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Vendor Marketing Programs: Do They Work?
Vendor-assisted marketing is meant to help resellers
grow revenue, but is it all too overwhelming?
By Carly Lombardo
When it comes to marketing, there's one thing vendors and accounting
resellers agree on-resellers never have enough time or resources.
In fact, a recently conducted survey regarding marketing among
200 Sage Software resellers found that the top two pain points
were 1) There was not enough time to market and; 2) Co-op programs
are too complex, and involve too much paperwork.
"There isn't enough time in the day for our partners to
market. They're focused on closing business. We want our marketing
programs to be effortless, and we're working to reduce the amount
of paperwork," says Scott Gaw, director of channel marketing
for Irvine, Calif.-based Sage.
Resellers agree. "Marketing tools are time-consuming
to come up with. By participating in vendor programs, we can take
the tools and tweak them to fit our business," says Manny
Buigas, CEO of Axis Integrated Solutions. However, he cautions
that, "Although Sage provides the tools, at the end of each
day, we have to execute them. They only teach us how to fish."
From co-op marketing programs to portals, VARs have their choice
of tools. But do these programs really work or, just overwhelm
the participants?
For most, it depends on the company, its clients, and the programs
utilized. Most resellers say it takes a lot of trial and error,
and a combination of efforts to get results.
Located in Miami, Axis Integrated Solutions is a newly
organized Sage reseller that participates in several programs,
including Sage's Marketing Alliance, and the turnkey marketing
program, that includes templates, worksheets, and other tools
to help formalize the process.
"By utilizing the marketing calendar, we have a
framework to follow and we make sure we have events scheduled,"
says Buigas.
To date, the firm has increased its sales pipeline by
$1.6 million due to the implementation of various marketing campaigns
and closed sales to date that aggregate approximately $200,000.
(Although Axis is a new entity it is part of other companies that
have been in operation for a number of years.)
These sales were in the pipeline of Buigas' partner Kelly
Hummel, now CFO of Axis. Her firm was Access Accounting eSolutions
and Services, located in St. Louis.
However, Buigas feels when it comes to marketing products
other than accounting, such as CRM or HR, Sage needs a little
help.
"I would like Sage to explore the possibility of
adding components to their programs in CRM and human resources
that provide information that is more solution-specific,"
Buigas says.
One problem relating to CRM is that the Axis staff includes
accountants, programmers, and system integrators.
"In turn, one of our challenges in committing to
sell and deploy CRM was that no one in our staff spoke our client's
language," he continues. "We had to go out and invest
our own resources and attended a CRM certification program at
a local university to learn about the industry, our client's challenges,
and pain points, before we committed to selling CRM."
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Marketing Programs
in a Can
Vendors are offering a variety of marketing programs to
help partners stretch their marketing budgets, and develop
marketing expertise to generate more leads.
Irvine, Calif.-based Sage Software now has 140 members
in its Marketing Alliance Program, which was rolled out
last year. The program requires members to have at least
one dedicated marketing person on staff, and they must submit
an annual marketing plan. Benefits include a Sage dedicated
marketing representative, up to 70 percent co-op reimbursement,
co-op funds extended for an additional six months, and resellers
receive a monthly marketing newsletter.
In addition, participants can attend monthly Web seminars
that cover different marketing activities such as public
relations, direct mail, and telemarketing. The program lasts
45 minutes and draws approximately 60 attendees each month.
For Sage resellers who do not have a dedicated marketing
person on staff, marketing opportunities are available through
channel marketing.
Channel Marketing offers a turnkey program to help dealers
generate leads. Sage has reviewed suppliers of services
such as telemarketing, direct mail, lists, graphics, booth
rentals, newsletters, and yellow page advertisements. Programs
are then tailored to reseller needs.
All turnkey programs are eligible for approximately 40
percent co-op reimbursement. "Turnkey programs increase
visibility throughout the marketplace, bring in qualified
leads, maximize ROI, provide an effective venue to communicate,
and present the partner's company at tradeshows or events,"
says Scott Gaw, director of channel marketing for Sage.
Similarly, Novato, Calif.-based AccountMate offers a variety
of marketing options, including co-op marketing, direct
mail, case studies, and an annual conference. Also, the
AccountMate marketing store can be utilized for printing
personalized promo materials, collateral and direct mail,
and the AccountMate weekly Newsline. "Most partners
use the information provided in the weekly AccountMate Newsline
and TechNews to communicate with their customers via their
own newsletter or through email," says Donna DeRosa,
director of marketing.
Meanwhile, Fargo, N.D.-based Microsoft Business Solutions
offers VARs print advertising, recruitment campaigns, Go-to-Market
campaigns, and reseller newsletters.
The Partner Marketing Center is available for partners
online and includes technical demonstration toolkits, the
partner logo builder, campaigns including the Go-to-Market
campaigns, presentations and marketing templates for business
letters, direct mail pieces, invitations, emails, flyers,
and postcards.
MBS is making a big push with its Go-to-Market campaigns,
which provide a collection of tools and resources for partners
to easily market to their customers.
For example, Kati Hvidtfeldt, senior director of MBS Partner
Strategy, suggests that ERP partners start with the Partner
Marketing Center followed by the Business Operations Management
Go-to-Market Campaign page. "This is a great resource
and details everything that is available to ERP partners
today. Partners can read and leverage to customer presentations,
call guides, and other marketing materials that will help
them communicate the benefits of delivering the Business
Operations Management campaign to their customer base,"
says Hvidtfeldt. |
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James Campbell, CPA and vice president of Exton, Pa.-based Applied
Data Solutions, likes the tools that Sage provides. "I'm
a CPA by trade," he says. "The more marketing I do,
the more I learn. Right now, Sage does the hard work, and I use
everything they offer. The more Sage gives us, the better."
ADS focuses on Sage's Accpac product line and although it does
not have a full-time marketing person, Campbell allocates 20 percent
of his time and 2 percent of the firm's revenue to marketing activities
such as telemarketing, mailings, tradeshows, and newsletters.
To take advantage of the Sage programs, Campbell created a marketing
plan, which listed all the marketing activities the firm planned
for the year.
"It outlined everything from the people I was going to meet
to the dates of postcard mailings. The plan made us really try
to meet all of our marketing goals, like we never have before.
Not to mention, someone at Sage called each month to check in,"
adds Campbell.
In a recent direct mail campaign, Campbell purchased a list with
500 names. He narrowed that down to 250 names that he thought
would work best. The culled list produced 10 callbacks that turned
into three requested meetings and one sale. "That's success
to me," says Campbell.
Simplify It
Located in Bird Land, Minn., Y Solutions focuses on business
management systems, security products, warehouse management, e-commerce,
and EDI.
President Yvonne Mangum works with three primary software vendors
to get the firm's name out there: AccountMate, Microsoft, and
Symantec.
"AccountMate's program is more comprehensive, so we have
used most of their available materials and many different approaches.
Approaches include educational direct mail pieces, postcard branding
ads, and telemarketing," she says.
However, the main source has been the use of co-op funds for
membership in SellAccountingSoftware.com, which generates leads
for people who are considering a system purchase.
Under AccountMate's new Elite Business Partner program, Elite
members can receive 75 percent reimbursement for annual sign up
fees at SellAccountingSoftware.com, and 75 percent reimbursement
for additional leads and ad costs.
"For the seven years I've been representing AccountMate,
this has been the most consistent activity for us. The second
most successful approach for us has been educational mailings,
where technology trends or common pain points are discussed. These
work because there is little or no sales pitch in the material,"
says Mangum.
Mangum's main issue with marketing programs is the overwhelming
amount of information and materials. "Even if I know something
exists that is referenced in an email link, or I've run across
it before, many times when I go to actually use the template or
product brochure, I can't find it," says Mangum.
Mangum finds many programs have too many levels or complexity
in product configuration, so much so that the firm doesn't even
bother to market those products.
"We are registered or authorized partners for at least a
dozen products, and many of them I do not even attempt to capitalize
on their plan because it would take me longer to find useful resources
than create my own materials from the ground up. On and off, I
think we all have experienced that with Microsoft," she says.
Portals that vendors provide to resellers are another source
of frustration. Mangum would like to be able to customize the
home pages on portals; so that once she found a useful resource
she could plan a marketing activity around it, and find it when
she was ready to use it.
"There are some portals that I just cannot take the time
to learn and use, not because the information and support is bad,
but it assumes that we all have 40 hours to familiarize ourselves
with the portal every time they update it, and then master all
the useful tools," says Mangum.
Meanwhile, The Marks Group, based in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., spends
10 percent of its income on marketing. The firm focuses on small
businesses and resells Open Systems Traverse, Microsoft Great
Plains, FrontRange's GoldMine, and Heat CRM. "We market to
small businesses and we find the best way is to drip market. If
we hit them enough times through direct mail, telemarketing, emails,
and newsletters, when they're ready to buy they think of us,"
says president Gene Marks.
He utilizes many vendor programs from co-op marketing to tradeshows,
but finds the vendors' biggest fault, when it comes to marketing,
is registering leads.
"We do a direct mail campaign, a client is interested in
Microsoft Great Plains, and instead of calling us they visit the
Microsoft Web site to gain more information. Microsoft will often
turn over the lead to another reseller," he says. "Vendors
need to create better brand awareness, lead marketing management,
and referral processes, rather than creating marketing programs
that may or may not work."
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Case by Case
Shakopee, Minn.-based Open Systems stopped offering a co-op
marketing program in 1999, and now gives its partners marketing
assistance on a case-by-case basis.
"We definitely think this is a better way to go. Quite
frankly, tracking co-op dollars, which is really just 'funny
money,' was a hassle. This is much simpler," says Paul
Lundquist, vice president of sales.
However, Open Systems didn't just do away with reseller
marketing benefits. For example, according to Lundquist,
most VARs would save their co-op dollars and put them toward
the cost of the company's annual reseller conference. When
Open Systems stopped offering co-op dollars, the company
slashed the price of the conference in half. Similarly,
the company sliced the cost of literature in half.
"We know which of our partners are going to put strong
efforts into marketing, and if we feel that there is a good
return on investment there, we will put our efforts and
dollars into their undertakings as well as on a case-by-case
basis," adds Lundquist.
Thomas Gorman, owner of North Oak, Minn.-based Profit Planners,
has seen results from this approach.
"Co-op programs are based on how much you sell. For
small start-ups, it's hard to get the funds," he says.
"When Open Systems had the co-op program, I received
lots of material, but now I get more help."
The first case in which Open Systems assisted Gorman was
a three-card mailing to home health care companies. Open
Systems designed and printed the cards and provided the
300 name mailing list. Profit Planners did the mailing and
follow-up calls, and invited all interested companies to
a seminar, which featured the firm's health care software.
The software is written using Open System's OSAS products;
Open Systems attended the seminar and gave a presentation
on the OSAS product.
"This is ongoing, but so far we've received 20 new
clients. With the mailing, we wanted to put old people on
the postcards, but Open Systems suggested penguins instead,"
he says. "We've had people calling us and saying I
remembered to call you because of the penguins on the postcard.
I see the advantage to their help as us having two or three
good marketing people to help with planning and designing
our programs." |
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Helping Us Market
L. Kianoff & Associates approaches marketing from two perspectives.
From one angle, the Birmingham, Ala.-based firm uses Sage Software,
and Microsoft's programs in those areas where they share mutual
interest. The second angle is that, as a company, the firm promotes
the firm, yet cannot use co-op dollars to do so.
"On the highest level, our marketing is L.Kianoff's corporate
image and includes all our tools: Great Plains, Sage, Abra, FAS,
Crystal Reports, and FRx. We are proud of our affiliation with
our vendors and there are times we do choose to focus on Sage
or Microsoft Great Plains, when one solution may be better than
the other. However, when it comes to helping us market with all
the tools, none of the vendors make co-op available," says
president Lisa Kianoff.
Nonetheless, the firm has had success using programs from both
vendors.
Recently, Kianoff participated in a simulcast Webinar in conjunction
with Microsoft in order to test a new marketing idea.
The simulcast was broken into two parts. The first part was a
more general Webinar that featured Jim Carroll, an author who
writes for small business. At the end of the first part, the group
of attendees then broke into separate Webinars focusing on a specific
subject, and hosted by MBS resellers, such as Kianoff.
"The idea was to have a national presence with a local touch.
The hope was to have attracted small businesses to the simulcast
who might then have an interest in ERP software, specifically
Microsoft Great Plains," explains Kianoff.
Kianoff was responsible for gathering the attendees for her specific
Webinar, which focused on Microsoft Great Plains and Kianoff's
company.
"We invested a lot in gathering lists, doing mailings, emails,
and phone calls to get a small number of attendees to sign up.
Of those, an even smaller number were true prospects. Microsoft
brought it all together and the presentation was good," says
Kianoff. "But with such a small list to work from, we did
not have much success."
She says that the real "win" in this situation was
glimpsing how marketing may be done in the future.
"I think in our case, the time, effort, and money might
have yielded a better return on a different type event. Of course,
as we who work in technology know, that's often the case in a
"beta" program," she adds.
In addition, Kianoff finds using co-op dollars to purchase Sage
Software's Digests, books that have information on all the modules
for the MAS 90/ 200 software, a great marketing tool. A base digest
covers core modules (GL, AR, AP, bank rec), payroll, and distribution
(SO, PO, inventory). There are also manufacturing and job cost
digests.
"They include features lists, screen shots, sample reports,
and field sizes. It is nicely laid out and easy for someone to
go through," Kianoff says. "It really gives a great
overview of the product. They cost more than regular literature
sheets, but are well worth it to us."
Carly Lombardo is Associate Editor of Accounting Technology and
can be reached at carly.bohach@sourcemedia.com.
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