In my previous post, I covered the reasons why white label software works for newspapers and yellow page companies. Those reasons are also largely applicable to marketing agencies and other media companies.
To continue where we left off, success with white-label software comes from three factors:
Knowing your market
A strong sales team
Finding the right white label partner
Assuming you have the first two, all you need is the right white label partner. These questions will help you in that process:
Good Product vs. the Right Product
Finding a good product isn’t enough. You may also want to look at these factors:
What is the business value for your clients — why would they buy it from you?
Does the product fit well with your existing products?
Can you create live demos with the product to enhance sales efforts?
Does the software integrate with other products via APIs, single sign on, etc.?
Is it user-friendly?
Is it a cloud-based solution that you can set up on your own domain?
Can you modify its branding easily to match your own?
Is it easy to scale and implement for hundreds of clients?
How will your clients access it?
How secure is your and your clients data?
How frequently is the product updated or bugs fixed?
How frequently are new features added to the software?
Track Record of the Vendor
If you’re considering a promising white label startup, you have to excuse them for not having a track record; but a vendor that claims to have been in business for a few years should have a good history. Common questions include:
How long has the business existed?
What have they accomplished in this time?
How many customers do they have?
What is the size of their operation and how viable are they in the future?
What is their business strategy? (Are they purely white label or do they also sell directly to your market under their own brand?)
If they sell to your market, how do they avoid conflict of interest?
Reputation of the Vendor
Can they provide references?
Have you heard about the vendor from a third party source?
Is the vendor considered an expert in the relevant field?
Service and Support
Does the vendor offer free product training?
How quickly can they help you start selling their software?
What kind of initiatives and materials do they have to help you sell more?
Does their website/blog increase your knowledge about your market?
How quickly do they respond to your inquiries?
How does the billing work?
And finally,
Contract
What is the minimum lock-in period?
Do you get any trial period before you commit?
Does their pricing model work for you or does it require too much investment up front?
I’m sure each organization has different priorities that would invalidate some of these points or add a few more. Either way, this is a good general guide for evaluating potential white label suppliers.
Good luck with your efforts, and if your clients need a kickass reputation management and social media platform (of course they do!) give us a shout.