Initial Situation
Closed-loop-marketing is in this case defined as target group specific direct marketing approach, which is executed systematically over a long time and which continuously improves the data quality and the marketing instruments in use. This methodology is especially useful to enhance customer relationships, to generate high-quality leads for the sales force and to decrease the costs per lead at the same time. This was realized by a GP+S client, a supplier of construction and collaboration software, which used direct marketing methods already however performing single actions only with results below average. An additional challenge was the inclusion of its channel partners to address their customer potential for up- or cross-selling. The channel partners were not interested in a stronger collaboration in terms of lead generation before as they feared that the leads generated with their customers would benefit the direct sales team of the software manufacturer. GP+S were asked to develop and implement a closed-loop-marketing concept.
GP+S Leistungen
- Development of a specific solution concept for closed-loop-marketing integrating the channel partners of the manufacturer. The core of the concept was an independent service organization provided by GP+S that was designed like a “trust center”. The task of this vendor neutral service organization was to collect the customer data of the manufacturer and his channel partners, analyze and de-duplicate it and provide clean customer data for successful up- and cross-selling campaigns. Based on this database sophisticated lead generation activities were executed financed by both the manufacturer and the channel partners. The sales leads were distributed to the respective sales team based on clear distribution rules
- Annual campaign planning to generate high quality leads
- Coordination of the planned concept and the annual plan with the channel partners and the direct sales team of the manufacturer
- Execution of numerous mail-call-campaigns with existing customers
- Distribution of the leads according to the agreed rules by the “trust center” and complaint management service
- Lead-tracking to measure the revenue from deals closed from all leads distributed to the direct sales force or the channel partners
- Optimization of the lead generation process based on the tracking
- Reports for direct sales and the channel partners
Results
- Better utilization of the existing sales potential, resulting in additional licence revenue of the GP+S client
- Efficient generation of high quality leads while ensuring transparent lead costs at the same time
- Focused, efficient utilization of the scarce sales resources of the channel partners
- Collaboration between manufacturer and partners without almost no conflicts due to a neutral lead distribution and management organization: the “trust centre”
- Increased commitment of channel partners to support the GP+S client which have contracts with several manufacturers
- Better image with the end customers from continuous direct interaction and by assigning the channel partner which matches the customer profile best
