It is vital for any manufacturer or producer to market and sell their products, technologies or services well. And to serve this need, they often take the help of a channel partner. They are the companies that help the manufacturer and the producers to sell their products, services or technologies. They form a co-branding relationship and work through that.
Types of Channel Partners
These Channel Partners are mainly of three types
- Independent Dealers– They sells a manufacturer’s products.
- Distributors– They helps several companies by transporting, warehousing and selling their products with the assistance of dealers, product installers and customers. They use co-op or manufactures funds to reward dealers and customers, to buy from them.
- Independent Sales Representatives– It also includes, manufactures sales representative and product installers
Thus for manufacturers, these Channel Partners are essential to increase sales and growth of their manufactured products.
Need for Channel Partner Reward Program
However, in recent times, encouraging Channel Partners has become an arduous task. Competing brands are one of the reasons for this. The relationship with the Channel Partners can be long-term, mid-term or short-term. It is also crucial that both the manufacturers/producers and the Channel Partners benefit mutually.
To encourage the Channel Partners sell manufacturers or producer’s products. Encourage them so that they recommend your products to the customers. To increase the sale etc., rewarding the Channel Partners are necessary.
What is a Channel Partner Reward?
A Channel Partner Reward is a program that incentivizes the Channel Partner. It is necessary for the smooth-running and increasing the sale of your business. These programs incentivise the Channels with co-op or MDF funds. If the funds are distributed and accessible easily, the Channel Partners will further encourage more to sell your products.
Channel Partner Rewards helps and supports new products. Giving full access to the co-op Singapore dollar and complete control on Singapore dollars’ spending encourages the Channel Partners to engage in brand controlled marketing programs. Overall, these programs help to increase the speed of the whole business.
CRM in Singapore
The business in Singapore also makes use of customer resource management to further increase the sales of the business. Salesforce is the most popular customer relationship management Singapore software and is priced between 5 to 300 dollar per month. Sage CRM is software. It is a cloud-based program and costs around 38 to 495 dollar per month. Apart from this, there is also Zoho CRM which costs 35 dollars per month. There is also Microsoft Dynamics and Sugar CRM.
Few top companies in Singapore offer CRM services to both small and medium-sized businesses in Singapore as follows-
- Tigernix
- Netsuite
- Infusionsoft
- Plexure
- Deskera
- HashMicro
- Episcript
- Ranosys
- SBS Consulting
- Ascentis.
Benefits of Channels Partner Rewards program
The Channels Partner rewards are very beneficial for a business. The most vital benefits that one can get from the Channel Reward programs are-
- Enhancing distribution- The rewards to your partner encourages them to sell your products more. Your partner also looks for benefits. These rewards make them give more importance to your products. They will emphasise more to sell them.
- Creating loyal customers-Rewarding your partner will also make them improve customer services. They will also try to inform the customers more about your products. They will also promote your products to customers. Thus they will help to build a loyal customer for your products.
- Increase the recognition of your company-Channel Partners will help make your product popular in the market in the ways mentioned above. They make customers aware of your products. Thus customers will look at your company more when they search for that particular product.
- Increase teamwork and collaboration-The channel partner rewards program also helps to increase teamwork and collaboration.
Survey of Incentive Research Foundation (IRF)-
Incentive Research Foundation has made a study. It shows that there are about 43% of businesses using the non-cash channel partner rewards programs. There are 81% of top companies who had channel partner rewards programs. It has also led to an increase in revenue by 32%, and to increase market share by 30%.
Personalised Reward programs
But for your Channel Partner to perform the tasks mentioned above, you need to reward them properly. Previously a cash-based bonus was given to the partners. Now the companies offer many meaningful rewards to their channel partners to gain their loyalty. So instead of giving a cash-based bonus, they reward them through personalised reward programs like –
- Gift cards,
- Award points,
- Merchandise,
- Trips and travel
According to the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF), 63% of businesses use gift cards to reward their channel partners. About 51% of businesses use merchandise, 43% of businesses use award points and 30% use trip and travel as a reward.
Apart from the rewards mentioned above, business companies use other ways to reward their companies’ like-
- Meals
- Points-based rewards
- Gifts
- Recognition awards
- Leadership boards
- City breaks, and the list goes on.
Key Takeaway
The key-takeaways of the Channel Partner Reward Program are –
- It helps to create new markets for your products
- It also helps to form a greater loyalty between you and your partner.
- It helps to get a positive return on investments (ROI).
- Your partner sells the products on your behalf, which can help you enhance your gains without spending much time on marketing and advertising.
- Helps to increase the availability of your products
- Increase your shares in the markets.
Apart from this, it benefits both you and your partner. You mutually grow your businesses. All you need to do is choose the right partner who will suit you the best. The beneficial relationship between you and your partner will help to create loyalty among yourselves. It will help you to create a long-term relationship with your partner. And this, in turn, will help to increase your profits.
Therefore, it is always important for the manufacturers and producers to use a channel partner reward program for all these reasons.
