HP Launches New Marketing Initiatives To Fuel Partner Growth

Hewlett-Packard is rolling out a series of new marketing initiatives this week at its Global Partner Conference aimed at enabling its solution provider partners to leverage the billions of dollars the $112 billion computer giant spends on marketing.

HP Senior Vice President of Demand Generation and Channel Marketing Lynn Anderson told CRN that at the heart of the new marketing offensive is a new marketing-driven demand-generation program for solution providers aimed at driving a significant sales pipeline for partners.

HP is setting up an automated routing system that it plans to launch in the second half of the year for partners that ties directly into the Unison partner channel platform. "What you'll see is these leads being routed directly to partners," she said.

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Currently, HP inside sales reps are handling the leads and passing them on to partners, said Anderson.

HP is briefing solution providers on the new marketing initiatives at the Global Partner Conference and can get more information from their HP Partner Business Managers.

The payoff for partners in new deals could be an order of magnitude, given the HP program. In the last fiscal year, HP provided more than 100,000 opportunities with a value of more than $14 billion to partners generated from marketing campaigns across all the HP business units.

"We think that is just the beginning," said Anderson.

HP also is rolling out a co-marketing zone for partners that holds all HP marketing assets including collateral, templates, direct marketing campaigns, ads and banners.

Under the new marketing offensive, HP partners or their marketing services agency will be able to pull down those co-marketing zones and be able to customize it with their own logo and services. That co marketing zone effectively opens the door to a single-click HP marketing-asset-ready offering, said Anderson.

Given HP's $112 billion size, Anderson said partners will be able to take advantage of HP advertising rates that would be one-third of what partners would be able to afford on their own.

The new marketing plan not only provides partners with critical HP marketing assets, but also will drive tighter alignment with HP's own internal marketing campaigns. It allows partners to tap into the power of HP's huge marketing force in the various business units, said Anderson.

HP partners in Europe are already using the co-marketing zone and have downloaded more than 2,000 assets in the first quarter, said Anderson. HP U.S. partners will be able to take advantage of the co-marketing zones beginning in May, said Anderson.

Anderson said the new marketing initiatives will help drive higher return on investment on both HP and partner marketing efforts with market development funds. "This is not only going to provide marketing air cover to partners, but allow them to deliver more effective marketing to their customers. Ultimately, this is going to drive demand for everybody. That is the goal behind this. It is one single effort. The channel is integral to everything we do. Why wouldn't they be a natural extension of our marketing team?"