Case Study – SAP Channel Partner Program

SAP had set aside MDF (Market Development Funds) for some of their distributors and VARs to use on marketing. One of its larger distributors decided to use this money (along with their own matching funds) to run a multi-touch, multi-channel marketing program. To maximize the funding, the distributor also collected funds from a number of its VARs. The program objectives were to create new opportunities for its VARs to follow up and close.

Approach Taken & Lessons Learned

The program was completely designed around a number of subcontractors that specialized in different areas of lead generation. Included in the mix was PPC (Google Adword campaigns), CN (Content and Social networking campaigns), Email campaigns and Appointment Setting campaigns. Each sub was only paid on a pay per lead basis. The program advanced each sub half of the targeted lead funds it had committed to each month to allow for execution expenses. Actual lead quantities were measured and targets were readjusted each month. Follow up mechanisms were shared and successful messages and approaches were leveraged across the whole mix.

Results

1. This program was a great example in a program that only pays for performance (leads)
2. The breadth of lead generation vehicles allowed us to do a number of comparisons to see which vehicle was the most effective
3. It turned out all vehicles were necessary as they tended to get thru to different audiences
4. Email generated the most leads, but was limited to the lists we could acquire or get from SAP
5. Google was the second most effective once we dialed in the effective messages.
6. We grew traffic with SEO but did not run the campaign long enough to convert to leads
7. Appointment setting was the most expensive with the result being several appointments were set up but the final result of those was mixed.
8. Phone calling was experimented with but only worked well as a follow up to other lead generation programs
9. This approach can be applied to many B2B markets with a very good cost/lead