Web Marketing Tool Touted as Tech Channel Add-On

If you are a technology channel partner looking at diversification options, Net-Results may have an interesting proposition for you – a Web marketing automation platform for small and medium businesses.

On Monday, the company announced release 2.0 of its Net-Results 2.0 Web intelligence service.

Mike Ward, president of Net-Results, said the program enables Web sites to do what a good salesperson does – listen, customize messaging to the prospect’s needs and report back to the boss on the best leads.

The Web is routinely used as a lead generator but, said Ward, it’s the “worst salesperson. All you are doing is hoping. Nowhere else do you leave sales to hope,” he said.

An integrated SaaS solution, Net-Results identifies Web site visitors, tracks individual visitor activity, deploys automatic e-mail campaigns, and generates new sales leads.

Key to this is identifying the individual and its activity. In a b-to-b environment, this is fairly easy because you can tag someone based on IP address to a specific company. In the b-to-c world, you need to go one step further and have them fill out a form – from then on all previous and future activity is associated with that person.

Reporting on this activity also is key. Since analytics generally are presented in aggregate, they are no help to marketers with specific prospects. Net-Results is able to deliver the individual information, so marketers know who to e-mail or call and which offers to present. And, if an e-mail is sent, the activity recorded is not only what they clicked on in the e-mail, but what they looked at on the Web site. Future communications can take into account both things, filtering by multiple preferences to get the offer just right.

Ward said all this is well and good, but for the SMBs, it also has to have the right price tag. Net-Results charges a monthly fee based on the number of page views a Web site receives. So, for example, a Web site with 2,500 to 50,000 views would cost $250 per month. And there are no add-on or hidden costs, he said.

Partners can earn residuals of 15 percent to 25 percent for the life of the customer provided the partner stays active. An active partner is one that sells four accounts during a 12-month period. In addition, partners can earn a 5 percent override on any sales partners they recruit. They do not have to manage the agents they recruit. There is a referral agent option that pays a one-time bounty equivalent to 50 percent of the first month’s revenue as well.

Ward said companies that are selling Web hosting are prime candidates, but any agents or VARs that are looking at a diversification or add-on option might benefit. The key difference here is that the target decision maker is in the sales department, instead of or in addition to the IT department, so it offers another way for a partner to get inside a company with its technology offers.