marketing

Most VARs typically don’t suffer from a lack of marketing options no matter what the vendor. The problem, of course, is who has the time and necessary resources to devote to marketing campaigns? With IBM, will end-to-end marketing packages aimed at customers in specific segments attract channel partners’ interest? And, more importantly, if interested, will partners onboard?

IBM figures that offering a lineup of integrating campaigns will help partners connect the dots to mine new business with customers and prospects in its key markets and products, namely, analytics, collaboration, industry-specific solutions, security, Rational, Tivoli, WebSphere and the midmarket.

Even though IBM’s field sales also is using the Ready-to-Execute materials, the vendor still warrants kudos for including channel partners in on the deal, especially at no cost to them.

Campaigns include strategies (multi-touch emails, telemarketing scripts, web marketing guidance), planning, marketing assets and offers (white papers, videos). All business partners have to do is add their logo and any customization they choose, such as company information or other relevant material. Each campaign is loaded into IBM’s co-marketing center.

Writing on the IBM Software Business Partner blog, Jacqi Levy, an IBM marketing manager and social strategist, said that the vendor’s State of Marketing 2012 research was the genesis of the Ready-to-Execute campaign, which launched in July 2012.

“Successful marketers are using an integrated mix of tactics, rather than focusing on just one or two, and they are incorporating emerging digital technologies into the mix alongside more traditional types of campaigns,” she said, in noting the study’s results.

IBM has provided partners with a home page for the Ready-to-Execute campaigns with instructions on how to search for, download and customize marketing materials to support real-time data insights. While the marketing campaigns are designed as a self-help tool, partners can use an agency to help execute them, according to IBM.