Do You Have a Partner Marketing Desert?
Sherry Foster
President & Co-founder at AscendX Digital | Global Marketing & Business Executive
A Partner Marketing Desert is when you look across your partner ecosystem and you don’t see your brand. Your product information, value proposition, solution collateral, and even your logo is hard, if not impossible, to find.
?You may even find your competitors’ brands, products, and messages before you find yours. And if that’s what you’re finding, buyers are finding it, too.
If you build it, they won’t come
You have great marketing information. You made it easily available on a portal. You even did a training webinar for partners. But still, no one is coming.
It’s reported that 90% of partners are small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) and less than 15% of all partners use the marketing content that their vendors provide. It’s not because they don’t care. The reason your marketing campaigns and messages are not getting out is because 84% of partners don’t have dedicated marketing resources to execute.? It’s this same reason why up to 60% of MDF goes unused by partners.
Is it serious?
If you want your business to grow, then yes. Partner Marketing measures itself on revenue growth, pipeline, partner engagement, and partner growth. If your partners aren’t going to market with your brand, if they aren’t promoting your products to their customers, it’s tough to get traction, build a pipeline, and grow. ?
And you should ask yourself, if your partners aren’t promoting your brand, are they more engaged with your competitors’ brands? What are your competitors doing that you’re not?
What you can do about it
Partners need more than a passive marketing portal that sits out in the ether with a strategy of hope.
Canalys Chief Analyst Jay McBain has consistently reported that his research indicates nearly two-thirds of partners need help. “…66% of all partners are in the category of Do it for me or Do it on behalf of me. In other words, they don’t have the time, they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the money, whatever it is, the skills. They don’t have the necessary abilities to go and effectively market themselves. So yeah, in 66% of the cases, I think vendors need to step up.”?
A through-partner marketing strategy that includes modern technology & automation, along with supporting people and processes can drive awareness and demand for you and your partners – at scale.? When you build it right, your partners can opt-in, select the content and activities that apply to them, sit back, and let the automation do it for them.
The solution gets your brand prominently displayed on partner websites, syndicated through partner social channels, and in front of your partners’ customers via Email and search marketing.?
Through-partner marketing puts you in control of the customer journey
You want buyers to land on your brand content when they visit your partners’ sites. Through-partner marketing guides that journey.
When a buyer sees a co-branded LinkedIn post, reads an Email, or finds your joint solution in search, they are guided to the exact content on your co-branded page of the partner’s website. ?There’s no diversion – they find exactly what you want them to see.
How one vendor transformed their partner marketing desert into a thriving marketing ecosystem
We worked with a vendor who audited their partners. They wanted to see their brand on the partners’ websites and in their digital marketing activities. The biggest partners passed with flying colors. The medium-sized and smaller partners all failed – and were frustrated by the entire process. They felt as if they were being punished because they didn’t have the resources to comply with requirements that seemed unfair.
The vendor decided to invest in a through-partner marketing solution. We worked with them to create a program that was rewarding for partners instead of punitive and was flexible so that partners could participate in a way that worked best for them.?
And it wasn’t just about the vendor. The solution included all kinds of support for partners that enabled them to leverage the new marketing investments with services aimed at helping them be better digital actors and raising the digital profile of their own companies online – directly resulting in being found in their customers’ digital journey.? When the partners do better, the vendor does better, and everybody wins.
If your partners are not online, neither are you
The path to purchase is digital, and it’s through your partners. McKinsey & Company reports that “100% of B2B customers prefer omnichannel, no matter the industry, country, size, or customer relationship stage. There are no exceptions.”? Omnichannel is significantly digital with 82% of B2B buyers utilizing search to interact with a company before making a purchase, and 72% of B2B buyers using social media to research solutions.
If buyers are not finding the partners who sell your solutions, and if they aren’t finding your product information through your partners, they won’t find you.
Don’t let your partner marketing languish in the desert.
How AscendX Digital can help?
AscendX Digital is the first and only marketing service provider to deliver through-partner marketing as a managed service to companies who want to amplify their brand and marketing messages through their partners, reach new customers, and drive more business for the entire channel ecosystem.
Our solution includes the technology, people, and processes critical to a successful strategy. We work with multiple technology platform providers so we can ensure that you get the best solution that fits your business needs. We know how to build cross-functional alignment and integrate processes so that your solution is successful, and we help you create an experience that delights your partners.?
Because our solution is a managed service, there’s no MarTech to buy and learn, and no risk to your program if your team experiences disruption. We can get you to market faster than if you were to implement it on your own. And you can start small and pay as you grow.
Whether you have a PMA investment that needs strategic and/or operational support or are looking for a holistic TPM solution, AscendX Digital can help.