This month’s state of the industry report on the value of hosted events may seem to be a rather specific topic. The idea behind the content, quite simply, examines how dealers can use these opportunities to portray themselves as thought leaders, trusted advisors and partners to their end-user clients.
So it comes as no surprise that the industry’s manufacturers feel the exact same way toward you, their valued partner. Their success is intertwined with your own, and merely offering their wares to your clients makes you, the dealer, little more than a go-between. Allowing your company to leverage the full range of programs, lead-generation tools, marketing insight, training and, yes, hosted events (either theirs or your own) can enable your dealership to get the most value from the union.
We’ve canvassed industry OEMs to learn about the programs they have in place to enable dealers to more-effectively reach deeper within existing accounts and scout out new opportunities.
Brother International: Courtney Behrens, director, lead optimization, B2B marketing
Brother International Corporation takes an ‘At Your Side’ approach in working with our dealer partners to generate interest in our products through a variety of programs. We build close relationships with our partners to ensure we understand who their customer bases are and how we can best attract relevant leads—through Brother-generated efforts and through their own. By understanding these target markets, we can then present a variety of customizable programs for these partners to utilize.
Our programs are omni-channel and encompass email, social, collateral and web assets the partner can repurpose for their end users. We strategize with our partners to provide recommendations on an appropriate mix and cadence of using these assets within a campaign to maximize responses. To help our partners accelerate their campaign efforts, we provide resources in the form of co-op or MDF, chosen based on the volume of revenue that flows through that partner. Brother also conducts lead generation programs internally, and the results of these are passed to our partners.
For these types of programs, you get out of them what you put into them. The time spent building relationships with our partners to really understand their businesses puts us in an ideal position to provide the best results on lead-generation programs.
Canon: Leroy Farrell, vice president/general manager, engineering services & solutions
Aligning with our customer-first mindset, Canon U.S.A.’s focus does not purely rest on the potential of the products we create, but also the attention of the people who use them. We take pride in delivering high-quality customer service and support excellence to our channel partners and end customers by offering them the necessary tools, systems and resources to help resolve customer concerns quickly and efficiently.
Through the Canon Smart service system, we are able to offer our dealers and customers a suite of tools that can remotely interface with devices, train customers on device usage, enable dealers to be contacted directly from certain error codes, and more efficiently plan service calls. To help enhance customer experience and increase turnaround time, we also offer 100% U.S.-based customer support through our Customer Solutions Center, for which we are happy to showcase a 94% first-call fix rate. Our main focuses revolve around ensuring that we help to optimize service and operational efficiency for our dealers, and our 11 consecutive Center of Excellence certifications by Benchmark Portal reflect our success in doing so.
To bring it all together, Canon also hosts the Engineering and Solutions Summit each year to not only show how we can support our dealers, but also to provide them with key insights and advantages that can help them enhance their service operations through Canon’s solutions. This year, the summit will be taking place in three major cities—Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Nashville— spanning June and July 2020.
Epson: Joe Contreras, commercial marketing executive, Office Solutions
Epson has always been a “channel-first” company, and has built its Epson’s BusinessFirst Partner Program around the development of a personal relationship with dealers. We provide a range of go-to-market tools to assist with sales-enablement activities, including events, programs and promotions dealers create to generate and cultivate sales leads.
As part of our BusinessFirst Platinum Partner Program, each dealer has a dedicated Epson team to provide support for hosted events, including digital marketing assets to generate awareness, onsite staffing for product demonstrations and collateral material for interested leads. In addition, we offer dealers technical support assistance for customers to streamline the onboarding process, as well as technical training allowing partners to provide first-rate service to customers.
Epson’s core channel philosophy is driven by a personal approach to its channel partners. Understanding and embracing the value of our channel partners ensures that we deliver the highest level of service and support to dealers, so they can secure more business and inspire confidence in their customers. In service to that, we have taken a platinum level, white-glove or customized approach to onboarding our partners. We are looking past the short-term transactional relationship and focusing more on the long-term product/service needs for true partnership relationships.
HP: Xavier Fernandez, global director, contractual GTM strategy and programs
At HP, we work closely with our partners to better serve customers at every touchpoint. An important element of this is offering our partners the products, solutions, support and services that enable them to drive value and help us collectively create better customer outcomes and experiences. There are many ways that HP helps channel partners accomplish this.
Specific to dealers who are seeking to host events, either independently or in concert with HP, we offer demo equipment, branding material and marketing tools, as well as co-marketing funds to further amplify campaign material that highlights the key differentiators for HP’s managed product fleet. We provide hands-on training for partner technical consultants, as well as certification events for partner sales representatives. We also host joint customer visits at the HP demo center in Barcelona for an overview of HP solutions, including 3D and graphics, further exemplifying the full set of HP solutions and portfolio.
HP partners can also take advantage of HP’s exclusive training content and lead-generation programs; our dedicated resources, like HP service managers who provide white-glove support and ensure operational excellence; and HP executive sponsorship in key HP and partner events. These are just a few examples of how we are dedicated to addressing customers’ needs while also advancing our partners’ success.
Konica Minolta Business Solutions: Kay Du Fernandez, senior vice president, marketing
Konica Minolta Business Solutions, U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta) offers a wide range of tools, programs and services to assist dealers’ efforts to position themselves as trusted and knowledgeable partners to their end-user clients.
Marketing support through Konica Minolta Marketing Services includes comprehensive lead generation and event support. Marketing content is available to all dealers through the Dealer Connect portal, allowing dealer partners to create co-branded materials and leverage a wealth of marketing assets for their websites, emails, branding and lead generation efforts. For dealers who require a more consultative approach, strategic marketing services and execution through the Automated Marketing Program (AMP) offers custom campaign development including multi-touch email and direct mail campaigns. This full-service marketing offering can be utilized to support open house events, specific product promotions and to drive overall lead generation.
Dealer programs that enhance the event experience include end-user promotions that can be offered as a closing tool during an event, demo room packages to ensure the dealer’s showroom has the latest products and signage, and coaching in effective appointment setting through prospecting workshops. Konica Minolta Marketing Services understands the imaging industry and the challenges that dealers face when marketing their business.
Additionally, through Konica Minolta Learning, Pro-Tech service certification, and sales effectiveness training, dealers have the opportunity to enhance customer satisfaction by increasing their organization’s service and support capabilities.
Lexmark: Sammy Kinlaw, vice president of worldwide channel OEM and sales
Lexmark offers several best practice components of our lead-generation services for dealers that help our partners drive awareness for their brand and for Lexmark.
Support: Through organized teleprospecting efforts, our Lexmark team can provide partners with fully qualified sales leads that will help them build their sales funnels and drive revenue for their businesses.
Materials: The Lexmark Marketing Hub platform enables us to provide partners with ready-to-use marketing materials that can be co-branded, personalized and shared with their customers. Through quarterly campaigns, partner launch kits and other collateral, the site enables partners to customize Lexmark marketing materials on the fly to create personalized end-user customer assets.
Expertise: All of the insight we pass on to partners is founded on our decades of imaging expertise. And now, through our formal Lexmark Industry Advantage offer, we provide a process for partners to tap into this expertise and leverage our vertical industry experts in retail, health care and other industries to gain traction with larger organizations and opportunities.
All of these benefits are delivered to our partners through our comprehensive partner program, Lexmark Connect. It gives partners the business model-specific resources, insight and tools they need to turn opportunities to wins, every step of the way.
Ricoh: Jennifer Healey-Rooney, director channel marketing
Ricoh understands the power of partnership, which is why it invests heavily in working with Ricoh Family Group dealers to drive results—for dealers and for end customers. We offer many of the world’s finest dealers a wide array of dedicated resources. This unique partnership approach, including monthly meetings and quarterly reviews with dealer business managers, centers on providing support and guidance, while also giving Ricoh the opportunity to learn of the distinctive challenges dealers face to help build the right growth paths.
For example, dealers expressed concerns regarding change and millennial management, especially as dealer leaders begin to transfer responsibilities to younger generations. To address this, we led a seminar at ConvergX, our dealer leadership conference, about bridging generational divides in the workplace and specifically how to manage the transition to new, younger leadership. Attendees left equipped with an actionable takeaway: a playbook to be taken back to the dealerships, and access to a Ricoh educational program featuring expert speakers and key discussion topics to guide discussions and suggest actions to help with such important planning.
Ricoh also provides a wealth of options to support dealers at their own customer-facing events. Once customer needs are determined, dealers can work with us to set a theme, suggest and secure speakers for a webinar or live event, and even leverage co-branded, customized Ricoh Customer Experience Centers across the U.S. Ultimately each of these offerings and strategies have been custom-built to continually enhance Ricoh’s unique, collaborative relationship with its dealer partners.
Toshiba America Business Solutions: Kerstin Woods, vice president, product and solutions marketing
From hardware to software, Toshiba provides extensive resources to its independent dealers and direct reseller channel to drive new leads and foster retention, including best-in-class products and training, expert industry insights and value-added programs.
By attending our industry-recognized conference, LEAD (Learn Engage Act Deliver), dealers may access educational breakout sessions and receive hands-on training on our new offerings. Toshiba differentiates itself with this event by encouraging dealers to invite current and prospective clients. This enables channel partners to personally showcase what they have to offer in combination with Toshiba to generate new business. LEAD conferences eliminate the need for dealers to host their own events, while gaining maximum benefit from Toshiba’s investment.
Toshiba also helps channel partners implement their activities. From co-sponsoring events and supporting sales campaigns to providing content and expert speakers, Toshiba ensures dealers’ unique needs are met.
We additionally equip dealers with a verticalized sales program, called Vertical360 (v360). This comprehensive, go-to-market program provides dealers in-depth education and industry-centric solutions with which to better address their customers’ specific challenges and pain points. v360 particularly enhances dealers’ knowledge via training modules covering industry terms, buyer styles, purchasing cycles and buying triggers. The program’s curriculum details how Toshiba products best serve a specific vertical market, while offering presentations that equip its channel partners with appropriate knowledge to understand client needs.
