Auvik has brought back a promo they ran last year, in collaboration with ten vendors in total, including competing RMMs. The low-cost program got a strong response last year, which the company is looking to replicate.

Waterloo, ON network management software provider Auvik Networks is looking to repeat a successful marketing initiative from last year, with the launch of  The MSP Summer Treat Wave, an event which kicked off on July 9 and runs through July 20. It’s unusual in that it combines 10 channel vendors, including Auvik, many of whom are direct competitors – a model which is common in road shows and events, but less so in marketing programs.

Auvik is a cloud-based network management software provider which adapted a version of its software into a Remote Monitoring and Management [RMM] platform for MSPs, and entered that market in 2015. Their differentiation has always been their deep network management focus, something they say is not a strength in the industry, because it has been slow in innovating in the space.

“Network management remains central to the Auvik story, and to the managed services market in particular,” said Jacqui Murphy, Auvik’s VP of marketing. “A lot of work still needs to be done on the networking monitoring and management side of most MSP operations.”

The company has grown significantly in the last year and a half. They have increased the number of MSP partners several times over, and now have “well north of a thousand.”

“We have increased our strength in many different dimensions,” Murphy said. “We now have about 120 employees. At the beginning of last year, we had 30. The growth is equally distributed between engineering, and sales and marketing. We just opened a new office in the U.K. with two employees to serve EMEA. We opened an office in Ottawa as well, because we have a number of employees based in the region. Most of our business growth has been south of the border, so while most of our MSPs are in the US, we also have quite a few in Canada, in the U.K, and – interestingly – in  Australia.”

The MSP Summer Treat Wave was originally designed last year, and had multiple objectives.

“We ran with it for the first time last July,” Murphy said. “The thinking was that July is a bit of a slower month in the channel, and it is challenging to execute great programs when not many people are around to hear them. We wanted something that was clever and compelling and have some fun. But we also wanted to reach out and build relationships with other vendors.”

An open ecosystem marketing initiative was the result.

“These are relatively rare because they are difficult to execute,” Murphy said. “You need to have similar messaging, and getting a unified strategy can be challenging. The basic philosophy is not unique though. We participate in joint webinars and road shows with other vendors all the time. We are also in something of an unusual position in our space in that we aren’t really competitive with any one vendor because Auvik is a product that runs alongside existing ones. As a result, we try to do joint marketing relationships with everyone.”

Murphy said that Auvik organized the event last year much like a trade show or road show.

“We made it non-exclusive from the get-go, because we believe in an open system and partner choice,” she said. “It’s like a trade show, with competing vendors in them. Each participating vendor collaborates on promoting the event as a whole, and they promote their own part of it. But they don’t promote or endorse each other’s products. It’s also ideal because they don’t spend any external resources. They leverage the ones they already have, and promote it through their own social media.”

Last year’s event was one of Auvik’s most successful programs.

“Several thousand people signed up last year,” Murphy said. “That’s very successful, given that the event happens over only ten days. The event was wildly successful from that perspective, and we also built incredible relationships with the vendor partners.”

Ten vendors are participating in this year’s event, which is the same number as last year, although there are more RMM vendors taking part this year, and Murphy said that because of last year’s success, more vendors were interested in taking part. This year’s sponsors are Auvik Networks, BrightGauge, Barracuda MSP, The Channel Company, Continuum, ID Agent, Duo Security, Axcient/eFolder, TruMethods, and SolarWinds MSP.

The way the promo works is that all eligible MSPs who sign up by July 20 will automatically receive 10 summer treats – which include gift cards, books and software discounts – from a different vendor partner on each business day. All of the entrants are also eligible to win an $1,800 grand prize, which includes a $150 Visa cash card, a Yeti Roadie Cooler, a soft-serve ice cream maker, and an inflatable outdoor movie screen.

The event ends July 20, and the winner of the grand prize will be drawn on July 24. All daily giveaways will be sent by the sponsors on July 27.