When do the funds expire?  What are the rules?  How much do I have left to spend?  Where did it go?  Did I submit appropriate proof of performance and on-time?  How do I reconcile this maze of programs and budgets with accounts receivable?

Tracking these sometimes complex programs is a major effort and letting funds expire or go untapped is not healthy for your financials.  Some attempt this effort using spreadsheets or generic accounting systems – which can lead to costly mistakes – others may be resource limited –struggling to find the time to deal with each programs unique process independently.

What if you had a system that:

• Consolidated each manufacturer’s funds/programs into a single solution
• Captures when each budget is earned, when they expire, and how they were spent
• Provides hierarchical user access to precisely control data visibility, functionality and content based on user roles/permissions
• Provides utilization reports to the manufacturer/supplier
• Provides on-line tools for planning and claiming activities
• Automates the distribution of reminders to warn about aging activities, pending approvals, fund expirations and more
• Includes a robust engine for routing of transactions for approvals among all appropriate business process owners  (handles multi-tiered, shared, financial and/or brand based combinations)
• Provides your administrator, with easy to use budgeting tools for allocating new/adjusting existing fund balances
• Has rules integrated into solution for each manufacturer’s program -  prompting users on activity request forms to attach appropriate proofing documentation and ensuring that funds are used on eligible activities only
• Provides an on-line archive for each transaction and it’s associated  documentation/proof of performance

Contact us to find out more about our OEM and Distributor solutions

Forecasting, budgeting, adjusting forecasts, and changing budgets, are all part of day to day business.  We use history in planning.  It is true that history is important in “predicting the future”.  We don’t want to repeat mistakes and we want to replicate success.  We push for results, quarter to quarter and year to year.  We don’t always have time for history.  The demands of business require us to incorporate the element of the “guess” into our process.  How do we improve the “education” associated with the “guess”?

Real-time information combined with experience.  These two factors utilized on a real-time basis result in timely decision making, decisions which can affect the current quarter’s business.   Knowing where your partner’s stand, along with understanding cyclical business patterns, will improve “forecasts”.  The ability to review performance on an ongoing basis is a critical element of the process.  On-going analysis will eliminate early “knee jerk” reactions and minimize quarter end “fire drills.

The investment in your channel program is significant.  Utilizing that investment efficiently (or not) will have a big impact on results, in the short and long term.  The ability to monitor, analyze, and predict, will improve the ability to anticipate and react.  Having the tools available to systematically:

1. Capture current performance
2. Incorporate relevant trends
3. Consider historical information
4. Forecast results
5. Communicate with partners and business owners

We can help enhance the impact of your channel programs and your results for any type of program, from Co-Marketing and MDF, to Sales Incentives and SPIFFs.

Turn “guess work” into a science.  Contact us  to get started.

How can we make sure our resources are used effectively?  Every business has sales and profit objectives. Objectives which are intended to fuel growth and sustainability.  Organizational budgets are established with these goals in minds.  It is imperative that all areas of your business are “in sync” in pursuit of the organizations goals, including your distribution network.  Effective utilization of your channel promotion budget is critical.  Used effectively, your channel partners provide additional “feet on the street” to carry your message.  Making sure they are motivated and pursuing the “right” business is crucial to your efforts.

How can we make this happen?  How can we “put our money where our market is”?  The key is to target your spending.  Motivate and reward your partner network (firm or rep) for driving the sales that are best for your business.  These sales incentives or SPIFFs can be targeted at new customer acquisition, strategic markets, new products, and/or profitable products. They can also be targeted at sales through strategic resellers and VARs.

Many manufacturers have “deal registration” programs.  These programs typically focus on larger deals and are price discounting programs or incentive payments for achieving a sales goal.  Incorporating a deal registration concept into your promotional spending strategy can also be effective in driving your partners to deliver the results you need.  Making opportunity registration part of the incentive qualification process can yield a multitude of benefits:

1)      Target your program – Create incentive programs for specific sales activity; vetting the deal will insure your partners are pursuing opportunities consistent with your business strategy

2)      Engage partners up front – Insure partners are aware of your program and are participating in the entire sales process – this mitigates “program mining” by partners looking for potential incentive earnings after the fact

3)      Minimize channel conflict – Vetting the deal will insure your partners and direct sales teams are pursuing unique sales opportunities

4)      Pay for performance – Channel partners will earn the incentive upon completion of the sale or reaching a target quota

5)      Communication – Create an additional communication vehicle between the channel and your sales team

6)      Establish a sales pipeline – Identify opportunities, focusing both the channel and your sales team on closing deals    (forecasting)

7)      Validate channel opportunity – Analytics (i.e. close rates) providing insight for forecasting and resource deployment

Targeting your spending combined with a “pay for performance” concept can be an integral and effective tool within your channel marketing strategy.

We have the solutions which make this concept easy to deploy.  We also have the back office support team available to handle all customer and sales validation requirements as well as reward payments.  Our team will handle the process, so you can focus on results.

The shifts from traditional to digital media need to be part of your corporate and channel partner’s marketing strategy today. Channel managers are taking notice to the reality that traditional media has suffered significant declines for the past several years, and like it or not, digital media is an essential part of the marketing strategy – but where there is opportunity, there is also risk. Social and Digital media can be very effective when used properly, but expensive to clean-up afterwards if mishandled.

For many budget strapped dealers and partners, it’s easy to see the lure of social and digital media, but who is going to educate them on the intricacies of navigating the digital realm? How will your brand be represented by your dealers and partners? And don’t forget the all important reputation management factor! Channel partners have long depended on co-op, MDF and incentive support from manufacturers. These programs, if well designed – provide turnkey resources and tools to partners and encourage good co-marketing spend. Fortunately, this approach is still sound, you simply need to expand your toolkits to include digital media support. Don’t want to start from scratch? We can help you build a brand/program compliant turn-key service that includes training, reputation management, video distributions, digital signage, social media development, hyper targeted banner ads, landing pages, interactive print ads, mobile marketing, SMS, E-mail marketing, SEO, list acquisition. See our website for more information about TradeOne’s Digital Media Fulfillment Center.

A New Customer Acquisition and Retention Program could be the solution you need. An effective customer acquisition scheme will insure your channel partners are engaged throughout the sales process. You will see improved results across many fronts:

Quality Leads
Compounded Sales Growth
Market Share
Customer Loyalty – Channel Partners and End Users
Brand Awareness
Business Intelligence

There are several factors to consider when establishing a customer acquisition program. Do you have the tools necessary to support the offering? “End to end” support in critical to adoption by your channel partners and the ultimate success of the program. Key areas include:

Capturing and qualifying leads
Timely and accurate processing of rewards
Program Budgeting
Analytics

Our New Customer Acquisition programs focus on this critical area of your sales strategy. Our solution motivates your channel sales network to find, cultivate, and close new business opportunities. We provide both the on-line tools and back office support necessary to insure your programs success.

To learn how we can make this program work for you, please contact us at 866-487-2331:

During the course of a program review earlier this year, we prepared and presented our client a chart measuring dealer adoption rates for client produced creative –vs. – dealer produced creative. Like all good data analysts, we just presented our findings and waited for the reaction – “buzz” yes this one created a quite the stir. We were quickly brought up to speed on just how much all that “client” produced creative work costs them, and by gosh these dealers better start using it. As the discussion progressed, we agreed to look into the matter and see if we could find the root cause for the low adoption rates.

Following our review meeting, we polled a sample group of key dealers and asked them what they thought of the client sponsored programs. The feedback we received varied “I don’t like what they have”, “Not enough room on materials to get my dealer name out there”, “I did not realize this was available”, “Too expensive”, and “don’t know how to use”.

While we only polled a small percentage of this client’s dealers, the survey revealed to us at least that awareness and lack of training were the key factors in most dealers not taking advantage of the client supplied resources. After the poll results were discussed, decisions were made to implement a monthly e-newsletter to help increase awareness, and to host monthly on-going training sessions. Initial results are already looking positive, with noticeable increases in activity following each monthly session.