How do you onboard and train your new marketing partners?

involve a structured process that introduces them to the company's brand, values, and strategic objectives. This includes providing detailed product and market training, sharing insights into target customer profiles, and outlining key marketing strategies and tools. Regular workshops, hands-on projects, and continuous feedback loops help partners integrate effectively, align their efforts with the company’s goals, and achieve mutual success in the marketplace.

To welcome and educate new marketing partners, you need to organize thorough orientation sessions, giving them clear information on your brand, values, and marketing goals. Provide them with training materials, webinars, and continuous support. Encourage honest communication and feedback, making sure partners have the skills and tools required for effective marketing partnerships.

Defining the broader roadmap is important when you start onboarding new partners. Based on the structure you define at this stage, it will influence and drive how you set expectations, allocate resources and manage the training of new partners. defining the key results to be achieved (KRAs) and also understanding the needs and aspirations of your partners and teams is important to achieve synergies.

To effectively onboard and train new marketing partners, begin by providing comprehensive orientation materials that introduce them to the company's values, goals, mission, vision and brand identity. Offer training sessions or workshops covering key marketing strategies, tools, and resources available to them. Tailor the training program to address their specific needs and expertise, whether it's lead generation, content creation, or campaign execution. Assign mentors or point-of-contact individuals to provide guidance and support throughout the onboarding process. Encourage hands-on experience and experimentation to foster confidence and proficiency.

Partner enablement is a critical part of the success of any partnership. Ensuring that you and your partners are on the same page when it comes to resources, deliverables and prioritization is critical for success. It's important to go beyond the strategic level and establish clear expectations on tactical and operational aspects, such as how you will communicate, how frequently and with whom, how will you bring up and resolve conflicts, define your KPIs and success factors, and so on. Clear is kind, and this is especially important for an external facing kind of partnership such as a marketing partnership, where mutual customers and prospects are exposed to your respective brands.

A partner identified as suitable for the program will only be successful if properly enabled. Enablement needs to be comprehensive, not just for their technical or sales personnel. Every member of the organization should align with the partnership goals to ensure mutual long-term success. Establish a robust system that serves as a launchpad for the partner, providing the necessary resources for success. Evaluate the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the partners and align the appropriate form of enablement to ensure they have everything essential for success. Start by building a portal with existing collaterals and expand it across different functions from there.

Empowering your partner teams with qualitative and quantitative resources is important to get the desired results. Also backing them and helping open up new roads and support systems for your partners is important to be able to drive a successful partnership.

Enabling a new partner with correct resources and tools (i.e., APIs) to the platform will help accelerate their onboarding process but also reflect the commitment on your end into this partnership. It is also important to take this opportunity to understand technical challenges and gaps on your platform where the partner is onboarding onto - as you want a robust platform to help realize benefits quicker from the new services your partners can bring and expand on.

I recommend a two-prong approach: 1. Early and onboarding stage - recommend a daily/weekly catchup to ensure systems are connected, services are working, and customer journeys are properly integrated. 2. Bi-weekly/ monthly reflection sessions - to measure and check against common goals agreed on deliverables, risks and opportunities. Ensure necessary information are shared quickly and be clear how the partnership is progressing - need for acceleration, a need to pivot or to review alternatives.

Set up a regular touch-base session with your partners and teams. Ensure they always get the support they require and deserve. Create a central knowledge base which can help them access on the learning, insights and creative inputs from others ahead of the curve.

Ongoing support is tried to expectations and it creates accountability. Regular support is vital for nurturing strong partnerships. I maintain open lines of communication, offering guidance and addressing challenges promptly. By scheduling regular check-ins and providing feedback, we ensure partners feel valued and supported. This proactive approach fosters trust and collaboration, creating a positive environment that encourages growth and mutual success.

The early stages of a marketing partnership are vital for setting the foundation for success. I believe in maintaining open channels of communication. This enables us to hold frequent check-in and feedback sessions to ensure my partners feel informed and supported. It's crucial to provide clear data and resources and invest in continuous training to keep partners up to date with market trends and new skills.

Track and monitor their qualitative and quantitative performance and support their growth where required. Take it as your responsibility to ensure that you help your partners overcome their limitations and grow in their roles and objectives.

One of the top marketing agencies I know is called TinyWins (check them out!). That is stuck in my head, to always rewards and celebrate tiny wins! Recognizing and rewarding performance is essential for motivation and retention. I tailor incentives to align with partner contributions and achievements. By celebrating milestones and offering tangible rewards, we acknowledge their efforts and reinforce our appreciation. This approach not only boosts morale but also strengthens our partnership, encouraging continued dedication and success.

Always celebrate the small wins. A lot of businesses and platforms have Partner Rewards. This helps build recognition in public and drive great energy, goodwill and buy-in for dedicated work and commitment for mutual success.