There’s no in between – you’re either good or bad. We were in between.
If by any unfortunate chance you’re having a bad day, spare a thought for hapless England goalkeeper Robert Green; it may make you feel better. As bad days go, his has to be up there with the worst of them.
Appointment setting for channel partners
Many OEMs rely heavily on their reseller networks as an essential part of their marketing mix. But a consistently high performing channel reseller is a rarity. My clients frequently complain that, from the majority of their resellers, new business comes in as a trickle rather than a flood.
It seems that the main factor frustrating resellers is a lack of an effective marketing strategy. Many resellers tend to be reactive rather than proactive when it comes to promoting their channel products; they perceive it as an ‘add-on’ to their core business as opposed to a lucrative business opportunity in its own right. The result is that they fail to capitalise fully on the reseller partnership.
And yet the opportunities for resellers and distributors have never been greater. As the technology marketplace moves away from a hardware-orientated one-off sale, the emphasis is less about “buying systems” and more towards “renting solutions”, either on a fixed fee or pay per use basis.
This new and growing plethora of managed services – everything from managed hosting to secure back-up services, BPM, cloud computing and more – allows resellers to benefit from generous recurring and open-ended commissions.
In response to this paradigm shift, forward thinking marketers and manufacturers are beginning to invest more in supporting their resellers’ marketing efforts by building partner programmes for the channel, especially in the area of appointment setting.
One the fastest and most cost-efficient ways of generating sales-ready appointments is through a targeted outbound integrated telemarketing /e-marketing campaign.
If you don’t have the resources to do this in-house, a reputable lead generation agency will have the expertise to help you locate leads and new prospects, as well as knowing the best ways of communicating with your prospects and planning and managing your programme for maximum gain.
A good agency will also help you with your marketing message, by delivering your unique or compelling selling point (USP/CSP) with maximum impact. Outbound telemarketing /e-marketing can also be used to drive new channel partner programmes and expand and invigorate existing ones.
