While many "loyalty" programs for the channel track the financial relationship between the distributor/dealer/VAR - real loyalty is built by tracking other things in addition to the exchange of money.  Which incentives to use when and other use information.

In partnership with I2I Incentive Intelligence, I contributed an article for Loyalty Management magazine (published by Loyalty360) where we outline the basics of driving loyalty in a distribution channel.  The electronic version of the magazine isn't up just yet but you can download a PDF of our article here.

Would love to hear your feedback!