Marketing Services

There are a number of means for marketing your business, including direct mail, e-marketing, telemarketing, advertisements, trade show exhibitions and more. But before you begin, it's best to start by developing a marketing plan.

The following documents below can help you begin the process of creating a formal plan by enabling you to analyze your specific marketing needs. Complete the SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and the Partner Services Marketing Analysis to assess your objectives.

CUSTOM CATALOG

ScanSource makes it easy for you to provide your customers and prospects with a product catalog that is branded with your company information. The design is like the standard product catalog that you receive from us, except we remove all references to us, including our name, contact information, and dealer pricing column. The catalog includes vendor number, product descriptions, retail prices, and all product photos.

There are now two options for the catalog:

Basic Product Catalog

This is a PDF file on CD, featuring all vendor product lines from our catalog. It cannot be customized to add your company logo and other features.

The catalog is provided to you as a PDF file on CD and includes all vendor lines from our catalog. The PDF CD provides you with versatility and flexibility, allowing you to:

• Print catalogs from your desktop PC and laser printer with free download of Adobe Acrobat
• Take the file to an office store and print with a higher quality digital process and glossy paper, then use a spiral or other binding technique
• Take the file to a printer for high-quality press runs

With the full version of Adobe Acrobat you can even edit the file to add your company information or logo to each page.

Custom Catalog

This exciting option allows you to add your logo and additional pages with your company information, as well as to remove vendor product lines. For a complete customized catalog, you can work directly with our graphic arts team.

Ask your sales rep for more information.

E-MAIL MARKETING

Send Your Message Right to the Desktops of Your Customers.

Looking for an inexpensive way to reach thousands of customers? E-mail marketing provides you with a fast connection to your customers, allowing you to promote special, time-sensitive offers when there may not be enough time for traditional direct mail or advertising campaigns. And if you want to boost your company's visibility without spending hundreds or thousands of dollars, e-mail is an easy method for consistently keeping your name in front of customers and prospects.

Our experienced team can create a sales-oriented e-mail message that is focused on the benefits your company provides to customers.

Ask your sales rep for more information.

END USER DIRECT MAIL

End User Direct mail. Directed by you.

Unlike advertising, end user direct mail allows you to take your message directly to your customers. And it eliminates the guessing games, giving you a chance to exclusively target a focused base of customers within a specific vertical market or region of the country. Whether you're mailing postcards, brochures, letters or other items, end user direct mail offers you plenty of room to make a strong case for your company's products and services.

Our creative team can create brand new end user direct mail pieces under your guidance and instruction. Just tell us what you need.

You'll also find direct mail and product information templates that you can quickly customize in our AdBuilder tool. Click here to go directly to AdBuilder.

Ask your sales rep for more information.

FAX FLYERS

The Speedy Sales Solution.

When you need to get the word out fast, you can't go wrong with fax flyers. Besides being affordable, fax flyers provide you with an avenue for efficient marketing that's concise and easy to send. Fax flyers are most effective when they're focused on special pricing offers or time-sensitive promotions that can be briefly explained in a few lines of text. Even better, they're delivered straight to your customers within minutes after being sent.

Ask your sales rep for more information.

ADBUILDER

Customize Marketing Materials Online with AdBuilder

ScanSource Security's web-based AdBuilder allows you to customize marketing materials online. You can create your own direct mail pieces, spec sheets, ads and other materials and can craft the message to your exact specifications. You can add text and logos to the templates, then view your completed creation before finalizing it. Ask your sales rep for more information.

Click here to access AdBuilder.

PRESS RELEASES

The Best Things in Life are Free.

By taking advantage of time-honored public relations tactics, you can establish immediate credibility for your company. The quickest and easiest method for generating interest for your company among the news media is by sending press releases to announce newsworthy items.

Send press releases whenever you have major news announcements, such as an expansion of your company, the development of new software or service offerings, awards you've recently received and more. Press releases should concisely tell the media what your news is and why it's important. It's also beneficial to include a quote from someone at your company.

When sending press releases, remember these tips:

• Releases may be faxed or attached with an e-mail.
• Send the release to the person to whom it is most likely to be useful. At a daily newspaper, that may be a technology or business editor who covers local companies. A weekly newspaper may not have a business editor, so route those releases to the managing editor.
• The media thrives on timeliness. Don't wait until your release is no longer newsworthy to send it out.
• Don't send so many releases that the media begins to disregard them. Make sure you have real "news" to announce before creating a release.

You can tailor our pre-written press releases to fit your message, or call for more information about working with our team to create new releases.

• Reseller News Release Template
• Employee Announcement Release Template
• Reseller Awards Template

Ask your sales rep for more information.

EVENTS & SEMINAR GUIDE

Events 101

Trade shows and seminars are invaluable tools for getting one-on-one face time with current and potential customers. While most other marketing tools are impersonal, trade shows and seminars allow you to network with customers in an informal setting where they are not being pressured to buy anything.

Such events can be important methods for learning more about the interests and needs of your customer base. They are also good ways to form a more personal relationship with customers, allowing you to put a face on your company. Generally, trade shows are often focused on products or technology trends, while seminars are geared toward training. In order to ensure that the attendees find value in your events, it’s important to make them educational in tone and style, and to keep your sales pitches subtle.

Our comprehensive seminar guide gives you a step-by-step overview for putting on a successful trade show or training session. Everything you need to know is here, from scheduling to how to work with hotels.

Click here for the Seminar Guide!

Ask your sales rep for more information.

SPECIALTY ITEMS

Advertise Anywhere.

Almost anywhere is a good place to advertise your company. Whether it's on T-shirts, hats, golf balls, mouse pads or coffee mugs, your logo and company information will look great - and it will promote your business at the same time.

Apparel and specialty items are perfect for giveaways at trade shows, seminars and events. They can also be used as handouts or leave-behinds at customer meetings, or as prizes and gifts.

Our team can coordinate the production of a wide variety of apparel and specialty items that will be customized to include your logo and information. We'll also arrange for direct delivery to you.

Ask your sales rep for more information.

TELEMARKETING

Phone Power.

Telemarketing is one of the most efficient and effective marketing methods available to you. In fact, you can achieve things with telemarketing that you can't achieve with any other type of marketing initiative, even if the call doesn't result in a successful sale. Consider these facts:

Telemarketing allows you to gather a variety of useful information from your customer base. In a single phone call, you can find out more about their needs, preferences, spending habits, industry knowledge and more, and you'll learn it whether they end up buying products from you or not. That information can better prepare you for marketing to them in the future.

Telemarketing is perhaps the easiest marketing format to measure. It's difficult to know whether a customer has ever seen an advertisement, or even a piece of direct marketing. But when telemarketing, you always know exactly who has heard your message.

It takes far less time to complete a telemarketing campaign than to create advertisements and direct mail. There's no graphic design involved, and script writing is generally a short process.

Unlike other marketing formats, you can compile a list of interested prospects and leads through telemarketing.

Our team can schedule as many telemarketers as you want for as long as you need them. Further, we'll work with you to create a script that offers the most effective communication. We'll team up with you to obtain a customer list, or utilize customer lists that you already have.

Ask your sales rep for more information.