Markit 4 has worked with EMC as a client for over 7 years. This reference is based upon a programme introduced during 2008 for Channel Development and is just one element of the service provided to EMC as whole.

Background

The EMC Market Development Programme (MDP) is a EMEA channel initiative to provide sales, technical and marketing support for a nominated set of reseller partners; working with each to define a quarterly plan of business development around the EMC Backup and Recovery solution range. In the UK and Ireland the channel sales team have been working with a group of 5 resellers since the beginning of 2008.

Planning and Development

Markit 4 began work during the early stages of this programme to help define the marketing objectives for EMC and establish the quarterly process for campaign delivery. With a combination of technical and sales resources also on offer to each partner, it was important for EMC to map lead generation into the training calendar and work closely with the reseller to ensure internal resources were on hand to support the reseller during this enablement period.

Through a clear marketing strategy and the use of repeatable marketing campaigns to lower delivery costs, Markit 4 played a key role in establishing the programme for EMC. Positioning the marketing support with Partners and including their EMC Distributor as part of the overall campaign.

The inclusion of Distribution within the programme was vital due to a limited amount of EMC marketing investment available for each partner. When aligned with distribution objectives the campaign has attracted a 100% increase in funding for partners each quarter.

Campaign Structure

To maximise the ROI from the budget Markit 4 provided a central resource for lead generation and telemarketing. A choice of co-branded campaign is then offered to each partner using a standard template which ensures a consistent EMC solution message through each is delivered within the quarter.

With a strong history in EMC marketing, Markit 4 are able to adapt corporate product positioning into a solution based campaign targeted at the customer. Response from each campaign is led by the reseller but still manages to promote the joint message from EMC which enables the channel to leverage brand identity and strength of partnership with the manufacturer.

Today, Markit 4 acts as an EMC Campaign manager for the MDP programme and has taken full accountability for the consistent delivery of the marketing activities and resulting lead opportunities through each partner. This focus provides the link between partners, EMC and the marketing operatives delivering the message to market; working as an extension to the UK channel team whilst delivering results for EMC as a whole.

Results and Revenue tracking

The MDP Programme has delivered over 200 BANT qualified A-lead opportunities and a further 600 long term revenue opportunities to EMC partners during the last six months of 2008.

Many marketing programmes stop at this point but Markit 4 takes ownership of each lead generated along with the overall database of prospects to continue tracking of revenue opportunities generated as a result.
Improvements for 2009

To date this has worked well as a manual process with EMC partners updating Markit 4, their EMC Account Manager and the Distributor. However, with a need to scale the programme further, 2009 will see the introduction of a widely available CRM platform to manage the database of prospects and track through to revenue generation. The result is a more efficient marketing process which lowers the cost per lead ratio and offers complete transparency for EMC and each partner.

“MDP has been a major focus for development of 2nd tier EMC resellers during 2008. The programme has helped us to enable and support these accounts to focus on our solution, which ultimately delivers increased revenue and real value into the business. The role Markit 4 continues to play in delivering this programme gives my team a consistent focus of channel marketing that supports our partners and helps me to build closer and stronger relationships with our key accounts in this space.”

Steve Worsdale – EMC Channel Sales Manager