Outdated B2B Demand Generation? The Chain Reaction in IT Vendor Partner Ecosystems.

A vast majority of IT companies rely on partners. They act as an extension of the IT vendors own sales, marketing, development, consulting, implementation, and support teams – touching and influencing every stage of the customer value journey.

These partner ecosystems come in variety of shapes and sizes. However, they all have one thing in common – they rely on vendors to supply them with complementary information, training, programs, tools, platforms, marketing practices, strategies, content, and even leads to help them go-to-market, build and monetize their own unique IP, differentiate themselves in the marketplace, and ultimately reach, attract, capture, retain, and grow customers. This is especially true for smaller partners and those new to the ecosystem.

But what if the marketing practices and programs that vendors are sharing with their partner ecosystems are outdated? Or worse still, harmful?

Much has been written on evolving B2B buying behaviors and how many demand creation, capture and conversion strategies have simply not kept pace. Today, many businesses are not adopting the practices and strategies to effectively distribute content and ensure it turns up in the right ways and channels where B2B buyers are actually consuming content that influences their buying decisions.

One of the most influential voices on this topic is Chris Walker , CEO of Refine Labs . Having worked with hundreds of B2B companies, and the common trends he’s uncovered, Chris explains how the problem often stems from the misalignment between marketing and sales. While marketing teams chase and meet MQL targets to fuel the traditional funnel, conversely the sales teams miss quota, and customer acquisition costs skyrocket due to the poor-quality and low-buying-intent of leads. Chris argues that if the business aligns on a shared pipeline velocity KPI – qualified pipeline that sales closes at 25% – this quickly eradicates underperforming and culturally embedded marketing habits that generate high volumes of low quality MQLs, and instead refocus efforts on those things that generate high quality leads with actual buying intent. Less about volume, more about quality.

For example, during a recent Revenue Vitals podcast, Chris explained how leaning into relatively simple tactics – like implementing a self-service calendar link on your website that allows customers to request and book a meeting or demo directly with your sales team – can dramatically boost meetings sat with prospects who’ve clearly demonstrated buying intent.

That said, moving to a shared sales and marketing KPI, ditching or dialing back underperforming marketing tactics with likely overinflated attribution, and instead redirecting investments towards new and untraditional tactics – dark channels which are often hard to measure and track – requires a huge cultural and mindset shift that businesses often struggle to make. However, according to Chris Walker, those brave and bold enough to do so will reap the rewards.

I am massively oversimplifying and underrepresenting here, but if you agree with Refine Labs – which personally I do – what does this mean for companies that work with and through an ecosystem of partners? Worryingly, I believe if the IT vendor does not have the correct marketing strategy to show up in the right ways and places that B2B buyers are consuming content, then they risk stunting their own growth trajectory, but also the partners with whom they share potentially outdated best practices or poor-quality leads with.

In short, the underperformance of outdated demand creation, capture and conversion strategies at the IT vendor are amplified if and when these practices and behaviors infiltrate their partner ecosystem.

I’m clearly not suggesting that partners are solely reliant on IT vendors for their go-to-market and marketing strategies – far from it! However, I would argue that it is the responsibility of IT vendors to set the benchmark and lead by example if they are to earn the trust and commitment of their partners. This means carefully evaluating the effectiveness of their existing B2B demand strategies. Then, against a backdrop of tightening demand and shrinking marketing budgets, it has never been more important to scrutinize and be highly selective in identifying and sharing only those proven and high-return programs and with the ecosystem. This will help partners capitalize, maximize content distribution effectiveness and consumption, and ensure vendors and their ecosystems act as one unified amplification engine across all demand motions.

At the end of the day, both IT vendor and partners should act as a force-multiplier for the other, because when the IT vendor is performing at its best, so will its partner ecosystem – to the benefit of the customers that all parties serve.

#B2B #Marketing #Demand #Partnerships #Ecoystems #gtm #partners #partnermarketing #demandgen