MARKETING STRATEGY

Our marketing strategy is based on 3 postulates:

•  Following IT market trends

•  Recognizing market needs, and in accordance to that, marketing positioning of the product portfolio

•  Infallible marketing support to vendors and partners

As our business focus is exclusively aimed at IT distribution and wholesale, without going into creation of our own retail shop network, our partners are nurtured and considered to be our only link to end-users from corporate and home market segment. Therefore, keeping the partners channel focused on brands from Direct Link’s portfolio or more precisely, making our brands the premier brands of choice among partners is the main prerogative of every marketing and sales activity we create.

Partner channel development is supported by numerous reseller training courses , where in cooperation with our vendors, we familiarize our partners with the latest technical achievements and products, providing high-quality training courses on sales techniques for all brands we represent.

At our partner events we give recognition to the most dedicated partners, while strenghthening relationships and making our partner events a memorable experience.

An even greater infiltration into the market was made possible for us, thanks to a number of tests and public product presentations , which helped us achieve high brand awareness among end users.

We also support our partners by developing targeted marketing campaigns, providing advertising support and creative services to our channel.

Naturally, incentive programs are a crucial motivational tool we use when it comes to supporting the partner’s channel. Through this kind of promotional activities we have managed to keep a strong base of repeated partners’ purchases and in time build a loyal partners channel. This mechanism has proven to be a great way of recognizing dedicated partners and building brand loyalty among them.

We keep members of the Press up to date with the latest technological developments by providing new product information, guided assistance and test samples for reviewing. When needed we organize Press conferences , regarded by many journalists as the most innovative and enjoyable.

Reseller trainings

Our network of partners is periodically briefed with the latest product info and more importantly, our partners are adequately trained. Many information sharing methods, like Web, whitepapers, newsletters, printed guides are available and being used to educate our network of partners. However, neither of these methods could substitute the communication between people joined together on a workshop or training course. We organize every reseller training with the intention of assisting the partners channel to understand our product portfolio better, transferring technical and sales know-how from our vendors, and increasing partners’ overall sales expertise. Our reseller training courses often include hands-on workshops dealing with common issues in sales workflow.

Instead of burdening our partners with mass amounts of product data, we make sure they get the selected information - focused on the sales value that they can use immediately, the very next business day. As with every other marketing activity, we add little fun to it, making our reseller trainings pleasant and gladly attended.

Partner events

In accordance to our business focus - distribution and wholesale of IT products without stepping into retail store domain – we’re always focused on our partners, thus most of our marketing activities revolve around them.

Through organizing gatherings for the partners channel, we have an opportunity to get valuable feedback, while our vendors, often actively participating, get information form the ’first line’ of sales force about their brands. Our partner events are always a good place to exchange best practices in sales and to hear about potential issues and acting upon their prevention.

True innovative approach to organization of events and gatherings has granted us the reputation of a company which creates precedents in way the events are prepared and orchestrated.

One of the most memorable partner gatherings we’ve organized was the V.I.P. partners event , which took place on a moving train. Not an ordinary train, but the famous Blue Train of late Yugoslav president Marshal Tito. Once a moving presidential residence, now used for special trips only, provided the comfortable ride with a great dose of luxury and style for a unprecedented experience.

Such approach to the channel has resulted in forming and maintaining a loyal partner’s channel.

Press conferences

Recognizing the value of good media coverage in an ultimate effort to educate the market about the products we distribute, we’re naturally oriented toward the members of the press. Providing products to the press test centers for testing and evaluation purposes, we secure all necessary resources for them to make good reviews and create a broad product awareness among the reading audience.

One way of keeping the media up to date with the latest technological developments and new brands introduced to Serbian market is by organizing press conferences. As with other types of events, we avoid being ordinary, so when it comes to organizing media conferences we go beyond the usual template for such events. We succeded in our goal to make media members gladly attend our media events, by organizing outstanding, fun and unforgettable events.

That’s why our press events are regarded by many journalists as the most innovative and enjoyable, apart from being the biggest and the most interesting.

One such event took place on a moving train - the famous Blue Train of late Yugoslav president Marshal Tito.

Another example is when in order to make an association to cool running and thermally managed products, we organized our new brand launch at the newly opened Ice Arena. For some of the press people it was their lifetimes' first, so we’ve even arranged for skating instructors.

Public events

Even though our business is done strictly through our partner channel, we know that end-users need to be introduced to modern IT technologies and products. They even need to be assisted in familiarizing with those products and usage scenarios. Task as important as this is done in coordination with our vendors, by organizing public events.

Our idea of familiarizing end-users with IT, begins with an open and intuitive approach. We give them the opportunity to ask about, get to know, have a hands-on experience or give them a live demonstration.

We thoughtfully choose the form of the public event so it could provide a broad visibility, a high visitation rate and measurable marketing results.

Such public events have yielded with high market infiltration and helped us to achieve high brand awareness among end users.

Advertisements

On top of the usual distributor’s activities, we provide complete portfolio of marketing services for most of the brands we distribute. In coordination with our vendors, we play an important role in delivering marketing and PR messages to the potential and current customers.

Advertising is one of the most prominent outbound marketing activities conducted via our marketing department. We adapt our vendors’ advertisements or create completely new ad concepts.

In all of our advertising campaigns we act according to our general rule – keep the partners in front. Therefore 70% of our advertisings gravitate towards our partner channel – bringing our dedicated partners in focus of the targeted audience, promoting them as the recommended place to buy IT equipment.

Although all of our vendors are highly acclaimed world-famous brand names, we've had situations where some of them were fairly unknown to the market in Serbia. With addition of our creative brand marketing in a very short period of time we have managed to achieve the same level of brand awareness as in the rest of the world.