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How many IT Managers and other channel related individuals grew up watching MTV? The key word here is: MT VIDEOS. MTV realized that, to get viewers, they had to invest in making TV more interesting. Vendors still relying on Power Point Presentations, PDF's and other marketing materials in 2008, are going to see change over the next three years as Automated Sales Presentations take center stage. After advising over 300 hi-tech companies the past nine years, we've become educated in producing videos for the channel. Over 1,300 resellers have requested their vendors put their presentations on video for in-house training and end-user solicitations. In 2008, IT Managers will see more Automated Sales Presentations then ever before. Let's evaluate a typical reseller with 10 Sales Reps representing three categories: 1) One or two "Super Star's": Have less than 10 accounts that paid for their nice house and elaborate cars and toys. Do you believe they are hungry for new business? Sure, they brought you millions with their top 10 and, yes, they will bring you one or two more over the next 12-months. 2) Two to three "Seasoned Reps yet content": Nothing more to say other than content. Of course they bring you consistent business; however, they're not pounding the pavement. 3) Five to six "Green or very Green Channel Reps": These are actually the ones pounding the pavement -- cold calling thousands of IT Managers in North America annually -- trying to get their foot in the door. What marketing tools have you equipped them with, other than a 'one-hour lunch and learn', and possibly a $50 Gift Card or T-Shirt because they didn't fall asleep in training. It's very difficult for Green Reps to understand your company's most informative sales pitch because they are not technical. Vendors that are providing non-technical Reps with an Automated Sales Presentation (your perfect pitch on video) are seeing their products evangelized 500-1000% on average more, on a monthly basis, based on Corporate Channels Inc. research working with over 1,300 elite VARs around the globe. Automated Video Presentations are always on 24x7 / 365 days a year. IT Managers surf the Internet for products in the morning, during work and evenings. What if the Vendor happened to have an appealing, yet very professional, spokesperson in their video to catch the eye? Vendors are seeing click rates go through the roof -- up to 1,500% -- with this proven methodology. In July of 2006, our company was awarded a contract to hire and train 12 assertive telemarketers to call on companies in North America, promoting their email archiving solution. Personally, I prefer to call them Business Development Representatives (BDR's). Our client also purchased one of our video Ambassadors" so we wrote, produced and directed a short, yet concise, three-minute video with a professional actress as spokesperson. Each BDR made 60 calls on average per day, speaking with IT managers, followed by an email with more information about the client's product. The first two weeks the BDRs were on the phone, we produced a very professional HTML email for the recipient IT Managers to click on, to learn more about the product. Individual URLs were even created for each BDR to track how many people were actually clicking on the emails to view their website. However, a greater success rate was reached when the video was finished two weeks later -- we took a jpeg snapshot image of the video so when the next group of IT managers received our new email format they saw, at the top, a picture of client's spokeswoman next to their logo with the text content below. We ran a report the first two weeks, sending out emails before the video was completed, then another report two weeks after we started including the video in the emails. They saw dramatic increase in click rates by almost 1500 percent. Sales went through the roof and as of April 30th, 2007, only nine months later (with a four- to five-month sales cycle) their sales increased by over 300%. Our client produced over 18,000 leads in 2006 using this proven methodology, telling us that if they hadn't invested in the three-minute video, they believe the company would have produced less than 4,000 leads that year. "Well" you might ask, "that's from a vendor, Eric - what does it have to do with getting our Channel Reps evangelizing our technology?" After this client equipped their Channel Reps with this three-minute video, they saw over 50% of their inactive Green Reps begin registering leads at an unprecedented rate. The overall consensus? They lead in with this vendor's product because they obtain the highest return of callbacks and email replies using this video cold-calling methodology. By the way - nine months later this client invested in five more videos to further equip all their Channel Reps; however, to this day, over 40% of their sales worldwide come from Green Channel Reps. Have a prosperous 2008!!! Eric Williams, founder & CEO of Corporate Channels Inc. and ChannelVideos.com, is considered to be one of the leading channel experts in North America, having built CCI into seven divisions and with over 300 clients globally. Previously with Qualstar, he opened and managed over 250 resellers globally and was one of two key individuals that took the company from $3M to $68M resulting in their successful IPO.
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