Solata Affinity Marketing Technology Solutions
A completely integrated software solution for running consumer and business-to-business affinity marketing programs.
Overview
How it Works
Reports
Terms and Conditions
Payment Terms
Click here for a PDF of the media kit. 
Overview
To build customer relationships, many companies create Affinity Marketing programs that offer discounts or added-value offers with partner vendors. To make these programs effective, the technology has to make it easy for:
- Sponsor companies to set up and manage the programs.
- Partner vendors to participate in the programs by offering products and services at a discount and to track the leads or business generated by the effort.
- Sponsor customers to take advantage of these offers.
- The sponsor and partner vendors to track all activities related to the program and measure results.
Solata Affinity Marketing Technology makes it possible for companies to easily set up, manage, and track Affinity Marketing programs in a way that enables all parties to benefit.
How it Works
- The sponsor company determines that it wants to set up an Affinity Marketing program that offers its customers discounts or added-value offers on products and services offered by third-party vendors. The sponsor company benefits by offerings its customers a special value; the partner companies profit by getting leads and referrals at little or no upfront expense.
- The sponsor company solicits vendor partners for the program. Vendor partners create a special discount or added value for the sponsor’s customers in return for getting leads.
- The sponsor company features the Affinity Marketing program on its Web site using the Solata Affinity Marketing software and features the vendor partner offerings. The system manages all aspects of the program from start to finish.
- Each participating vendor has a Web page to explain its products, services, and special offers to the sponsoring company’s customers. If these services have to be sold through personal contact, the sponsoring company’s customers use a specially designed electronic Request for Proposal (RFP) or Inquiry form to request a quote or follow-up. The system can also link to online catalogs for sales that can be made via the Internet.
- The sponsor company’s customers can access the Affinity Marketing program with or without setting up an account with the sponsor company, based on the business rules established for the program.
- The system includes an enrollment function or means of managing customers qualified to use the program, as well as for obtaining permissions to send e-mail or print mail announcements about the program.
- The RFP or Inquiry Form contains an electronic response vehicle making it easy for the partner vendor not only to respond to the customer but to keep the sponsor company notified about the status of a prospect or the conclusion of a sale under the program.
- The system includes a Content Manager for providing updated information about the service on the Web site, and a Target Sender for sending out e-mail newsletters about the service. It also includes a means for displaying, managing, and tracking advertisements run on the Affinity Marketing Web site.
[ return to top ]
Reports
Based on client needs, the system can be set up to provide real-time reports for both the sponsor and partner.
Sponsor Reports
- Ability to see a dashboard of all participating vendors in a time range; how many people have visited each site; how many have requested an RFP; how many are pending; how many are closed; average time it takes to go from original request to a sale, per vendor.
- Ability to track visits to the Web site and to each page.
- Ability to track visits to individual products and services, by vendor.
- Ability to track actual number of requests generated, as well as date and time.
- Ability to track actual number of sales made.
- Ability to track visits to the site, each page, and each vendor in a trend line graph for multiple months/years.
- Ability to track people who register or who change information.
Vendor Reports
Vendors are able to access the following reports via a User Name and Password for each vendor (this is separate from the user name/password for sponsor company customers):
- Number of times their section has been visited in the requested time frame.
- Number of times their products have been visited and clicked on.
- A dashboard showing all people who have responded, categorized by place in the sales cycle, open, pending, sold, etc.
- Ability to review each profile for each person. Vendors can add or change images and text in the fields provided.
Management Wizards
- The system makes it easy to add/change PINS and User Names of administrators and vendors.
- The system includes the means by which the administrator adds new vendors, address information, and commissions. The administrator can also build the RFP form and response form, including loading in the proper e-mail addresses of people to receive this information.
- The Content Manager makes it easy for the sponsor company to change routine copy on the Web site without technical assistance.
- The Target Sender makes it easy to send out e-mail updates to prospects.
Terms and Conditions
- All content and design are solely owned by the client.
- All confidential information provided as part of the creation of the setup of this program will be subject to standard nondisclosure provisions forbidding Solata from using the information for any purpose other than for which it was intended.
- All code is the responsibility of Solata, which is responsible for maintaining the site on a hosted application basis under the terms of a separate Service Level Agreement.
Payment Terms
Clients will be invoiced 50% the day of authorization; 25 percent 30 days after the first planning meeting; and 25% upon completion. Payment terms are 30 days.
Application Service Provider fees are invoiced in advance on a quarterly or annual basis, as determined by the customer. There is a 10 percent discount on ASP fees paid annually in advance.
[ return to top ]
