Key Elements of a Thriving Channel-Partner Ecosystem

A successful and thriving channel-partner ecosystem takes marketing, sales, customer service, and partner management as the fundamental elements to foster a culture of mutual collaboration and value-building synergy.

Let’s unpack each of these elements to have a better understanding of what is expected from both the brand and its channel partners when it comes to bringing value into the relationship.

Marketing: Where it all begins

It is clear that the brand has the largest responsibility when it comes to marketing activities, from defining a strategy to planning and campaign implementation. They present channel partners with tools and resources to follow suit and hone in on the message.

Brands allocate significant resources to product design and development, ensuring that their value proposition aligns with their vision of what users expect from them.

The role of influencing demand, carefully crafting the right message, selecting the best format and communications channel to reach target audiences, while keeping tabs on competitors, is where it all starts.

Keep in mind that brands implementing a channel-partner sales strategy understand that to reach new markets, they must incorporate valuable alliances into their team.

Channel-partner feedback is invaluable during this stage, best obtained when working together to measure and evaluate the impact generated with the target audience.

Brands are ultimately responsible for all the marketing around their products, and the quality of the leads generated through this effort is a consequence of their vision and leadership.

Sales: Execution for a win

Picking up on the great work delivered by the marketing team, a consistent and prolific stream of leads is where most brands aspire to be.

Inbound sales: It's all about coordination

In the inbound sales model, speed to lead is the single most important key performance indicator (KPI), and streamlining the lead management process should be at the top of any sales leader's channel-partner strategy.

Tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) are extremely useful when it comes to qualifying and effectively routing leads to the best sales executive available, whether a member of the direct sales team or a channel-partner sales executive.

Efficient lead management is also about extending the marketing process to expand and permeate other account points of contact, in order to maximize the effort and secure top-of-mind awareness.

Sales training, for direct sales, channel-partner sales, and sales engineers, is paramount for success. Without bespoke sales competencies, the close ratio might dwindle, and losses would quickly mount.

Great sales professionals close deals when the quality of the leads meets the mark.

Building on the great work delivered by the marketing team, a consistent and prolific stream of leads is where most brands aspire to be. In addition to inbound sales, outbound sales play a crucial role in expanding a brand's reach and customer base.

Outbound Sales: Reaching New Horizons

While inbound sales focus on leads that come to you, outbound sales are about proactively reaching out to potential customers. This proactive approach broadens your scope and allows you to tap into markets you may not have reached through inbound efforts alone.

Outbound sales involve strategies like cold calling, email marketing, and targeted advertising. These strategies can be highly effective when executed correctly. Cold calling, for example, enables channel-partners to directly engage with potential customers and provide a personal touch to your sales efforts.

Email marketing, when well-crafted, can deliver tailored messages to specific audiences, highlighting your brand's value proposition. Meanwhile, targeted advertising on digital platforms allows you to showcase your offerings to a wider audience, capturing the attention of those who may not have initially found you.

In the context of a channel-partner strategy, outbound sales can be particularly advantageous. By empowering channel partners with the tools and resources to conduct outbound sales effectively, you expand your reach exponentially. The collaborative efforts of your channel partners in outbound sales, combined with your brand's marketing initiatives, create a powerful synergy that can drive growth and success.

Incorporating outbound sales into your channel-partner ecosystem strengthens the overall sales strategy and positions your brand for success in reaching new markets and expanding your customer base. It complements inbound sales efforts, ensuring that your sales team is well-rounded and capable of capturing opportunities from various angles.

Customer Service: A well-designed customer experience is the name of the game

A great customer experience starts with marketing, as expectations are set, and the customer is presented with a number of promises that are continuously verified throughout the process.

Some customers might have enjoyed a proof of concept (POC) moment during the sales engagement, but that is not always the case, and not so in the ever-evolving business space.

Delivering on your product's offerings, as stated in the marketing materials, product specification documents, and features considered to be industry standards, is a test no brand wants to fail.

Channel partners have a major role in customer service, given that local culture and customer nuances are most prevalent during this stage of the customer experience.

Open customer forums, customer surveys, and frequent and continuous customer engagements, are best practices that strengthen the perceived value, since mature customers understand that a good relationship with a brand, through the channel-partner organization, is one of adaptation and value-building engagement.

Evangelist types of customers are the nirvana of customer management, and building on the level of trust and confidence to ensure a positive and honest reference from a customer is as close to pure gold as you’d find in a competitive market.

Partner Management: Taking care of your own

The fourth component in a thriving channel-partner ecosystem is partner management, which means caring so much about the channel-partner organization that you plan, design, and implement value-packed components of the relationship.

From the moment of channel-partner recruitment, moving along training and enabling channel partners, the experience that a brand crafts for its channel partners should match, if not exceed, the path customers follow with your products.

An active and well-maintained partner portal, along with frequent and continuous personal engagements at all levels of the operation, helps strengthen the relationship with the channel-partner ecosystem.

Planning and sharing your brand’s vision should always consider the channel-partner ecosystem to deliver by example when it comes to the values that hold the alliance.

Swift and frictionless accounting processes should be a high-stake asset of the channel-partner organization's operation, maintaining transparency and expedited payment processing at all times.

To summarize the concepts shared above, a successful channel-partner organization is a valuable component of any mature brand looking to expand its market presence and grow its customer base.

Starting with brand-driven marketing, an effective channel-partner sales team, and an integrated world-class customer service organization, along with a hassle-free partner management environment, the channel-partner organization can deliver the results that your brand is looking to achieve to meet the strategic goals set forth.