Westcon Group has launched a Marketing Services Programme to bolster its resellers’ marketing activity or help to plug any gaps in they have in marketing skills or resources.
The distributor says the new programme provides resellers with a network of some of the most experienced marketing agencies in the industry delivering services including: social media training, PR, content delivery and management, demand generation, design, video and animation and web analytics, all at preferential rates for Westcon Group partners.
Westcon conducted a survey with its resellers to find out if they saw value in the marketing services programme with the majority of resellers (56 percent) stating that they didn’t have enough marketing budget to execute a campaign properly. A total of 32 percent of partners revealed they didn’t have specialist marketing skills in-house, and 60 percent of partners wanted to work with external marketing specialists but were not sure who to approach and recruit.
“Our survey demonstrated that 57 percent of partners are too busy with their day jobs to keep up to speed with the latest marketing specialisations,” says John Richardson, Westcon’s UK marketing director.
“The Westcon Group Marketing Services Programme is a flexible initiative, enabling resellers to select different marketing disciplines from the marketing toolbox to create an integrated comprehensive marketing strategy – all from a single point of procurement to simplify processes and business. The programme complements vendor template marketing campaigns and provides resellers with the freedom to increase brand awareness and differentiate them from the competition.
“A total of 82 percent of our partners admitted that their marketing was conducted on a re-active and ad-hoc basis and 61 percent revealed that they don’t have the resource in place to analyse and monitor results of campaigns. The Marketing Services programme is a shift in channel marketing, moving away from short-term tactical marketing activities and campaigns to long term, targeted, integrated activities such as nurture-based demand generation campaigns that increase resellers’ incremental margin. We have just appointed a Marketing Executive to work closely with resellers to develop campaigns and content, and to manage the programme closely to ensure successful execution, analysis and reporting.”
Sheridan Bratt, marketing manager for Britannic Technologies comments: “Britannic Technologies is well known for its marketing professionalism and event management, however the world of digital marketing moves a pace. Having access to new ideas and an integrated basket of resources available through one channel will help Britannic Technologies remain at the forefront of marketing to our midmarket base.”
Westcon has appointed new marketing executive Carmen Ehret to manage the Marketing Service Programme.
