How to Market to Vendors

Vendors play an important role in marketing your products.

If your sales success and quality of customer service depends on vendors, you must commit part of your marketing activity to supporting and developing your vendors. Vendors are important to your business if they sell to large numbers of customers that you cannot deal with directly. You must ensure that your vendors have the knowledge and commitment to prioritize sales of your products rather than those of your competitors. That means providing training, marketing materials, funding for cooperative marketing campaigns and branding material to identify vendors as part of your organization.

Instructions

1. Attract high-quality vendors by demonstrating the business benefits and sales potential of dealing with your company. Prepare a vendor information pack that outlines the market you serve, your products and their position in the market, as well as the growth opportunities in the market. Identify vendors with experience in your market sector and present details of the business opportunity to the vendors’ senior management teams. Describe the marketing support you will provide.

2. Establish a clear identity for your vendors that demonstrates their relationship to your company. Give your vendors identity material such as logos and design templates to use in their own marketing material. Provide signage and other display material for the vendor’s showroom and vehicles. Let customers and prospects know that vendors who are part of your network offer a high standard of service.

3. Run training programs to improve vendors’ product, market and technical knowledge. Create an accreditation program that recognizes the training achievements of vendor staff. Link the accreditation program to a tiered structure for your vendor network. Vendors with large numbers of accredited staff qualify for tier 1 status and can access higher levels of marketing support.

4. Provide vendors with local sales leads from your marketing programs. Driving business to vendors helps to strengthen the relationship by demonstrating that you can help them build their business. Appoint a vendor manager to work with vendors to identify sales opportunities. Provide vendors’ sales teams with product information and sales guides to ensure they can present your products effectively.

5. Develop templates for cooperative advertising or direct marketing campaigns. Allocate part of your marketing budget to co-marketing programs with selected vendors. Set criteria for co-marketing funding, such as sales volume or staff accreditation levels. Establish a process for reviewing co-marketing material before publication to ensure campaign effectiveness.

References

• AVN Research: The Channel Marketing Guide; 2009
• “Retail Marketing and Branding: A Definitive Guide to Maximizing ROI”; Jesko Perrey, et al.; 2010
• IBM; PartnerWorld Program