Motivating Channel Members

Activating your channel is the most fruitful opportunity available for accelerated sales growth over the next 12 months. For many companies tapping into an indirect sales channel, only 20 per cent of their channel partners is amassing the sales to have a positive impact on the bottom line.

But, what if you can activate the other 80 per cent of your channel network to generate new sales? The task of converting 80 per cent of your channel partners from passive to active status starts with understanding their needs and motivations. The sooner you can figure out what drives their behaviour, the sooner you can get them on the path to driving in more sales.

1. Motivation

It’s been proven time, and again that increased motivation leads to improved performance. When you prove to your channel how much you value them, you are rewarded in the form of higher productivity, increased sales and greater end-user satisfaction.

2. Provide them with the support they need

Distributors need constant support with day-to-day activities. This will include marketing materials, samples of your product, and sales data. All of which will all be used to pitch your product to buyers. The best support you can offer your channel partners is a commitment of your time and focus to ensure they are receiving everything they need to be successful.

3. Create an incentive program

A carefully designed and well-run incentive program can rouse a sales force, motivate marketing staff, or reinvigorate an uninspired channel network. Any of these objectives are reason enough to use incentives. Work with your distributors to set sales targets that are attainable, yet challenging to keep them interested.

Be Flexible: offering various rewards is a good rule of thumb, but is especially important when you aren’t familiar with the corporate culture of the particular sales force you are trying to motivate.

Reward good behaviour: while increasing sales is always the end goal, time and effort have their merit and should be rewarded as well.

Consider rewarding certain educational pursuits that demonstrate a long-term commitment to professional growth and development. These pursuits may include product training, certification or attending industry seminars and conferences. Incentive programs provide a way for suppliers to fight for the mindshare of their distributors much the way those same distributors compete for the mindshare of consumers.

4. Keep up communication

Suppliers can’t mount a leaderboard at a partner’s office, so consider promoting a program with regular communication. Email updates are always good. Consider even crafting two types of messages, one aimed toward executives and one toward frontline sellers, to get buy-in at all levels of your partner’s business.

Communications that signal the program launch and deliver regular updates to network partners build the brand and drive participant awareness, interest and enrolment. Ongoing discussions promote product sales and encourage participant engagement.

5. Train them

Distributors won’t be motivated to sell a product that they are not familiar with, so take the time to have every new distributor thoroughly trained. The training should focus on how the product works, what it’s made out of, and what unique features and benefits partners should be aware of.

Be sure to discuss how the product may be positioned to buyers, and whether the distributor should work with staff to train them on the product as well. When your channel partners know more about your product, they will become more confident about selling it, and thus be more effective when pitching it.

6. Don’t forget to track and analyse

Your program data is crucial to the understanding of how your program is driving business activity and determining the changes that will improve performance. Your program should be tracking the behaviours of your channel partners (and potentially end-users), and as a result, could yield early warnings about the market and competitive developments.

Track results: return on investment is a key metric to monitor. This will ensure that both sides are keeping up their ends of the deal. Volume, market share, or growth of strategic accounts can all be measured factors as well.

Importance of Motivation to Distribution Channel Members

Marketing products through indirect channels such as retailers or distributor outlets is an efficient way for your business to serve large numbers of customers that your sales force could not reach. An effective distribution strategy can boost revenue and profitability, while poor channel performance can have the opposite effect, according to Marketing MO. To encourage channel members to stock and market your products, you must motivate them.

1. Build Preference for Your Brand

Motivational tools help to ensure that channel members give preference to your products over your competitors. Distributors and retailers typically carry a wide range of products from many different suppliers. They must therefore make decisions about the level of sales and marketing resources they allocate to each product or manufacturer. Motivation plays an important role in winning channel members’ mind share, according to the business school MMC Learning. By winning mind share, you can ensure that channel members recommend or actively promote your product.

2. Add Value to Your Product Offer

Motivating distributors and retailers is an important strategy for influencing channel members’ behavior, according to the marketing consultancy Pure Channels. Offering training programs or marketing support to members adds value to the relationship between supplier and channel by helping them to improve their performance and grow their own business. A strong relationship makes it easier to launch new products or marketing campaigns through the channel, helping to build your own revenue and profit.

3. Increase Sales through the Channel

Financial incentives are an important source of motivation to channel members. By offering discounts on purchases above an agreed level or rewarding sales above target with bonuses, you can encourage channel members to stock and sell more of your products. Financial incentives can help you launch new products, increase sales of existing products or widen your distribution base, because channel members recognize that they will benefit from cooperating with you.

4. Improve Performance with Structured Programs

If you have a network of distributors or retailers, you will probably find that performance and commitment to your brand varies across the network. By setting up a structured channel program that offers different benefits at each level, you can motivate members to improve their performance. The program might take the form of a tiered structure, with tier 3 members receiving basic benefits and tier 1 members receiving a wide range of benefits that help them grow their business. The benefits might include different bonus or discount levels, marketing and training support, joint promotions and exclusive products. To reach higher tiers, you can set requirements such as stocking certain products, achieving sales targets, participating in training programs and agreeing to participate in promotions.