Planet was signed up by networking solutions company Juniper Networks to refresh and relaunch its channel loyalty programme J-Rewards to its EMEA partner audience, in order to broaden its appeal and create a new look and feel. The project aimed to register 400 participants in the first quarter and generate £1.9 million in revenue; create a fully-integrated online system; enable rewards to be generated for non-sales business behaviour such as achieving certification; and also reduce administration time.
The strategy involved Planet totally remodeling the existing J-Rewards Programme to the new-look site www.juniper.net, implementing back-end management and reporting systems, alongside a comprehensive communications strategy created to launch and support the new programme.
The target audience consisted of sales representatives and engineers within organisations that had achieved elite, select or reseller J-Partner status. Overall, there were 7480 companies and the aim was to have 20 per cent of them registered on the programme within the first year.
The campaign began with a teaser email about the newly-developed site sent to everyone on the Juniper partner database to build excitement about the launch. The following week, the official launch was communicated to all Juniper partners via another email. This drove partners to register for the programme, which was important as it meant that contact data could be cleaned and augmented. It also meant that further communications tailored to the audience could be manipulated based on initial indications of preferences and behaviour in creative and messaging, such as amending titles, images and content to affect the open and click-through rates. This meant that Juniper was able to strengthen its relationship with partners and via ongoing analysis to allow the company to identify partners with development potential.
Those registering received a kit containing an overview guide, information sheet, calendars and mouse mats to ensure the programme was attention-grabbing.
Two different versions of DM were also produced one for those already registered and the other for those who had declined. This initially increased the number of those registering by 28 per cent.
During the first quarter, a series of bonus promotions were run, aimed at increasing sales of key strategic products. The first focused on the Secure Services Gateway product family. Quarterly promotions followed providing bonus points for sales within that period, on specified products.
By the end of the first quarter, all targets had been met. There were 401 registered participants; the programme had reached its revenue target; rewards were now available for positive and non-sales business behaviours; appeal of the programme had been broadened by extending the programme prize catalogue;and a clearly identifiable look and feel of the website had also been established.
The extended infrastructure now allows Juniper to use the programme in a far more strategic manner, giving it the opportunity to generate incremental sales and profit, and ultimately, nurture positive, mutually-beneficial relationships with its partners.
Planet did an excellent job with the J-Rewards campaign. It took a successful paper based-programme to the next stage by developing a fully online system, says Peter Crowcombe, enterprise marketing director EMEA at Juniper.
Planet worked as an integrated extension of our team and provided a complete solution from the data to the marketing of the relaunched programme.
He continues, The results are very strong and we have seen a significant upswing in participation, through the delivery of the campaign and marketing package.
Planet has an indepth understanding of the channel and it was this insight that made the J-Rewards programme work so well.
