More than 82% of Australian IT resellers recently surveyed would consider completely switching brands if another brand was to pass them sales leads, according to data released today by Sydney digital marketing agency Affiniti.
The survey of 112 IT resellers showed that 92 of them would consider switching PC brands if another brand could provide them with better marketing support.
Affiniti managing director Joel Montgomery said lead generation was clearly an issue for resellers.
“When more than eight out of 10 resellers saying they’d switch PC brands if they were provided better marketing support and lead generation, there’s an obvious retention issue facing the industry,” Montgomery said.
“Outside the top 100 partners very few smaller resellers get marketing support from the vendors.”
“It’s clear that vendors need to look for innovative ways to support a greater number of their partners with lead generation services in order to drive sales and partner loyalty.”
Affiniti’s PartnerReach product provides email marketing services to more than 250 Australian IT resellers with the service being free to the reseller.
“We partner with the vendors who help fund this hands-off service for the reseller making the process simple and effective for both groups,” Montgomery said.
Many IT brands such as Lenovo and StorageCraft have all benefited from the PartnerReach marketing partnership.
Lenovo’s Marketing Manager, Sara Palmieri, said Lenovo always looks at ways to offer efficient lead gen services to as many partners as possible.
”We understand the importance of helping our partners generate new business and PartnerReach helps us achieve this objective,” Palmieri said.
Greg Wyman, Vice President for StorageCraft Asia Pacific, said in Australia and New Zealand alone it had over 50,000 end users and in excess of 4,900 resellers.
“Many of our partners are small to medium sized resellers who don’t have dedicated marketing resources. We have a strategic alliance with Affiniti so that our partners can deliver professional ‘out of the box’ marketing campaigns to help drive awareness, revenue and of course increased profitability,” Wyman said.
“Ultimately, people want to buy locally where possible and from people they know and trust – using your partner’s existing networks are a logical extension of your own marketing efforts,” Montgomery added.
