Marketing Never Happens With One Hit | Channelnomics

CHANNELNOMICS PERSPECTIVES

By Jennifer Anaya

It?s political season, as evidenced by the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and the endless streams of television and Web ads. I will not debate the integrity of political messages or the tone of the campaigns. Worth noting, though, are the marketing lessons that show up every four years when we select a new president: the need for extended marketing campaigns.

An old saying in politics goes, ?If you want the voter to get the message, you have to hit them with it at least seven times.? This happens in multiple ways. As seen in the countless interviews on cable news, political operatives will always come back to the same talking points regardless of the question. The campaigns and their surrogates act in concert to ensure voters hear the message at least seven (or more likely 25 plus) times.

The technology industry, particularly the channel, could benefit from this political paradigm. Over the last decade, technology marketing has degenerated from performance-based lead generation and brand development to a series of isolated, one-off initiatives that are killed if they fail to deliver immediate performance. Many marketing initiatives are considered failures if they fall short of their stated objectives and/or don?t result in an instant return in revenue. And worse, short-term marketing efforts are deemed successful if they produce marginal returns that are equally short-lived.

It?s time we change the technology marketing paradigm from one of short-lived, short-sighted lead generation programs to one of extended, integrated campaigns designed to build brand identity, engage partners through value propositions, and create shorter product and service sales cycles.

Vendors and solution providers often talk about ?solutions,? ?systems? and ?integrated technologies,? but their marketing activities tend to emphasize single products or technology lines with promotions that are little more than mechanisms for generating sales leads. This approach of direct marketing does result in measurable short-term sales activities and is known as ?push marketing,? in which a vendor drives its message around a specific product.

Experience, though, is showing us that push marketing is increasingly becoming less effective as even partners are increasingly becoming sour on short-term deals. Partners don?t want to be sold to, and they don?t want to be bombarded with sales pitches, special offers and incentives ? they want extended, profitable relationships. I would argue they are savvy enough to know the first objective of a marketing person is to open the door, and that of the salesperson is to establish the dialogue.

In fact, what our end customers want from all of us is engagement. They want vendors and solution providers willing to develop relationships. They want technology suppliers and service providers who understand their business, market dynamics and future operating climates, and are able to react to these business factors ? not just push the latest shiny gadget or fancy cloud. They want to know more about expertise, capabilities, competencies and, the hardest to deliver, outcomes.

In this context, social media isn?t just about tweeting; it?s about developing trusted connections with influencers and decision-makers over the communication channels of their choosing. The development of such relationships means vendors and their marketers need to think beyond the immediate sale and engage with target customers on issues and trends that have nothing to do with their particular product or service.

In broad-based brand marketing, engagement means forming communities through which experience and best practices are developed and shared. The brand is a platform through which expertise is extended in collaborative discussions and information exchange. In education programs, this means providing customers with as much ? if not more ? agnostic information and enablement tools as with materials designed to stimulate a sales call or event.

Through extended engagements in which a vendor?s message is offered multiple times in multiple ways across varied medium, vendors will develop deeper, more valuable and more productive partner and end-user relationships. The leads developed through extended marketing engagements that focus on the relationship as much as the message will produce better and more valuable leads.

Those vendors that think beyond ?this quarter?s objective? and ?marketing at the lowest possible expense? will blaze a path to a more successful future.

* * *

Jennifer Anaya serves as vice president of marketing for Ingram Micro North America. She?s responsible for directing the activities of Ingram Micro?s marketing organizations across the U.S. and Canada. With nearly two decades of marketing experience ? eleven of which have been spent working with and for Ingram Micro ? Jennifer is regarded as one of the ?Most Powerful Women in the IT Channel? by CRN Magazine.

Source: http://channelnomics.com/2012/08/30/marketing-hit/

don cornelius whitney houston i will always love you breaking news whitney houston carmen whitney houston last performance cpac straw poll breaking dawn part 2