable growth, why doesn’t every company have a marketing plan?” There are many different answers. Some VARs don’t understand marketing’s role in a growing company. Others believe it is too expensive or unnecessary for a company of their size. Still others bemoan the lack of internal expertise or time to make it happen. A few even believe that the channel marketing organizations of vendors and distributors make it redundant for them to market their own company. This last sentiment can usually be dismissed by answering one question: When a vendor offers to put your name or logo on a direct mail piece or seminar invitation, whose company do you believe they are promoting – yours or theirs? If you answered the former, you need to stay and see me after class.

So, if good marketing can enable profitable sales growth, how does it happen? Well, begin with the understanding that a well-devised and executed marketing plan can enable and direct sales growth only if it can successfully build and articulate the connection between your company’s resources (people, products, services, etc.) and your target end users. I didn’t say “sell more stuff” or “sell your stuff to more people”, because until you can build a strong connection between your organization and your target customers, it is difficult — if not impossible — to figure out what to look for in new customers, and equally challenging to articulate the value you offer once you find them.

The Answer to the Ultimate Marketing Question

2011-04-26T12:55:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

Douglas Adams – author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series – wrote that the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” is 42! Now I wouldn’t think of opining on quite so cosmic a topic, but in the world which technology B-to-B resellers reside, I believe from a marketing perspective, the answer to the ultimate question is 52.

What “ultimate” question are we answering and why does the number 52 represent the right answer?

The number 52 represents the total number of contacts per year the best performing VARs are making with customers and prospects. This is not meant to infer you should “bombard” your customer contacts every week with some email sales pitch. Rather it is recommendation that your company should communicate with – in some fashion – each customer and prospect company on average, once per week throughout the year. Note I did not say have your sales rep contact their IT director or purchasing manager once per week. I said your company should communicate with their company once per week. The “how” is up to you as is the “who”. It can be a sales call, an invite to an event, an e-newsletter, a tweet, a link to a blog and it can be from anyone in your organization to anyone in the customer’s. The goal is building a consistent dialogue between two companies in an effort to create institutional relationships.

You think the number 52 is too high? What’s your “answer to the ultimate question”?

Market Expertise Doesn’t Reside Solely in the Marketing Department

2011-04-25T16:24:00Z

by Jim Markisohn

A recent meeting with a client provided a vivid reminder of this fact. As we are often called upon to do by VARs, the purpose of this meeting was to examine the viability of creating a sales and marketing plan to address a specific vertical market – in this case, healthcare. In addition to the usual collection of technologists and sales experts and people from the marketing department, we were fortunate enough to have the presence of the company’s VP of Operations. Despite not being a sales or marketing person, this person was definitely the MVP of the meeting.

Typically, our challenge in developing marketing plans for resellers is finding any expertise or experience unique to the company’s offering in a specific market. During the opening “around the table” introductions, we learned of this person’s prior work history which included not only extensive years of experience in the healthcare industry but in fact an invaluable, rich list of current industry contacts. Perhaps your company possesses a similar asset in the form of market expertise – but you may have to look for it outside the technology, sales and marketing groups.