Channels take to Email shooting

There is a new emerging marketing trend in the channel community, be it a
small distributor, system integrator or reseller. It is used to promote the
brand, spread awareness, remain in close touch with the customer and check the
customer database timely-Email Blasting is one new trend that is attracting
this community.

So far so good

Explaining the driving forces of the acceptance rate of this drift, Anil
Sachdeva, MD of Kadam Marketing explains, "Email happens to be the cheapest
medium of communi-cation. Being of low cost and also because of no use of paper
and ink, there are additional advantages for our kind of businesses." Apart
from this, other advantages include its faster reach, as it can be copied and
sent to multiple customers with just a click of a button. Comfort to the
customer is another plus point, as he can access and store the informa-tion
desired at his ease and time.

Channel partners of bigger towns like Delhi and Mumbai are getting mature in
this trend. However, the trend is yet to achieve an impactful visibi-lity in
places like Hyderabad and other B- and C- class cities.

Highlighting the cost factor, Hyderabad's Dipender Singh, MD of Royal
Computers stated that when fax machines were introduced, there was a drastic
reduction in the telephone bills drastically. Now with emails, even the fax
bills are reduced largely.

Hyderabad-based Ajay Kumar of Intex Technologies however said, "We haven't
yet opted for this technique. But plans to implement this in the near future are
on the way." The company expects an inc-rease of 20-25 percent increase in
the customer base with email blasting. It intended to employ one person
initially with an investment of appro-ximately Rs 6,000 per month.

In New Delhi, channel part-ners spend Rs 10,000 per month on the person
recruited for email blasting.

As Utility tool

There are several areas in which email blasting can help immensely. Sudarsan
Rangana-than, CEO, Veeras Infotek of Chennai benefited too. He said, "We
have adopted this techni-que to send virus alerts to our customers, with
precautions that are needed to be carried out in case of a virus outbreak."
They also inform of important changes, technology advance-ments that would be of
interest to IT managers, through email blasts. Apart from this, custo-mer
satisfaction surveys are carried out by sending emails to customers.

However, adding a new dimension of utility to this tool, Anil Daryani,
Director, Marke-ting of Mumbai-based Kunhar Peripherals said, "Since we
promote our own brand, the e-mail gives us brand aware-ness. Sales have been
increas-ing step-by-step, as we are already working on this trend."

Success rate

On an average, partners expect around 20-25 percent growth in their business
from email blasting. There are slight differences in the outlook of channel
partners depending on their geographical positions.

Mumbai-based Satish A Villait of Bitsy Computers explained, "Our
experience says that we have been succe-ssful in informing people about anything
new that is happen-ing. On a scale of 1-10, I would rate our service at
three." Having a similar experience is Chennai's Girish Madhavan of
Quadsel Systems. His business too grew by 30 percent after adopting the email
blasting technique.

But Anil Daryani has a diffe-rent opinion. He said, "It is difficult to
judge the success vis-a-vis other marketing initia-tives and quantify in terms
of figures or percentage. This is because people see an e-mail n delete it.
Also, if the overall economy does well, then e-mail marketing will do well, and
thus is tough to quantify in figures or percentage."

Pros and Cons

Although different from New Delhi and Mumbai, in Hyderabad, this trend is at
a nascent stage. Companies are closely looking at the results of this technique
though they have not implemented it. Commenting on his expecta-tions from this,
Royal Compu-ters' Singh said, "We would be able to reach a large number
of customers in a short period. The turn around time will be reduced. Customers
who respond to our emails would be followed up immediately." With growing
customers, the company would expand the marketing team to address the augmented
customer base.

Kumar of Intex Technologies has pinned his hopes from this concept and
believes that this has many positive points as compared to other unconven-tional
marketing techniques. Ajay remarked that it is premature to talk about the
success of this tool, as it is at a nascent stage. He expects the tool to be
much more efficient with the features it has.

Bringing another facet into light, Anil also added, "The implementation
of email shooting should be focused and carried out with authentic standards.

Future

Taking a critical look at today's scenario, email shoot-ing sure is very
tempting for the channel community. In general people are getting good returns
from this, and planning to stick with this for at least one or two years down
the line.

Mumbai's Satish Villait believes, "The future pros-pects greatly
depend on the growth of PC penetration. As PC users increase, email marketing
will be the best way to reach out to people." As per Ajaya Kumar, of Park
the future prospects will be clear once the tech-nique matures. Describing the
potential that this trend has, Sudarsan Ranganathan, Chen-nai said, "IT
industry is a knowledge-based industry. Information is the key diffe-rentiator
and value propo-sition increases perception value with your customers." The
mailer obviously needs to be backed with commitment, service orientation and a
passion to make a difference to customers. Thus, the basic requirement for email
blasting to success is a clear focus and dedication. A partner using this should
make sure that it is not getting misused.

Faiz Askari