If you’ve read any of Seth Godin’s numerous best-selling books or visited his blog, you already know he’s outspoken and opinionated on the topic of marketing. (He was also a speaker at the last Partner Velocity event in February.) Some of his insights may seem counterintuitive to what you may have first learned about marketing, but as marketing evolves and social media becomes more prominent, Godin’s work is more relevant than ever.
One of Godin’s best-known concepts is Permission Marketing: “the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal, and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.” In short, this means contacting people who want to be contacted, delivering what and when you say you will deliver.
In a recent blog post, Godin remarks that he had a less-than-stellar experience while trying to get a price quote. “I visited eight sites. Six of them hide their email address. They use forms of one sort of another. One firm refused to accept more than 500 characters in the ‘how can we help you’ box, while three of them wanted to know what state I was in, etc.”
Cisco’s intent to acquire Norway-based video conferencing company Tandberg (announced today) will help expand collaboration solutions to reach a broader set of customers, extending TelePresence from the board room to the desktop.
It’s no secret that channel partners are critical to both Tandberg and Cisco’s success in bringing these solutions to the masses. In the video below, John Chambers — Cisco’s Chaiman and CEO — and Tandberg CEO Fredrik Halvorsen discuss the importance of partnering as the two companies join forces.
Here’s a trivia question for you: What is White Label? No, it isn’t the latest hip hop album from Jay Z. Guess again? Nope, not a new brand of pasta sauce. No fair Googling it! Give up?
If you didn’t guess, White Label is a new partner model within Cisco’s Managed Services channel program that allows two partners to collaborate to provide a managed service to an end customer.
Here’s how it works: a producing partner (who owns the NOC) takes on the operational and technical requirements to support the service. Then, a selling partner represents the service as if it were their own, taking on the customer relationship management, service agreements, and contractual obligations with the end customer.
As you’ll see in the video, partner-to-partner collaboration provides three unique benefits — which will look and sound great to your customers and prove profitable for your business, too.
Streamlining business processes can mean the difference between a healthy profit and a big loss. Cisco partner 2e2′s recent engagement and involvement in the Navigate to Accelerate initiative has helped the company optimize business practices and bring about substantial improvements in services business performance and profitability.
During the engagement, a Cisco consultant worked with 2e2 to map out their business processes end to end and, together, they worked to create practical and lasting changes. The entire experience provided the partner with an external look at their business and helped optimize and align with Cisco’s own processes. Ultimately, these changes will help 2e2 become more profitable.
If your customers can’t come to you, why not bring solutions to your customers? Offering nearly everything Cisco on board — with the exception of John Chambers and TelePresence — NOW vans are a cool way to geek out on Cisco technology and give potential customers an easy way to see solutions in action.
Thanks to a new promotion going on right now, you’ve got an easy, low-cost way to try out what the NOW vans have to offer. Through the promo, you’ll also get access to a variety of tools: integrated marketing campaigns, a three-month subscription to an email distribution and tracking solution, guided voicemails, and a NOW van event complete with logistics assistance, and post-event reporting. (This promotion is for Q1 only, available for the first 50 partners who sign up.)
If you haven’t seen a NOW van, watch this see what’s on board, how the vans work, and benefits for partners.
event in February.) Some of his insights may seem counterintuitive to what you may have first learned about marketing, but as marketing evolves and social media becomes more prominent, Godin’s work is more relevant than ever.