Heather K. Margolis

Lights, Camera, Action! Using Video in the Channel, Part 1

• March 15, 2013

Thinking about incorporating video into your channel marketing strategy? Here are the components that go into every great video.

Social Media: A Roadmap for the Channel

• February 21, 2013

It should come as no surprise that social media is growing in importance as a tool for engaging online with customers. Nowhere is that more true than in the channel. But for those partners without any social media profile, building a presence online can be a daunting task. We must ask not only what social media tools to use, but also how to use them.

Campaign-in-a-Box: All-in-One Marketing for Channel Partners

• December 6, 2012

One of the great balancing acts manufacturers must perform is finding the time and money to help their solution provider partners effectively market their solutions. It can be a challenge to find the manpower and funds to find the right resources.

Apps in the Channel: Changing Vendor/Partner Communications

• November 12, 2012

Cloud, mobility, consumerization and business social are reinventing not only the way vendors and their channel partners work together, but also the way we receive and disseminate information. That means many of the more traditional avenues of communication no longer are effective.

Adding Spark to Channel Partner Engagements

• October 30, 2012

Recently the Channel Maven team attended a leadership workshop by Sal Silvester based on his book Ignite! The 4 Essential Rules for Emerging Leaders. The book is a leadership allegory of two emerging leaders learning to develop a successful leadership strategy.

Social Media Success Comes with the Right Tools

• September 26, 2012

The value of social media is becoming more apparent to vendors looking for ways to enable their channel partners’ sales success.

The Golden Rules of Enticing Committed New Partners

• July 16, 2012

A typical channel program sees 5 percent of partners actively engaging while the other 95 percent of partners have made one sale and disappeared. Whether you have a new channel or a longstanding one, I’m sure you’ve seen this commitment issue.

So how can a vendor entice new partners that will be good for its business? Here are a few tips:

Channel Marketing Gets Easy with Campaign-in-a-Box

• June 21, 2012

You’ve no doubt heard about the importance of “channel marketing campaigns,” but what do marketers really mean by this term? At Channel Maven Consulting, we break down the sometimes ambiguous channel marketing campaign into a manageable Campaign In-a-Box offering, and you can just as easily create your own.

SEO and Channel Marketing – A Perfect Match

• June 5, 2012

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a term bandied about by marketeers, but do you know what it is? Technically, speaking, it’s the work of improving your website’s visibility in search engines. For example, when you search for “coffee” and your location on Google or some other search engine, it’s likely one well-known corporate chain will be listed as one of the top five results. Why?

Social Media Engagements: Measuring the ROE vs. ROI

• May 10, 2012

Oftentimes when we work with customers on social media engagements one of the questions we’re asked is, “What’s the ROI on this engagement?” That’s a challenging question to answer — while we are certain vendors and solution providers alike will get more interaction with partners and prospective customers by investing in a social media engagement, often it is difficult to put a dollar amount on the worth of an interacti

Earth Day: Promoting Sustainability in the IT Space

• April 20, 2012

It’s that time of year again! No not tax season — it’s time to get outside (okay, you can bring your iPad) and celebrate Earth Day! Every April we see a little logo flash at the bottom of our TV screens and on websites touting how that particular company or network is “being green” and how you should be, too.

One-2-One Marketing: How it Can Help Partners, Vendors Alike

• March 30, 2012

These days channel partners are presented with a bevy of marketing options from their vendors — co-branded materials, campaigns-in-a-box, online portals, etc. — designed to help partners become, in essence, an extension of the vendors’ sales and marketing teams.

I’m Too Sexy for the Channel?

• July 19, 2011

Okay, so I just dated myself with that title. Worse yet, now I have that stupid song stuck in my head. But I digress. It used to be the case that some products were just too sexy for the business space — they were seen as consumer-focused, and therefore, not ideal for the typical solution […]

Partner Program Changes Show Channel-Friendlier Side of Dell

• May 31, 2011

I’m eating my words. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t do that often. So here goes: Back in my global channel professional days I worked for EqualLogic. I was one of those channel folks who ate, slept and breathed the channel (still am). So when I got the news in 2008 that Dell (one […]

Trust: the Foundation for Building a Stronger Channel

• March 4, 2011

Trust is obviously important in business. I would take idea that one step further and say trust is more important in the channel.

Getting Channel Communications Just Right

• January 6, 2011

Attention technology vendors: When you correspond with your channel partners, are you inundating them with too much information? If you have a robust channel program with many different departments all working together there’s a possibility that your partners can get as many as five communications from your company per week. Multiply that by the other vendors they sell, and it’s amazing partners listen to you at all.

Channel Lessons From ‘National Lampoon’s European Vacation’

• December 14, 2010

Are you thinking about expanding your channel program into Eastern Europe? Are you stumped because you don’t have channel partners currently in the area or even a channel team who speaks the language?

Does Your Social Media Manager Have A Curfew?

• July 22, 2010

While I’m really excited to see companies incorporating social media into their channel I see a couple vendors hiring recent college grads and expecting them to take on the “Social Media Strategy.” Gen Yers, also known as Millennials, are bringing some amazing things to the work place with their tactical use of social media. However, I have a few questions about the mind set here…

… They include:

Co-Marketing Dollars: Partner Programs Meet Social Media

• May 27, 2010

Most technology companies offer co-marketing, co-branding and MDF programs to help channel partners jointly market a product and services value proposition. But if you’re a technology vendor, there is a fundamental shift in the types of marketing resources your partners need. It involves social media. Here’s the problem — and some recommendations.

First here are three reasons why co-marketing is so important:

Peer 1 Hosting: Driving More Biz Through Partners

• April 30, 2010

With three quarters of the world’s IT products and services being sold through the channel ,many companies are shifting from a direct only model to pushing more business through their partners.  Anyone who has been through this knows it’s not an easy transition. The most important thing is to keep partner interests top of mind. […]