The Loyalty Leap for B2B: Turning Customer Information into Customer Intimacy (A Penguin Special from Portfolio) by Bryan Pearson

Author:Bryan Pearson [Pearson, Bryan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-07-08T14:00:00+00:00

Target Group: Channel Marketers

1. Identify key companies/customers and prospects: Building relationships in the channel marketing or distributor network is akin to foreign affairs—it takes as much diplomacy as it does understanding various cultures. A company may have customers that are end users but rarely deal with them directly because it relies on a salesperson or dealer to represent its products, making it difficult to know their needs. B2B marketers working with channel companies will need to determine whether to focus on the channel marketers or the end users.

Fortunately, we can use our data to help improve both relationships, but it is key to recognize that we must do this by cultivating the channel relationship. Case in point: IBM’s Know Your IBM program, an international online sales and training initiative for sellers to small- and medium-size businesses. Know Your IBM rewards individual sellers in partner companies in two ways: first, for successfully completing education modules relevant to a specific job; and second, for achieving specific sales goals. Individuals could earn fifty Know Your IBM points for each twenty-minute nodule, or one hundred points for the sale of qualifying IBM products. Rewards range from travel experiences to office supplies to personal prizes, such as a watch or jewelry, and participants can redeem up to $2,500 in rewards per month. The Know Your IBM initiative has earned the company several global awards, as well as applause from its members. More than 90 percent of sales representatives said they were better able to sell IBM Solutions to midmarket customers, thanks to the program.10

The takeaway here is that by identifying the client sales teams as its key prospects, IBM is able to tailor relevant motivators—education and rewards that are meaningful—to reinforce its client relationship. The sales team, in turn, is motivated to promote and sell its products.

2. Track client interactions over time: On the surface, this seems pretty straightforward. In the channel marketing sector, we need a mechanism that monitors the performance of the sales force so we can offer members the right incentives to meet a desired goal. To be clear, we are talking about incentives, not rewards—there is a tendency to confuse them. Incentives are devices that encourage an employee to do a better job going forward, while rewards acknowledge that the employee has achieved the goal. Sales commissions, stock options, and promotions are all examples of incentives that will motivate the channel to do even better.

One common tracking system for channel marketers is an automated program that ties directly into the company’s customer relationship management system, specifically designed to involve both the partners and the client’s sales team. This enables them to communicate goals with each other and with us, allows them to track end-user data, and allows us to track both end-user data and the channel’s performance over time.

3. Create a scoring mechanism to rank the most desired customers: In the channel marketing or distributor channel world, we usually measure sales volume to identify our best customers. Because channel marketers are

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