According to Gartner, “This Cool Vendors report showcases companies that are innovating sales and marketing techniques to help IT providers go to market more effectively. By using such services, IT providers can get more value from their sales and marketing investments.”

“Channel organizations’ sales forces are overwhelmed with consuming and using the massive amount of information provided to them. IT providers that make the information easy to find and consume are more likely to gain mind share with their partner community”, added Gartner.

socialondemand® by purechannelapps enables organisations to reduce communication costs and amplify their social media messaging through their sales partners. It makes it very simple for partners to utilise the social media content created by their suppliers to drive awareness, interest and business with their own followers and contacts. socialondemand uses an intuitive, multi-lingual and customisable interface allowing vendors to input, categorise and target content to their partners.  In turn, partners are able to control what, when and where content is published, and can edit this content to make it their own, to deliver true value to their followers.

“We consider our inclusion in the Cool Vendor report by Gartner confirmation of our mission to enable customers to unlock the power of their content strategies and to help partners ride on the social media wave,” said Olivier Choron, CEO and Founder, purechannelapps.  “We believe the recent addition of socialleads, our add-on module that lets partners generate and capture leads via social media, will further enhance our leading position in the content syndication market and help us deliver a truly revolutionary solution for marketers.”

About purechannelapps:
Founded in 2011, purechannelapps Ltd. helps customers drive business growth through better enablement, communication and collaboration with their sales teams and partners. purechannelapps delivers dynamic e-communications and social media enterprise-class online platforms that help organisations to reduce communication costs and amplify their social media messaging through their sales partners.

purechannelapps supports clients that use intermediary partners as their route to market – such as IT, automotive, retail, finance and telecoms – helping them to better communicate to employees and partners, amplify and syndicate social media content, and to connect social media prospects directly with the most relevant sales teams – internal or channel partners.

With offices in Texas and the United Kingdom, purechannelapps is privately-owned and funded.  For more information, visit www.purechannelapps.com.

Disclaimer:

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

For further information contact:
Emma Rose PR/ AR Manager

purechannelapps Limited
T: +44 (0)1424 772 375
E: emmar@purechannelapps.com

[1] Gartner “Cool Vendors in Technology Go-to-Market, 2013” by Tiffani Bova, Neil McMurchy, Hank Barnes, Kimberly Collins, Ed Cordin, 17 April 2013.

The partnership between Winn and purechannelapps will bring the combined expertise of both firms in the channel marketing and social media arenas to the marketplace.  Leveraging purechannelapps’ market-leading solution – socialondemand® – and capabilities for syndicating content from vendors, distributors, and the industry, to the channel and internal sales teams, and out to social media channels dramatically improves information collection and dissemination.

The managed service offered by Winn helps clients to identify, acquire, and customize content for distribution.  Ultimately, the joint efforts will help identify, qualify, and drive lead opportunities for clients.  Integrating these capabilities with account-based marketing and the “live touch” provides for more in-depth prospect qualification, gathers key business intelligence, maintains consistent messaging, and helps provide an effective workflow for channel partners to leverage the benefits of social media.

“The relationship between Winn Technology Group and purechannelapps brings together three critical components of a channel marketing strategy: the integration of marketing automation, social media content and distribution, and call-centric marketing,” stated Geoff Swallow, President and CEO of Winn Technology Group.  “The market can now access an extremely cost-effective, integrated solution that brings two leading offerings together to drive a strong Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI).”

“This partnership represents a great opportunity for us in the North America market and will enable our customers to truly harness the power of social media marketing,” said Olivier Choron, CEO and Founder of purechannelapps.  “Winn Technology gives marketers the ability to integrate human touch points into marketing automation and social media programs, which is critical for successful multi-channel marketing.”

About Winn Technology Group

Founded in 1990, Winn Technology Group is a leading provider of global, multi-channel marketing solutions for the technology industry.   For both direct and channel sales, Winn supports demand creation, account-based marketing, channel management, tele-prospecting, lead nurturing, event marketing, database services, and inbound response management.  Winn’s proprietary, web-based platform, the Winn Demand Center, is a closed-loop portal for campaign execution and reporting.  The Demand Center is a single, shared global platform covering outbound, inbound, and digital marketing services.  Winn communicates daily with IT, line of business, and executive level contacts responsible for making technology purchasing decisions.  For more information, visit our website at www.winntech.net, or contact us at info@winntech.net or call us at 1-800-444-5622

About purechannelapps

Founded in 2011, purechannelapps Inc. helps customers drive business growth through better enablement, communication and collaboration with their sales teams.  purechannelapps delivers dynamic e-communications and social media enterprise-class online platforms that help organisations to reduce communication costs and amplify their social media messaging through their sales partners.

purechannelapps supports clients that use intermediary partners as their route to market – such as IT, automotive, retail, finance and telecoms – helping them to better communicate to employees and partners, amplify and syndicate social media content, and to connect social media prospects directly with the most relevant sales teams – internal or channel partners.

With offices in Texas and the United Kingdom, purechannelapps is privately-owned and funded.  For more information, visit www.purechannelapps.com .

This is especially true for channel communications, whether you are talking ‘push’ emails/ eDMs or monthly e-newsletters. In an ideal world, your news or ground-breaking technology reveals should go out in real time and strike while the iron is hot, or at least while your competition snoozes!

Unfortunately more often than not, this is just not possible.

To begin with, for content that is produced centrally there is the consideration of translation.  A good translation agency is worth its weight in gold. It should know how you talk to your customers, it should understand your business, and speak your product jargon. It should forge good relationships with your regional marketing teams who are inevitably called upon to check all translations produced, prior to dispatch.

This inevitably takes time, and money.

And then, you need to physically design, create artwork, code and dispatch all of your emails or newsletters…

This is further complicated by the number of ‘versions’ you will need, which typically involves some type of segmentation: whether your partners are selling or not, active or not, or whether they are Gold, Silver, Platinum, etc.

As you know, every form of communication needs to be relevant to its audience and your channel partners are a key target audience. Your content needs to be pertinent (and interesting!) to have the maximum impact. Your channel needs to be able to digest your news quickly and decide if it is something they want to communicate out, themselves.

So, if you multiply the number of translations you need by the number of versions you would like, you could end-up with a nightmare…i.e. your news will never go out on time and will cost you a fortune!

How to fix this?

Today, to minimise their budget needs and communications timelines, vendors prefer to limit the number of translations and sub-versions required, hence delivering a ‘one-for-all’ message to all partners, in as fewer languages as possible. Not the ideal solution!

Social media TO your partners? Hrm… frankly, and this is a personal view (of course), I don’t think social media is the answer. There is simply too much ‘critical info’ you need to send to your partners…and social networks are not the best place to keep things quiet!

Emails and newsletters… yes, as long as they are timely, targeted, relevant, captivating and cost-effective (for you). To guarantee interest you need to work with good copy-writers. To guarantee the rest, you should look at the news subscription model, i.e. a model whereby partners decide what info they want and precisely when they want to receive it.

…and if you do not know where to look, check out our newsondemand; a simple concept but a very effective solution…well you would expect me to say that, wouldn’t you

By Olivier Choron, CEO and Founder, purechannelapps.

There’s one critical thing missing from virtually every piece of direct social media content… the ‘where to buy’.

Imagine the scenario… you’re so keen to see the last instalment of your favourite TV show that you are prepared to put up with the multitude of adverts. Just as you are losing the will to live, the virtues of the next best line in underpants grabs your attention, you’re hooked, you want some.  But the advertiser leaves you hanging (literally)… they fail to tell you where to buy some. You have to work it out for yourself, a task which rapidly gets forgotten as your programme starts up again.

My point is that organisations with an indirect route to market (channel partners, dealers, agents, etc.) are guilty of this too.  They communicate directly with their target audience using social media (amongst other media), but, because they need to remain impartial, they don’t offer their audience ‘a source’ of their products or services in their content. Epic fail.

So what’s the answer to closing the sales loop using social media?  If you deploy an indirect route to market, with multiple partners representing your brand and supplying your products, why not give them the power to communicate your messaging for you? Give your partners the social media content you are currently pushing out directly; you are even able to target your content to specific segments of partners depending on their different audiences.

Not only will you reach your partners’ followers, you’ll be doing your partners a huge favour in driving more business their way AND you’ll make it a heck of a lot easier for your prospects and customers to make a purchase.

Have a look at social content syndication tools for the channel. It’s a new solution… a radical one… an option that will change the way you market through your sales partners.

I know a good platform: socialondemand… but then, I am biased

Oh look… the pants you want, in the colour you like, in the size you need, from a store in your town.  Bingo.

Social media shouldn’t just be the narrow domain of your marketing department, it is for everyone, at least everyone who is involved with your customers and channel partners – and your brand values are at their strongest when they are humanised throughout your organisation.

Before a panic attack kicks in, just hear me out.

You want to create one brand, one voice for your organisation, right?  A unified, influential and inspiring voice that drives positive associations for everything you stand for. Your people are ready and waiting to help you achieve this….

Think about the multi-level relationships between your organisation, your customers and your sales intermediaries (channel partners, dealers, agents and other influencers).  You trust nearly every individual in your organisation to communicate ‘with common sense’ to them on a daily basis – so why shouldn’t Clive in Channels, or Steve in Sales become part of your social media voice too? They are all very likely to have significant LinkedIn networks.

It’s not as much of a challenge as you might think.  To do this, your people will need two things: Common sense and content.

Common sense comes from employing the right people in the first place; underpinned by a social media ‘policy’ that gives them the support to ‘speak’ within parameters that work for you.   Secondly, you need to empower your employees with the right content, at the right time, relevant to their followers so that they are able to post to their social media networks with confidence and ease.

So keep the email and the phone for now, undoubtedly they still are invaluable if privacy and confidentiality is required, but maybe it’s time to entrust more of your people with one social media voice that lets your organisation shine 360^O.

Have look at social content syndication tools for your employees and sales partners. It’s a new solution… a radical one… an option that will change the way you market through your solutions.

I know a good platform: socialondemand… but then, I am biased

Come on, really, you know what I’m saying. Loads of extra work with no or very little reward. Why bother?

In my 20+ years in the channel, I have never seen a successful online co-marketing service/ programme! Maybe I have been looking at the wrong vendors, or maybe this type of campaign actually just doesn’t work. Having attended the Sirius Decisions Channel Technology and Services Panel Survey in January, I am inclined to say most would agree with me. But why?

Barriers, barriers and more barriers…

For those who don’t have a dedicated marketing team, i.e. the small, often local resellers, online co-branding services should provide a perfect solution for those who want to increase their marketing activity and raise their end-user brand awareness. For them the best part is all of the content, images and translations have been paid for by the vendor and are free.

But for those with an internal marketing team or the support of an external agency, what benefit will they see from this automated service? Not much…

Add to this the fact that most channel partners work with tens of suppliers; is pushing one vendor message really worth the extra effort? Most resellers would prefer to either (best option) push their own brand and messaging or (second best option) market multiple suppliers at the same time, which is very often a no-no, as far as you are concerned!

Let’s also not forget that most channel partners do not like to share their customer data too… This is just one of the hoops that you’ll have to jump through. You’ll need to create specific terms and conditions, with NDA clauses, or you’ll have to work through a third party agency and provide a completely ‘outsourced’ campaign on demand/ co-marketing service.

For you, the vendor, life won’t be easy. There is the increased workload and cost associated with creating channel to end-user versions of all the collateral. This can include new variations of direct mails, emails, brochures, etc. plus translations – none of which come cheap and all of which will increase the time it takes to get a campaign up and running. Often this will mean that you’ll only be able to create ‘campaigns’ perhaps four times a year (at best)… not very ‘real-time’, is it?

And then, there is the ‘spamming issue’… critically, are end-users actually reading the untargeted emails they get sent? And can you tell 100% whether the leads are generated by the telemarketing campaigns that follow or just by the co-branded marketing elements themselves?

Time for something new?

Whilst I believe there is still a place for informative emails (as long as they are targeted and relevant), isn’t it time vendors think outside the box when planning or creating end-user campaigns?

Which media will make the biggest impact, the highest response and more importantly, generate the most sales? With budgets being more and more scrutinised, spending and getting a good return on investment is imperative today (always was, but we managed to avoid tracking).

In the rapidly-evolving world of social media, already affecting B2C and now B2B customers, is the need for ‘traditional’ campaign on demand platforms and programmes still valid and real?

Tools such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn prove time and time again that word of mouth and personal recommendations carry far more weight and credibility than most marketing campaigns.

The benefit of many social media tools is the simplicity with which the messages are conveyed – there are no fancy HTML headers or space-consuming images, just factual text by one individual or company.

Is there a way you, the vendor, can have access to your channel partners’ end-user audience and deliver your message to them, easily (for your partners) and cost-effectively (for you)?

The plug.

Have a look at social content syndication tools for the channel. They are a new solution… a radical one… an option that will change the way you market through your channel partners.

I know a good platform, actually a great one: socialondemand… but then, I am biased

Given the increasingly large fines levied by governments for data breaches, it is imperative that all security vendors have a slick communications vehicle, which can quickly, accurately and efficiently let customers know – wherever they are -what attacks are happening and provide critical advice to their customers on how to protect themselves against them.

Time is of the essence.

For many of our internet security customers, the time it would take marketing departments to create, translate and distribute an email to their channel would be just too long. They need to act far quicker and in a far less obtrusive way than email (spamming customers would go against all these vendors’ beliefs).

Social media allows all levels of company employees to communicate instantly. A CTO can fire out a short, sharp message which instantly goes out to its audience, who in turn can re-use the content to let others know what is happening and what to do about it.

With regard to Internet security, it is virtually impossible to know what schemes or threats the sophisticated hacker community will come up with next, let alone know when they will strike. But imagine how much your customers would value your posts, it they were available in real-time and were provided from a trusted source, i.e. the PC reseller or retailer they bought your antivirus and anti-malware solution from? No fluffy spam emails with endless links – just the facts, when you need them.

Sounds too good to be true?

Using social media content syndication tools for the channel, you can leverage the trust that exists between your channel partners and their contacts… You can turn your ‘rich marketing content’ or ‘urgent virus alerts’ into social media leads for your channel partners.

Want to know more? Check out socialondemand® from purechannelapps™.

By Olivier Choron, CEO and Founder, purechannelapps.

The revolutionary web-based solution that makes it easy for vendors to syndicate, share and amplify their social media content through their partners’ social media networks scored highly amongst the judges and qualified as one of the finalists.

The European Software Excellence Awards are the only pan-European awards which recognise the crucial role that Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) play in real world solutions, and attracted entries from 18 countries.  The Software Innovation Solution of the Year Award recognises solutions that are particularly innovative in the way they address the customer’s issues or use leading edge technology to give their customers a business advantage.

purechannelapps prepared a specific case study for the awards, showcasing its effective use by Acronis, a global provider of disaster recovery solutions that has over 25,000 channel partners, which account for 95% of their business.

Following an incredibly positive trial of socialondemand back in October 2011, and under the AcronisGoSocial brand, Acronis target end-users via the social networks of 300 of its partners in the UK, Australia, Germany and the US.

“socialondemand has enabled us to amplify our social media messages to a significantly greater audience through our partners and internal sales staff, generating increased web traffic, follower interaction and brand awareness,” commented Celine Astre, Global Senior Partner Programme Manager at Acronis.

The innovative and engaging platform is now a major component of the Acronis partner programme.With nearly 500 social media accounts registered by 300 partners it provides Acronis with access to around an astonishing 200,000 social media connections.  With 6,256 posts through the system since its launch it’s clearly been very well received by Acronis partners and, with 63,284 clicks/downloads from these posts, it’s not hard to see why.

“We’re absolutely delighted that the judges have shortlisted socialondemand for the ISV Software Solution of the Year Award,” commented Olivier Choron, CEO and Founder of purechannelapps.“The quality of entries for this Award is always extremely high so it’s a real testament to the socialondemand solution and the purechannelapps team’s hard work that has led to the rapid growth and the acknowledgement that socialondemand is experiencing at the moment. In the highly competitive field of disaster recovery solutions, vendors need to find distinct ways to differentiate the manner in which they add value in the channel. socialondemand not only achieves this, it also enables Acronis to close the loop on its sales cycle and permeate the decision making process via its partners,” added Olivier.

Register now for one of the below webinars to find out more about socialondemand:

• Can we deliver your social media and ROI? 07/02/13, 3.00pm (GMT)
• Building the Social B2B Organisation. 14/02/13, 5pm (GMT)
• Social Media and Channel Marketing – Strategy and Best Practices. 22/02/13, 4.30pm (GMT)

Supporting materials:

To learn about socialondemand, please read the solution overview at http://purechannelapps.com/uploads/socialondemand_solutionoverview.pdf

About purechannelapps:                        

Founded in 2011, purechannelapps Limited helps customers drive business growth through better enablement, communication and collaboration with their sales teams.

purechannelapps delivers dynamic e-communications and social media enterprise-class online platforms that help organisations to reduce communication costs and amplify their social media messaging through their sales partners.

purechannelapps supports clients that use intermediary partners as their route to market – such as IT, automotive, retail, finance and telecoms – helping them to better communicate to employees and partners, amplify and syndicate social media content, and to connect social media prospects directly with the most relevant sales teams – internal or channel partners.

With offices in Texas and the United Kingdom, purechannelapps is privately-owned and funded.

To find out about our solutions visit us at www.purechannelapps.com

For further information contact:

Richard Rapley, Senior Account Manager
purechannelapps Limited

T: +44 (0)1424 772375
E: richardr@purechannelapps.com

The growing popularity of social media has enabled channel partners to target global audiences: a great prospect allowing businesses to establish a rapport with end-users and thus influence their decision-making process. Yet, like all recipes for success, this remains contingent on the crucial fostering of a relationship between channel partners and said end-users; a relationship dependent on the production of rich media content.

More often than not, channel partners don’t have enough content and struggle to find the time to produce it. However with the emergence of social media syndication tools, vendors may now amplify their brand messages through their partners, benefitting both parties greatly.

One such online tool is socialondemand® from purechannelapps, which equips vendors with the means necessary to target and distribute content to end-users via their channel partners’ social presence. But just how user-friendly are such platforms for channel partners? Do they really improve the rapport between partners and end-users?

In July 2012 purechannelapps conducted interviews with eighteen partners across a number of global customers to assess how easy to use and successful they deemed the socialondemand application. The results proved to be a very interesting read. All partners believe the content received added value to their businesses whilst also confirming the process of finding and reposting the relevant content to be simple and quick.

socialondemand’s unique selling points include the ease at which relevant information is made available to partners, which was certainly proven in this survey. Partners such as Systems Architecture Ltd said the platform was “excellent for providing readymade content” and Synexus GmbH commented that the “handling was easy and that it allowed them to use social media more effectively as a marketing tool”.  NCA revealed how they had “tripled their followers since using socialondemand” and also how they “wished all their vendors had socialondemand”.

Such figures and testimonials speak for themselves and reiterate the end-to-end simplicity of socialondemand. They demonstrate how it is being used by vendors to make the most of the social media presence of their partners, helping to influence their end-user decision makers in a positive way.

Click here to view the full survey.

To find out how you can give your partners the power to extend their social media reach with your content via socialondemand, simply visit www.purechannelapps.com for an online demo or to request further information.

We will keep it real and get to the nitty gritty about B2B, social business adoption, governance, and the results you should be looking for. You’ll have plenty of chances to throw some verbal darts at our distinguished panel, too. They’ve got thick skin and are up to the challenge so come prepared.”

Panelists:

-          Jennifer Leggio (Sourcefire, Forbes),

-          Lasandra Brill (Cisco Systems),

-          Ted Sapountzis (SAP),

-          Michael Brito (Edelman), and more…

Moderator:

-          Gabriel Carrejo (Bonfire)

Put the date in your diary if you fancy coming or pass onto anyone who may be interested.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

6:00pm until 9:00pm in PDT

Click here for more details.

Enjoy (adult) beverages and appetizers beginning at 6pm on us. Hosted by One Medical Group, the newest, hip and modern doctor’s office.

Darts start flying at 7…

To receive your complimentary first-year One Medical membership ($149 value): Go online to onemedical.com and fill out the online registration forms. You will be asked to input your credit card information, immediately following this page you will see a link in the upper right-hand corner of your screen that says “using a promo code?” Click on this link, a pop-up window will appear, input your membership code OMTENXPA01, click “submit” and your credit card will NOT be charged.

Co-hosted by purechannelapps, CCI, and Bonfire Interactive Media, LLC.