(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — The reseller relationship plays a significant, near-ubiquitous role in the hosting business. Most, perhaps close to all, of the relationships between hosting providers and their vendors are reseller relationships of some kind.
Hosting providers pour a lot of their energy into creating the right assemblage of products to properly address the needs of their particular target customer.
For a lot of vendors and resellers, a big part of the relationship is sharing materials related to the marketing of the service being resold. But the updating and distributing of that material is rarely a streamlined or automated process.
Into that arena, the organization TIE Commerce (www.tiecommerce.com) is promoting its TIE Kinetix product, a system for syndicating that content and, perhaps most importantly, for measuring and reporting its impact on the performance, from a sales perspective, of the products.
In particular, the company is bringing its efforts to HostingCon next week, in an effort to build its presence in the hosting business through some face-to-face communication.
In an email interview with the WHIR, TIE Commerce’s director of sales for North America, David Fullen, answers questions about the product’s syndication function, its impact on the performance of products, and the company’s plans for HostingCon.
WHIR: Your product is designed to better facilitate the relationship between vendors and channel partners by syndicating website content related to selling the product. Can you give us an idea of how that works?
David Fullen: Our content syndication solution, TIE Kinetix, very quickly provides a software-as-a-service framework that enables multiple enterprises to collectively assemble, manage, and dynamically syndicate digital assets out to virtually any desired place on the Internet without changing the wiring every time the content is modified. TIE Kinetix provides a neutral repository where participants in a supply chain can collaborate and control the flow of this information out to their partners without all the complex website or application maintenance normally required to keep content up to date. This also includes feeding mobile devices like iPhone and iPad applications.
Resellers can quickly register via the web, download a specific code to place on their website and start immediately providing a seamless, co-branded fresh content experience that helps convert web traffic into sales. Since content from the manufacturers is being updated dynamically, no effort is required for the reseller to show the latest and greatest digital content available from the vendor. In the partner environment, manufactures create and enormous value for channel partners, resellers and distributors by helping them to sell more and at the same time provide a unique, controlled co-branded online experience. Consumers benefit by having an extensive, individualized mix of information published directly from trusted sources, at the places where they want to view their information.
TIE Kinetix takes the complexities out of the “how do I get the content I want integrated into my site or device the way I want it” and gives the power back to the business professionals who are charged with presenting and monetizing their unique messages.
WHIR: So you’re selling to the vendor, but you’re solving a problem for the reseller. How does that work from the standpoint of your pitch? Who do you approach? From what side of that relationship does the interest tend to come?
DF: TIE Kinetix is unique because of our “outside/in” approach. To really understand the channel experience, we needed to start where the consumers were interacting with the content which was at the reseller level. By understanding the challenges of the reseller, we were able to build a much more robust tool for the manufacturer that was sensitive to the multi-vendor needs of the reseller. Syndicated content needs to be authentic, flexible and leverage the brand of both the vendor and reseller alike in a way that capitalizes on the experiences of both. When the needs are brought both together, you have something that works within the channel.
Most often the overall sponsor of the program is either a vendor or distributor. A hosting company would be an example of a distributor of content who is consuming branded and OEM solutions from vendors as well as enabling other partners to resell their unique branded portfolio of products. The distributor case is the most powerful for TIE Kinetix because the platform can consume an enormous amount of digital assets from several vendors, create a content neutral repository of information and very quickly present the content in a fully relabeled assortment to the hosting company’s reseller channel. The door is always open for resellers to further enhance and individualize their experience after the solution has been implemented.
WHIR: Do you have any insight into how the syndication of that kind of content impacts the performance of the product, in terms of sales and adoption? Obviously the objective is to improve it. Are there figures that support that?
DF: The most fundamental and important feature of the TIE Kinetix platform is analytics. Our platform gives product managers, sales professionals and marketers a very in-depth understanding of what, where, why and how their content is working in an unprecedented way across the entire channel. Customers are usually surprised at where their traffic is actually being generated and often gives them insight on where MDF/marketing funds can be better leveraged to increase collaboration with partners. There should be a real distinction between simple “web analytics” and actionable, consolidated “channel analytics.” Tracking and tracing every click across the channel generates an enormous amount of data, so it needs to be boiled down to a place where business people have actionable information. TIE Kinetix provides customers with true, actionable information to make better business decisions.
As to performance, our success is based on our customer’s success. We have more than doubled our business from last year and most of our customers have extended their contracts for additional years because of the quality and enhancement to their existing process. Subscribers have found increases anywhere from 10 percent to more than 300 percent increases in conversions to campaigns and products when enhancing that experience with syndicated digital assets. We understand the need for a very collaborative process between all parties to squeeze every bit of potential out of content and marketing assets.
WHIR: The product wasn’t specifically designed with hosts in mind, but it seems like it’s a good fit for the hosting market, given how core the reseller relationship is to the whole industry. How recently did you start thinking about bringing it to hosts, and how far along are you in starting to build those relationships?
DF: Being an online product, our interests have been on all things from interactive agencies, to hosting vendors, to content management systems for over 10 years. TIE’s initial focus was partnering with fortune 500 companies (Microsoft, Panasonic, Siemens) specifically in the technology sector as an obvious fit. Universally our message resonates with companies that can understand the needs of content consistency over many resellers but also in the value of being able to update and optimize that messaging across the channel. With the availability of cloud computing, and the growth within the hosting community as a whole, the timing feels right to invest our energy now. We’re very excited about HostingCon 2010 and are looking forward to offering the hosting community a new way of bringing product and product messaging to market.
WHIR: You mentioned that you’re going to be in attendance at HostingCon next week, to further that introduction to the hosting market. But you’re not going to be set up with a booth. What’s the plan for HostingCon, generally?
DF: We currently have a number of meetings set up with various hosts, such as HostDime, as well as with several third party suppliers. We’re excited to engage as many people as possible during the exhibit show hours and will have some demonstrations handy for those interested. For more on our content syndication solution please see bit.ly/hostingcon2010. To schedule a meeting, please call 781-203-4448 or via email at info@tiecommerce.com.
