
Service Channel Marketing: A Beginners Guide
- On November 19, 2020
You may have noticed we love channel marketing! big channel marketing, small channel marketing, for Tech Giants to Global logistics we can’t get enough. However, there’s one aspect of channel that can escape even the savviest among us, the elusive Service Channel Marketing. So lets learn more, but first a quick refresher!
What is the meaning of ‘Channel’ in Channel marketing?
A quick google can let us know ‘A marketing channel consists of the people, organizations, and activities necessary to transfer the ownership of goods from the point of production to the point of consumption. It is the way products get to the end-user, the consumer; and is also known as a distribution channel.’
That last part is key, a distribution channel, with all our experience with the IT industry we know the channel is a great way to effectively distribute products, created by manufacturer > moved by vendor > to sales partners > promoted via marketers (thats us) > to end-users. It’s pretty straightforward, but hyper effective when the manufacturer/vendor needs their product to move in lots of different locations.
But what about when your product isn’t quite so tangible, what about when you’re selling a service? Things can often be a lot different when your value is staked in something less physical than metal and plastic. Fortunately Service Channel Marketing is here to help.
So what is service channel marketing?
Thats right, in the Service world as well such channels exist, though the channel will be different for every business, with far more variation than in traditional product marketing. For example, in a restaurant, this particular service channel starts from the raw ingredients being procured and sourced from a suitable provisions vendor. These ingredients are then prepared for cooking by the kitchen staff.
So if we had to plot a service channel for a typical restaurant, it could look as follows