Need an extra boost to your sales and marketing endeavors? We’ve compiled a sampling of the various sales and marketing tools offered by manufacturers and solution providers.
These tools help office technology dealerships gain support and guidance through branded and product-specific educational opportunities.
Y Soft has a comprehensive partner program that includes education, training, technical, and marketing support. The Y Soft Partner Rewards program also provides incentives for additional discounts and marketing opportunities. However, enterprise solutions require a consultative sales approach, which for many dealers may be a new type of sales and support experience. To help, Y Soft developed the Global Operational Excellence Framework (GOE Framework), a set of tools and processes for defining customer needs, from initial deployment to ongoing proactive care and support.
The GOE Framework helps dealers navigate through selling solutions in three main phases: Discover, Design and Deploy. Once deployed, Y Soft assists with monitoring and support. In this way, Y Soft is an active consultant to ensure the dealer’s success with customers. The GOE Framework is a closed-loop project management service: customers are ensured a smooth deployment of Y Soft SafeQ on time and on budget.
Canon U.S.A. understands that as businesses invest more in the connected world, office technology dealers will utilize digital sales and marketing techniques more and more. As such, the company is focusing on new efforts to provide dealers a variety of digital and web-ready content. Dealers and their sales teams are able to gain easy access to professionally-crafted content through a PC or mobile device. The company makes its services easily accessible to a wide-reaching audience by using popular social channels such as Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Canon also continues to use traditional hard copy brochures, posters and pull-up banners to deliver a well-rounded sales and marketing tool set.
Canon provides web-based sales training, but the company also understands the continued value of person-to-person contact. To this end, the company offers regionally-based, instructor-led product training, hosts sales training and tech summit events, and supports local dealer events. In addition, select VIP customers are invited to the Melville, NY, headquarters to help dealers show (and end users see) the total and dependable values of Canon.
Subject Matter Experts
Toshiba’s Vertical 360 (v360) program is a comprehensive sales program delivering in-depth information and insights. The program empowers Toshiba resellers to become subject-matter experts in a variety of industries. The program targets the health care, logistics and manufacturing, government, education, retail, finance, and legal industries.
The program’s key components include:
- Education – Toshiba enhances reseller’s knowledge via in-depth training modules covering industry terms, buyer styles, purchasing cycles and buying triggers.
- Industry-Focused Solutions – Toshiba equips resellers with best-in-class hardware and software offerings, as well as its Elevate customizable user interface for use in its e-STUDIO multifunction printers.
- Incentives – Toshiba accelerates sales growth by providing incentives to its resellers and customers.
Education is the foundation of Toshiba’s v360 program. This instrumental aspect of the program is unrivaled in the industry. The curriculum includes:
- Sales Essentials – Enables Toshiba resellers to successfully navigate the initial vertical business approach through industry insights.
- Product Positioning – Resellers learn how features in Toshiba’s e-STUDIO products address specific needs and objectives of the vertical markets it serves.
- Industry Solutions – Toshiba provides resellers with an overview of industry-focused products and solutions targeting each vertical market. The presentations equip dealer representatives with the knowledge and selling skills to probe and uncover client needs.
Clover Imaging Group (CIG) offers customer-focused solutions to help drive customer engagement and new business. From MPS to content marketing, support and training to sustainability, CIG provides a suite of comprehensive programs to help grow and support your business.
CIG’s Amplify platform helps dealers grow their business and engage new opportunities in entirely new ways. In today’s world, you simply can’t create content for content’s sake and hope to compete.
First and foremost, your content needs to have substance. If you want to grow your brand, you need to have something to say first.
As your business partner, CIG will develop customized content to speak directly to the vertical markets you are targeting. Working with your team, CIG will help you answer key questions your customers are asking, as well as develop educational content your customers (and search engines) will love. Essentially, CIG is an extension of your marketing department with expertise in almost every vertical market.
CIG’s Axess MPS SalesPro Training is the most comprehensive e-learning MPS sales training curriculum available. Consisting of 13 web-based video modules, SalesPro Training includes multimedia content, real world examples, field implementation tools, quizzes and tests to keep your sales team engaged and ensure mastery of the materials.
ECM, Process Automation Solutions
Both reseller and referral partners are an integral part of the success of DocStar. It supports partners with programs designed to educate and convert prospects on DocStar’s ECM and process automation solutions. With these tools, prospects and customers can improve document control, cut costs and increase satisfaction across the organization.
DocStar offers a number of programs for partner marketing, sales and support organizations. Certifications, training, incentive programs, MDF, partner portal, email campaigns, website content, product brochures, trade show support, marketing assistance, and more are all available upon request.
Partners are supported by a designated channel manager who is responsible for educating them on available programs as well as assisting in the development of new programs. The channel manager acts as a liaison with DocStar marketing staff and coordinates additional resources in the sales process as needed.
Where are you in your MPS business right now and where would you like to be? With actionable tools that differentiate you in a competitive market, LMI Solutions has a platform to assist you, regardless of where you are with your MPS business model.
Newly launched MPS offerings can benefit from LMI Solutions’ prospecting, lead generation, and deal crafting tools, helping you land and close more deals. LMI Solutions’ Spectrum and Peak Performance platforms train your sales team to become efficient and knowledgeable in the MPS realm.
If your MPS portfolio is already established, LMI Solutions has built an infrastructure that allows dealers to improve automation and efficiencies, and reduce or even eliminate operational risk. This infrastructure allows you to expand your share of wallet within your customer base—including additional sticky services that expand a dealer’s portfolio from managed print services to managed business services.
How does your MPS business compare to the competition? Break through under exposure with an industry leader, regardless of what level your business is at today.
Partner Relationship Management
Xerox channel partners have access to a variety of sales and marketing tools. Xerox’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) program is a shared global platform that enables channel partners to do business more easily with Xerox. It is a gateway portal for partners to access essential Xerox product and solutions information, sales materials, marketing tools, training and systems. All of these enable effective and efficient selling.
Partners who participate in Xerox’s Global Partner Program have access to IMPACT Marketplace, a comprehensive one-stop, co-marketing resource that streamlines marketing enablement so partners can focus on building customer relationships and expanding sales. The online tools are free, easy to use, and provide high impact with minimal effort. Partners control their brand, contact information, and messaging with self-customizable fields, helping them generate leads and drive sales. Tools include webpage plug-ins, email campaign and social selling tools, and collateral creators and proposal generators. In addition, Xerox offers marketing and demand generation toolkits that include such elements as social templates, photography, inserts, and images. These can be used as a campaign or alone to supplement existing marketing initiatives.
Xerox’s Digital Mastery is a program that enables channel partners to improve their digital presence. With program elements covering owned, paid and earned media, channel partners can attract new logos with search engine marketing (SEM), strengthen existing relationships with search-optimized content, and turn advocates into prospects and customers with social media marketing.
Nuance is committed to working with channel partners to deliver superior business solutions and services to end-user customers. The company provides dealers with a broad portfolio of products and sales and marketing tools to help them be successful in the print management, scanning workflow and PDF solution markets. Nuance provides sales enablement programs, marketing activities and solutions support that deliver benefits throughout the sales cycle.
Dealers can access Nuance marketing and lead generation programs. The company is providing exclusive marketing tools and sales collateral, and they also participate in software and hardware demo programs. The Nuance Partner Program offers assigned sales, pre-sales engineering and focused executive support. Dealers can join sales and technical certification programs, in addition to gaining eligibility for market development customer events funds.
“Our channel partners are a critical component of Nuance’s success, and we are committed to working with dealers to maximize the opportunities available to them. Dealers can access exclusive sales and marketing resources to differentiate their businesses and deliver industry-leading solutions,” said George Seymour, vice president of sales, Nuance Document Imaging.
Boosting Profitability, Customer Loyalty
In addition to a comprehensive product line, an award-winning MPS program and the ability to offer full OEM program benefits for most major OEMs, Supplies Network offers a variety of compelling promotions designed to boost profitability and customer loyalty, along with a range of marketing tools to effectively communicate those offers. Their programs include the following:
Accolades – Exclusive rebate programs developed in partnership with OEMs, the Accolades promotions allow resellers to earn additional rebates based on sales goals.
Rewards of Choice – Web-based incentive programs that make it easier than ever for end-user customers to redeem rewards for qualifying purchases. Boost customer loyalty and capture repeat business with these simple, no-hassle promotions.
Rebate Central – As a distributor of more than 80 brands, Supplies Network offers a central location on the Supplies Network website to find all OEM product rebates.
Instant Inserts – Print-on-demand marketing collateral added to drop-ship orders at the point of fulfillment. Opt-in to predesigned inserts featuring supplies and hardware promotions or create custom inserts.
Brand-on-Demand – An exclusive email marketing tool that allows Supplies Network to easily send compelling programs and promotions to end-user customers on their reseller’s behalf. Emails feature reseller branding and calls-to-action.
Marketing Toolkits – Customizable sell sheets, videos, web assets, and product guides/flyers for numerous product lines and categories including the following:
- Hardware
- Printer parts
- Thermal supplies
- 3D printer filaments
Branded Drop-ship – Branded pick tickets, end-user order confirmations and private labeling deliver a positive, branded customer experience with every order.
Customers look to their partners to provide custom fleet designs. Lexmark Fleet Intelligence offers partners a custom fleet assessment that includes analysis, design and compelling customer-facing proposals without having to tackle the analytics and proposals on their own.
With Lexmark Fleet Intelligence assessments, partner staff can avoid complex and time-consuming data crunching and stay focused on their customer-facing activities. Lexmark’s leadership and industry approach to fleet optimization is tested and proven with thousands of successfully completed assessments. Using Lexmark Fleet Intelligence is like adding a fleet assessment expert to a partner’s staff.
Lexmark will do the heavy lifting of putting together print assessment proposals for its partners to use with their customers, providing all the analysis and generating proposals that are unique to each customer. Using Lexmark’s assessment experts, partners can position themselves as experts in fleet evaluation.
Lexmark Fleet Intelligence delivers powerful information to its partners, enabling them to scale up their sales services, deliver data-based proposals, and better position themselves as their customers’ business optimization expert.
Lexmark Fleet Intelligence pairs well with the sales support and innovative, award-winning products available to Lexmark partners.
Marketing Tools
ACDI’s marketing and communications department operates like a full-service, in-house marketing agency. Its focus is providing partners with the research, knowledge, and tools to help them successfully market ACDI’s solutions—including PaperCut, PrinterOn, and Pay-for-Print hardware and card readers—to their customers. ACDI’s market research and industry analytics—including vertical market trends, research, and blogging—make its OEM and independent dealer partners some of the most successful in the industry. It offers show-room and demo-room product marketing solutions, along with trade show support such as co-branded marketing material, collateral (including French- and Spanish- language versions) and signage.
In today’s connected world, dealers must have a digital marketing plan and presence, including inbound and remarketing strategies. This is where ACDI’s MarCom department thrives. Customized email marketing tools, social media strategy, and digital content are just a few of the services it offers to partners. As a HubSpot Inbound Marketing Platform Agency partner, ACDI is able to promote essential services for dealer success, such as informative campaigns detailing how its free software trials and product demos can help secure new business. HubSpot Marketing software enables you to create, automate, measure, and optimize all your online marketing in one place.
ACDI’s solutions sales services are equally impressive. Monthly sales and technical webinars cover product updates, vertical markets, and solutions selling. Subject matter experts give hundreds of webinars each year covering a wide range of topics and can tailor the focus to meet your team’s needs, be it sales talk-tracks, product information or technical instruction. Three-day hands-on technical training and certification seminars are held six to eight times a year in ACDI’s hometown of Little Rock, AR. ACDI believes in building partnerships of value by providing a complete line of services. If you need just one service, a few services, or all of them, ACDI is there to help.
Managed services can’t just be a product that office equipment dealerships offer—it requires a complete business transformation. Continuum takes a hands-on approach to educating and onboarding, ensuring OEM dealers are completely prepared for the managed services market.
The company focuses on two specific areas. The first is a pre-sale discovery and readiness assessment, which includes trainings on GTM launch plans, marketing templates, sales workflows, technical and sales trainings, pricing calculators, revenue expectations, and business model benchmarking to help ensure both operational and financial success.
The second approach looks at the readiness of an organization, including ownership buy-in, staffing, vCIO and field technician job descriptions, technical workflows, support preparations, sales processes, marketing plans and sales content, onboarding best practices, continuous training, post-sales activities and, again, business model benchmarking.
DocuWare, a global leader in cloud and on-premises business process automation solutions, equips its authorized DocuWare partners with a proven program of document management education, marketing tools and in-the-field sales support.
With a click of the button in DocuWare’s online marketing and sales tool search feature, partners have free-range access to high-quality marketing content and materials for every step of the sales process. Get ready to inspire interest, present with conviction, and exceed prospect and customer expectations with the following:
- Comprehensive product and educational flyers, brochures and thought leadership papers.
- Ready-to-go branded monthly newsletters and webinar invites for lead generation.
- Over 100-plus case studies showcasing different industries and customer testimonials.
- On-demand personalized collateral to keep contact info in the foreground.
- Customized event invitations to increase event attendance and interaction.
- Extensive educational, informative and tutorial videos.
