What we have here is a failure to communicate. – Part 1

In the IT distribution channel, much is made of process flow, new business initiatives and communication.  Unfortunately what these all have in common is one thing—they are all broken.  Vendors continue to try to find a way to communicate product information and promotion information to both distributors and resellers.  Distributors want to communicate promotions, special financing offers and new product offerings.  Resellers want information when they want it, tailored to their needs and their impression is no one is listening to them.

In a recent promotional effort, an IT vendor decided to launch a promotion for a new product.  Emails were sent to 1500 resellers, banners ads put in place, a distributor included the promotion in an email newsletter and significant dollars were expended.  This effort didn’t even make the industry numbers that indicate email campaigns typically have an 8-10% open rate and a 1-3 % conversion rate.  So how many took advantage of this promotion?  None. When resellers were asked if they had known of the promotion or had received the emails announcing it, comments ranged from “I’m too busy to read most email”, “I don’t remember seeing it, must have hit my spam filter” and “After I read email, I just delete it”.

Today, the need to turn data into information is a daunting task. From the reseller view, the only avenues available to educate themselves about new promotional offerings is to sift through never ending emails or visit the company’s web site, often requiring a unique user name and password.  Search has become the default way of operating.  When is the last time any of us opened up a phone book for a phone number?  Why should we when we just Google?  Shouldn’t all our business needs be handled the same way?

But just searching Google and receiving 16,625,432 hits isn’t the way to go either.  Let’s talk vertical search. Vertical search is a specialized or niche search engine that presents targeted search. Say jobs or travel. Because the data sources are fragmented, there is an opportunity to massage the data and present it in a simple, easy to use manner that is available when needed.  Simply put, email has no shelf life. A well known security software company recognized the need to increase their installed user base and decided to use a “buy 5 licenses get 5 licenses free” promotion, emailing their registered reseller base that had opted in for emails.  After 4 weeks of no reseller redeeming additional licenses, follow up phone calls by the software company revealed that the emails had been read, but not kept and the information about this promotion couldn’t be found on the company web site.

If search is the default, then vertical search is the future.  Vertical search in the IT distribution channel means that a software or hardware company reaches a more focused audience.   A reseller is looking at promotions when they are writing proposals or getting ready to buy.   Using a customized vertical search engine presents a marketing opportunity with much higher effectiveness, and every click is more valuable. Because using a search engine is an active, not passive information relay, read rates and click rates are at least 4x more effective than email.  ROI becomes predictable and measurable when we place our promotions directly in front of the purchaser.

So is niche searching a technology whose time has come?  Stay tuned for “Failure to communicate, Part II” for our discussion of ROI solution benefits in greater detail.

Debbie Engnell, vice president of product development, PromoPipeline, 80 Villa Road, Greenville, SC 29615 866/372-0329. Email: dengnell@PromoPipeline.com.
Website: www.promopipeline.com