At Bright Digital we have lots of experience working with huge, well known and also smaller, lesser known IT companies who need to recruit (and retain) channel partners to their program. For IT companies large and small, the channel can be the lifeblood of the company. Whether the challenge is to put your relatively unknown or new program out there, to attract a specific type of partner to an established program, or to retain existing program members, it’s important that the most appropriate tactics – and treatment – are employed. The Bright Digital team are experts in creating campaigns that combine memorable creative with cutting edge marketing techniques – and we never take our eye off the results being generated, constantly tweaking and optimising. This means we create effective campaigns that really, actually deliver!

We often get asked “how do you recruit resellers to a program?” This is not an easy question to answer, like perhaps “how do you get traffic to your website?” is. Why is it so tricky to answer that question? What is more complex about channel marketing is that there is another level involved – it is not simply marketing to the end customer, but instead marketing to the people who will then themselves market to the end customer! Then there is the product education... Add to this the fact that the audience you are targeting is itself very specific, and you’ve got quite a challenge ahead...

Lucky we have BAGS of experience doing this then isn’t it??!

Here are some examples of techniques we have successfully employed in the past to give you a flavour of where we’re coming from...

Communication strategy development
Whether it is email or social media, we will work out the best ways to talk to potential and existing program members, taking the messages to the place where your target audience is and giving them the information they require regularly and in the medium they prefer.

Channel sales tools
Providing useful and easy to use sales tools for the channel not only makes existing program members’ jobs easier (and therefore makes more money for you), it also acts as an attractive key differentiator from all the other programs out there for prospective program members when they hear about them. We can create concise and helpful information collateral, customisable marketing tools, whizzy video magazines to showcase your products and generate leads… we’ve got loads of tricks up our sleeves.

Co-marketing solutions
Often the reseller wants to show off that this product comes from you, so in this instance it helps to co-brand marketing tools. We make sure yours and their brand sit alongside in exactly the right balance, making it extra simple for program members to use. News management and content - By creating lots of useful online content and news about your products, your program, your support for resellers, how to be more successful in your program etc etc, and distributing this by as many routes as possible, you get the message out there that this is a great product and a great program – and who wouldn’t want to be part of that? We have lots of experience creating, managing and distributing news and content so it works hard for you and you get more for your money.

Incentive schemes
We have run some hugely successful reward schemes to encourage the channel to compete with each other to sell more products. The secret is combining engaging creative with a sense of community and competition – and of course great prizes. These are a sure fire way to boost sales via the channel and always really popular with the participants. The client is happy - and so is the channel. Result!

Online training and product education
We believe one key to a successful channel campaign is providing excellent support and constant education about the product itself. More and more channel people are tuned into receiving their training and information online in a range of formats whether they be quizzes, webcasts, video tuorials, podcasts - whatever. We can provide online training and product education in a range of formats to suit your audience.

Webcasts
Webcasts, or webinars as they are sometimes called, are a really effective way of creating an online event about your program. A webcast is great for online training, as above, or to attract and introduce new people to your program. We can help drive people to the webinar, create the webinar itself, and also provide all-important follow up strategy so you get maximum return.

Partner extranets
Giving your partners a place to go to speak to you, each other, get support and information and so on, is absolutely key to supporting them in their sales of your products. We can create a secure extranet and also provide engaging and informative content to ensure they have all they need.

Talk to us today about getting more people signed up to your program or retaining existing members – we’re bursting with suggestions!

Ten years ago agencies urged clients “you must have a website”. Then five years later the message was “it’s no use just having a website if no-one is looking at it – optimise, optimise, optimise” The most important thing became optimising your website so the search engines could work out what it was about and rank it highly for relevant and popular search phrases. And rank it highly they would! I have worked on many a campaign where the site gained top 5 positions for massively popular phrases in very competitive industries. What halcyon days they were!

Optimise your site for search – but make it social too
In the current world of web, SEO is still very important. Ensuring your site is accessible by the most important search engine crawlers; creating the right amount of clearly tagged content to inform and attract; and encouraging related external links are all still essential parts of creating a successful online presence. But with so many gazillions of websites competing for a place in the first few SERPs (search engine results pages), something had to give. What happened was people started exploring the web through recommendations from people they know instead of just relying on Google to find great websites. Thus, other ways of getting traffic to your site have come to the fore. So what is this other avenue of natural traffic? It’s social media of course.

Create content that attracts natural search traffic - and then encourage sharing via social media
Just as in SEO, we recommend creating content that attracts people to your site. Whether this is a blog, WIKI, videos, or white papers – implement a sharing facility so people CAN distribute your article, video etc if they think it’s something that will be of interest to other people. This way you are extending the reach of your marketing and getting more bangs for your buck. Even if you don’t add a Share button or similar (they are free, just search for Share button), people can discover your site and promote it using social media by tagging your site of their own accord – however, if you provide the facility you are enabling them to share with even greater ease.

Put your content out there where your customers are
It’s fantastic to create content and then encourage sharing. But what about doing more to encourage engagement via social media? How about going where your customers spend time rather than waiting for them to come to you? Create channels on appropriate social media sites where you think your customers might spend time. Facebook generally is more consumer focused, whilst LinkedIn is great for business audiences. You’d be surprised at how many professionals are on Twitter too so consider using that for conversations with potential and existing customers.

Engage people first and then you can concentrate on converting them…
So what is our overriding message to clients now, ten years after the web exploded? It would be something like this: “Create communication materials that attract people to your site and that you can place elsewhere to engage people and drive enquiries to your site. Then when they arrive at your site make sure they can find what they want easily so you can convert them into customers”. It’s not as short and snappy a message as ten years ago but then, it’s not as easy as it once was to get people to your site and make them want to become a customer as it was back then. That’s why you need the right people to help you achieve your online business objectives! Feel free to talk to me on Twitter, email or phone about using social media to grow web traffic.