Failing to effectively manage and motivate co-marketing partners and channel relationships means you’ll likely miss key opportunities and leave a lot of money on the table. Not surprisingly, the constant refrain from these partners today is, “What have you done for me lately?” Valid question.
KC Associates can help you do more than simply align your company with the right technology partners or give your channel partners sales and marketing tools (though we’re good at that too!). We view co-marketing partners as a resource for joint programs that leverage their brand and credibility—as well as their money—to help build your business. And we see your channel partners as sales people who need incentives, regular communications and motivation to push your products and services, without the fear of channel conflict.
Our co-marketing expertise includes:
Our channel programs include:
In The Marketing Imagination, Theodore Levitt argues that customers buy products to solve problems and that they value products in proportion to their perceived ability to solve these problems. From a customer's view, a solution is a complex cluster of value satisfactions* that addresses their whole problem—a Total Product. Levitt says that a total product’s “customer-getting and customer-satisfying' attributes can be managed to achieve a competitive advantage. Therefore, by defining a solution that exceeds customers“ expectations, a company can out-perform competitors and position itself as a true leader.
* Value satisfactions can be tangibles and intangibles such as implementation services, post-purchase support, maintenance policies, training, extra features and advanced technology.
In his book Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore uses the Technology Adoption Lifecycle to illustrate technology-based products and services are accepted by the market over time and that buyer values are correlated to the stages of adoption. As the model indicates, each stage of technology adoption has various buyer attitudes and priorities and as a market evolves, so, too, must a company's go-to-market strategy and messages.
