Booming AVG goes viral to boost its 2,600 resellers

Security vendor AVG has maintained impressive growth during the financial downturn and attributes its success to recruiting around 50 resellers a month as well as a viral marketing campaign and good customer service.

Peter Cameron, managing director of AVG in Australia and New Zealand said the company had achieved 63 percent growth during the previous financial year, which he explained is low compared to the 136 percent average growth the company had enjoyed over the previous three years.

"We have 2600 resellers and would like more. Many resellers sell just two licences a year but some sell ten or 15 a day. With our reseller program there is no minimum commitment so it really caters for the small 'mum and dad' resellers who have a local computer shop as well as the larger distribution businesses.

"We are growing on average by 50 or 60 a month, we haven't really focussed on recruitment - they just keep coming to us," he said.

According to Cameron, much of the push for AVG's paid application is from home users wanting to use the product at work.

"AVG free has created great groundswell of support for AVG in the marketplace. A lot of people who have used the free product - and seen that it works well - have taken it into their work.

"Business is the area of the most rapid growth for us," said Cameron.

Another success has been the company's focus on customer service, he said.

"We have a support centre in Melbourne where we service A/NZ and we really do a great job for our clients. I believe that reputation gets to the market and people tell other people," said Cameron.

Ironically, he claims that viral marketing has also played its part.

"We have 3.3 million users in ANZ and most of them are using the free product. However, every email sent by the free product has a note, 'checked by AVG', and that viral component helps us build the brand," added Cameron.