Co-Marketing im B2B

Co-Marketing – Effective marketingtool for the IT-sector

The digital transformation influences the channel-business and the relating marketing practices. In this regard, the communication and business consultant Evernine Group and iKOM have developed the Qualified-Lead-Marketing (QLM) Concept. The new digital performance indicator enables channel partners to connect producers’ targets with their own marketing aim via an appropriate marketing approach. By that, customer’s needs and sales’ targets become transparent, and co-marketingcan be operated more purposefully or even be completely outsourced.

 

The financial funding by the producer is a quartile-related budget, which is dependent on the partners’ preceding sales and linked to a solution or product. This so-called co-marketing money (former promotional costs) should firstly finance the parter’s activity which ultimately makes for leads. Especially in the IT-sector, this funding of marketing activities plays an important role for service contractors and IT service providers, as the solutions of producers, for example in the cloud context, become more and more exchangeable from the customers’ viewpoint. The better the partner communicates their solutions for their strategic topic area, the more the producer profits.

 

The business consultant Evernine Group, which has offices in Munich and Hamburg, got together with the IT branch expert Silvia Hänig of iKOM and introduces with the Qualified Lead-Marketing (QLM) a concept with which both sides of the market can shape the usage of promotional costs more effectively.

 

This is fitting for the current market situation: Not few partners of big software companies had to turn from the former license business to sales of solutions and topics like “cloud” or “cognitive”. Consequently, the way they have to present themselves towards the customer has changed significantly. Instead of mere product advantages they have to offer solutions which are valuable for different topic areas and help making the right decisions for the new technologies.

 

“Co-marketing as it is done today, is often unprofitable. And this applies for both sides. Often, the producer’s offers – if there are any – aren’t suitable for the partners to access new customers groups. On the other hand, there is the problem that the sales partner’s measures are outdated, especially when it comes to one’s own transformation. And yet, there are effective marketing measures for both sides via QLM” said Alexander Roth, head of business-IT unit of the Evernine Group.

 

The tested QLM-approach is effective. Co-marketing campaigns in connection with mutually arranged conversion are developed and conducted for the target group within the digital sales funnel. For example, co-branded webinars or white paper downloads are used as informing elements for the conversion aim and transferred into a common story. Permanent monitoring, A/B testing and continuous reporting measure a campaign’s success and guarantee the transparent communication and tracking of the achieved aims of producer and partner.

 

Value-centred optimization in all campaign channels

A correct and mutually establishes setup of content and co-branded landing pages for the lead generation provides the basis for effective digital marketing, preferably in form of multichannel marketing in connection with social ads, native ads and content marketing. The Qualified Lead-Marketing concept (QLM) developed by Evernine provides the optimal basis for campaigns like this. The mix of channels used is optimized every day in the course of the campaign to meet the key performance indicators (KPI). All activities are provided by Evernine – starting with the consultation about the content up to the programming. In that way, two problems are solves, which often occur on side of the sales partner: The lack of manpower and the missing knowledge in modern digital marketing.

 

“Previously in co-marketing, the quartile-driven sales cycle and the marketing campaigns did not fit together. This meant that financial funding of the producers did not entail the expected success,” Silvia Hänig and Alexander Roth agree.

 

You can find the published press release about this topic here in the press box.

You get get more information about the efficient application of promotional costs here.

Source title image: shutterstock / Bakhitiar Zein.