If you’re a business to business (B2B) organization, partner marketing (or channel marketing) can be one of the most valuable business strategies you can implement. It helps you reach new, untapped audiences; tell a more complete, solution-based story; and create efficiencies in your marketing tactics by sharing costs and resources.
However, partner marketing is not a set-it-and-forget-it channel. It requires specialized skills and unique processes. That’s why it can be one of the most challenging functions to maintain — especially if you have a small team. As a result, many organizations treat partner marketing programs in the same way they treat corporate marketing programs. This is one of the top reasons many partner marketing campaigns fall flat — fewer than 15% of partners actually engage in the channel partner marketing programs their vendors deliver.
Living and Breathing Partner Marketing
Luckily there are marketing agencies that live and breathe partner marketing strategies and understand all its nuances. The services offered by partner-focused agencies range from sophisticated partner enablement programs to data analytics to partner campaign concept and execution.
Companies that have significant success with partner marketing typically invest in the right infrastructure and the right partner-proficient marketing agency. But how can you be sure you’re hiring an agency with partner marketing experience? The best way is to look for an agency that can demonstrate the following attributes:
Attribute #1:
Creativity
Attribute #2:
Diplomacy
Attribute #3:
Problem Solving Abilities
Attribute #4:
Data-Oriented
4 Key Attributes of a Partner Marketing Agency
Attribute #1: Creativity
The agency should be skilled at building creative co-branded marketing campaigns.
A recent study found that 53% of partners viewed existing content provided by vendors to be mediocre or worse, yet 75% still ranked content as important. A partner marketing agency has a fresh set of eyes and a fresh perspective when it comes to creative concepts that support marketing design and content. This allows them to offer creative content that’s representative of all parties and, most importantly, relevant to the shared target audience.
Creating channel partner collateral can also become a mess when several brands are being represented on the same piece of content. This can lead to confusing or diluted messaging. Partner marketing agencies have the expertise to create value propositions that cut through the jargon and position combined messaging seamlessly.
Many partners (84%) don’t have the resources or the skill sets to create this content on their own internally. A partner marketing agency can bridge this gap. Either by working with the vendor to create flexible content the partners can easily adapt, or by working directly with partners using vendor MDF, an agency with partner marketing expertise can help all partners to uplevel their marketing campaigns and drive leads.
Magento, an Adobe company, commissioned Total Product Marketing to help with a complex partner campaign featuring 16 ecosystem partners — many of which offered competing solutions.
TPM came up with a solution to ensure all brands were represented without conflict. Using inspiration from the iconic game Clue, TPM conceived a murder mystery campaign that centered around the death of Mr. Profits.
To avoid repetition or partner conflict, the team built two sub-campaigns, one targeting a small-to-medium business audience and one targeting an enterprise audience. Within each sub-campaign, the relevant ecosystem partners contributed to a different chapter in a high-value eBook. The eBook was shared as the main campaign asset and each partner promoted it to drive leads using custom assets.
In this way, all partners contributed their expertise resulting in well-rounded, solutions-focused content that each partner was happy to share using their own customized marketing assets.
Attribute #2: Diplomacy
The marketing agency should be experienced at managing complex partner relationships and understanding the nuances involved and discretion required.
A partner marketing agency can act as the impartial third party between potentially competing partners. For example, if you’re a vendor running a partner marketing campaign with several partners that have competing solutions, it can be difficult to choose which to prioritize when building co-branded content. A marketing agency with partner expertise can be the intermediary and make those tough decisions with an unbiased perspective that focuses only on delivering high-quality campaign content.
In the Magento campaign described in the previous section, there were several competing partners. TPM helped navigate this by ensuring each partner was represented fairly and had custom creative assets to differentiate themselves.
An experienced partner marketing agency can also bridge the gap between internal departments. For example, lead handover — a challenging task within internal teams — can become almost impossible when multiple channel partners are involved.
If brought into the process early enough, partner marketing agencies can recommend proven best processes to ensure alignment between sales and marketing teams, ensuring no lead goes unaccounted for and all attribution is tracked correctly.
Attribute #3: Problem Solving
The marketing agency should be experienced at managing complex partner relationships and understanding the nuances involved and discretion required.
Successful partner marketing utilizes the strengths of each individual partner to the maximum. It drives conversion by amplifying messaging and expanding customer reach. But many partner marketing programs don’t make it that far. Why? Lack of attention to process, misalignment between marketing and sales, and the absence of tangible measurable outcomes.
A solid process from ideation through to execution is vital. Below is an example of a well thought out partner marketing framework from Gartner. You’ll notice that the framework elements move from bottom to top to emphasize:
- Partner marketing strategy and how it aligns with the overall brand marketing strategy.
- Funding and resources allocated to driving partner marketing relationships.
- Campaign modes or types. Gartner recommends three:
– “To” campaigns provide information about your product and service for partners to use internally.
– “Through” campaigns run through the partner’s channels.
–“With” campaigns are joint efforts run by both the brand and the partner to increase scale and reach. - Campaign content includes regular co-marketing content as well as sales enablement content like training modules and how-to guides.
- Communication channels used to distribute content and measure campaign performance.
- Partner relationship management and marketing automation platforms help track performance.
- Execution of campaigns from start to finish, from partner recruiting to running the campaign to campaign-related sales activities.
- Post-campaign activities for “through” and “with” campaign modes, including lead follow-up, lead qualification, and lead nurturing.
- Tracking and performance management to assess how the partner marketing relationship performs and how it can improve.
A good partner marketing agency has methodologies like these nailed and has replicated them countless times. They can work with any framework — or help you build one that works for your unique business — so your B2B partner marketing program can thrive.
Attribute #4: Data-Oriented
The agency should be skilled at building creative co-branded marketing campaigns.
One of the biggest frustrations voiced by channel players is partnerships by handshake only, with no formal plan, and nothing formalized to track success.
Tracking ROI for partner campaigns is not easy. With siloed customer relationship management (CRM) systems, vendors and partners struggle to track the attribution of pipeline and sales back to partner marketing activities. This is a tricky problem to solve — but it’s not impossible.
Unlike regular marketing campaigns where the top success factors might be customer engagement and conversion rates, the top success factors for measuring the ROI of B2B partner marketing programs are:
- Partner engagement
- Program effectiveness
- Partner satisfaction
- Partner lead and pipeline generation
A partner marketing agency has experience creating and executing ROI tracking that gives true visibility into partner marketing results. It can help you map out the processes to measure each of these effectively and prove the effectiveness of your partner marketing investments.
Total Product Marketing (TPM) is a full-service marketing agency that’s completely focused on technology and partner marketing.
We work with amazing clients like PayPal, Adobe, HiConversion, Sierra Wireless, RapidScale, Cox Business, and Intelisys, helping them tell their stories to the right people, through the right channels, at the right stage in the buyer journey.
Interested in creating a winning B2B partner marketing strategy? Download our Partner Marketing Strategies Playbook or get in touch with us directly to discuss your plans.
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