News Feature | January 8, 2016

Costly VAR Marketing Mistakes You Need To Avoid

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

VAR Marketing Mistakes

Marketing mistakes can be expensive for IT solutions providers — not only in terms of money, but also when it comes to time and customers.

A BlueStar VARTECH Nation blog post highlights five of the most common marketing mistakes made by bar code companies, but the advice applies to many other solutions providers.

  1. Not Using Market Development Funds (MDF). You should use MDF available to you to build brand awareness or sell products and services. Make yourself aware of what is offered to you by your vendor partners. 
  2. Forgetting To Establish ROI For MDF. Look at metrics including the number of leads generated, cost per lead, and amount of projected sales.
  3. Not Following Up With Customers On Supplies. A good reseller can accurately estimate when their clients will need restocking of supplies. Be sure to follow up to ensure that reorders are placed and fulfilled.
  4. Not Keeping Your Website Up To Date. Websites that are not current will cause confusion among customers and could ultimately drive them to another source.
  5. Not Understanding Your Target Audience. Marketing must be tailored to meet the specific needs of a particular audience in order to be successful. Targeting particular customers will strengthen your campaign and produce better results.

There is a lot of support for the advice in the VARTECH Nation blog post. A panel at VARTECH 2015 concurred that educating yourself on available marketing programs, using your website to the fullest, and targeting a specific audience are all important to the success of your marketing efforts. In addition, panelist Jim Roddy, president of Business Solutions’, reminds you to make sure you dedicate resources to marketing — and that your vendor and distributor partners may have resources beyond MDF to help. He also reminds IT solutions providers not to give up too soon on your efforts and to back them with thorough research, testing and adjustments.