VAR Letter to Manufacturers - Please Change Your Marketing Guidelines

Dear Tech Manufacturer Channel Program Manager, as a VAR (Value-added Reseller) I love working with you. Without your great products, VAR's wouldn't be able to put together the solutions their clients need.

With that said, I have a suggestion (actually, a few but I'll keep it to one, for now): Here it is - refine your marketing guidelines to make it easier for us to sell your products.

Many resellers sell consultatively (that's the approach we use with reseller marketing programs). Namely, we seek and identify a client's problems/issues, do some diagnosis, then prescribe a solution. Many VAR's lead with a consultative or solution oriented approach, instead of leading with a product.

The problem is that many of your guidelines *require* VAR's to put a lot of your company information and product information in the marketing piece (whether direct mail, email, landing page, etc.) On the surface, this may not seem like such a terrible thing - but it ends up being just that, when it comes to sales.

Here are two scenarios:

** Scenario A

Let's say, a few years ago, a Prospect has had some bad experience with a Vendor. Since then, the Vendor has fixed those problems but the Prospect doesn't know this. They only remember not liking this Vendor, any longer.

Fast forward to the present; the Prospect is having problems with remote backup. He/She happens to get a direct mail piece from the VAR reseller with the Vendor's remote backup product information on it. The Prospect sees the Vendor name - and tosses it in the "circular file" (trash), right away, remembering the bad experience with one of the Vendor's other products.

The window of opportunity is closed due to leading with a product. Remember, the Prospect gets tons of similar marketing materials that all look the same, largely because most vendors have the same channel marketing guidelines.

** Scenario B

Again, the Prospect is in need of remote backup help and receives the VAR's marketing communication - but instead of all the product information, the Prospect finds a solution-oriented "executive" door-opener mailer that primarily speaks to the Prospect about remote backup issues and how the VAR has solved these issues in the past. At this time, there is no reference to the product or the Vendor in question.

The window of opportunity is now open. By leading with a consultative and solution-oriented approach, the Prospect responds to the offer to meet. Now, the VAR has an opportunity to be consultative, gain trust. Believe it or not, after gaining trust, they have the opportunity to tell the Prospect about how the Vendor has fixed their past problems and now has great products. This is an opportunity that would not be afforded if the marketing had led with the *product*.

In many of our projects we see a lot of good marketing pieces ineffective, rejected, discarded because of the vendor marketing guidelines and, consequently, the piece gets no results and good money was just wasted.

I understand that you want "your brand" to be represented but your corporate marketing techniques do not work in the small-to-mid-sized business market. What works is solving the client's problems. In addition, *leading with products only leads prospects to think of price instead of how a VAR can solve their problem*.

I know this is not an easy thing to do - but you have to trust your VAR. Help them get into an account the way they know best. Let them use your marketing dollars in the manner that will be most effective. And in the end, when the VAR makes money, you will make money too.

Seed Newsvine

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