Tuesday, September 01, 2009 6:13 PM
by
mattmcspirit
Are you on Pinpoint?
If you’re a Microsoft Partner, the above statement should be very important. This is the way your customers can find you. Plain and Simple.
Microsoft Pinpoint is your chance to put yourself in the shop window. If I’m a customer, and I want to consolidate my infrastructure using, say, Microsoft Virtualisation, I’d head on over to http://pinpoint.microsoft.com, I’d click in the main search window and enter a few bits:
Click search, and TA-DA:
Now, if I were a potential customer, looking for a solution around Microsoft Virtualisation, would I click to go to page 2? Possibly not. Think of your own Search Engine usage – if you don’t tend to find what you’re looking for on page 1, do you try page 2, or adapt your search term? Well, you don’t need to adapt your search term here, as we provide the categories that the Partners’ solutions fit within, so, it seems that the most important thing to do here, from a Partner perspective, is to start to differentiate yourself from others.
How is this done?
Well, it’s a combination of factors. Typical Search Engine Optimisation techniques within your descriptions/services etc can help you become more of the ‘best match’, so, if you’re a Partner, and you provide a particular ‘product or service’, then add it to you PinPoint! If you look at the top of the last screenshot, you’ll see that for my 11 companies found in the results, there are a total of 15 ‘products and services’ on offer, which, could almost be like bespoke packages of work you could offer a customer. Take Specialist Computer Holdings – they have a whopping 9 ‘products and services’ including Active Directory Design, Implementation and Migration, through to Collaboration and Messaging Services, whereas Solsis Limited haven’t uploaded any ‘products and services’, yet they are a Small Business Specialist, which may be important for some customers. The point is – add as many services as you can! Having multiple ‘services’ targeted at specific audiences/searches is very important!
That said, the most important factor in climbing up the results ladder is reviews and ratings. Ask for customers to provide their feedback – not only about your company on the whole, but also specifically about the solutions you’ve delivered. If you’ve got a specific ‘product or service’ that you’ve added to PinPoint, and a customer has taken you up on that service, and is happy with the work you’ve done, as them for a review! It could be the difference between the next lead coming to you, or going to a competitor! There are plenty of guidelines around reviews, here.
So, in a nutshell – Mr Partner – get yourself on PinPoint ASAP! If you’re on there, sell yourself, your services, and get some reviews!!
