Why Managed Through-Partner Marketing is Your Best Investment

Whether your company has experienced layoffs, downsizing, or growth, all business leaders need to be strategic with their management of and investments in their people. For partner marketing leaders, their teams are usually lean, presenting unique challenges. In a recent survey we did this year, the lack of partner marketing staff resources was cited as their #3 challenge. Forty percent reported some growth, while nearly half reported that their teams had no change, and 14% experienced cuts.

When teams face change, new skills are required or work gets redistributed. New employees, programs, and skills requirements result in long learning curves before people are up to speed. HubSpot reported in their Top Global Marketing Challenges of 2022 report, that “Training Marketing Teams” is the top barrier facing marketing leadership.

You can win the war on talent, get to market faster, and reduce your own risk by using managed service models to supplement and enhance your own in-house teams.?

Managed Services alleviate much of this burden - but where should a CMO start? Which functions make the most sense? A good place to start is to look at your marketing technology (MarTech). According to the CMO Survey , CMOs are spending 24% of their budgets on MarTech, expecting to grow that to 30% in 5 years. What’s astounding, however, is that Gartner reports only 58% of the MarTech stack is being utilized.?

Partner Marketing Automation (PMA) is one of the fastest-growing categories of the MarTech stack (25% CAGR ) and an area where companies typically need the most help. It is the technology that powers Through-Partner Marketing (TPM) strategies and programs.

What is Through-Partner Marketing? ?

Through-Partner Marketing enables vendors to extend and amplify their marketing, connect with and enable more partners, reach more customers, control the customer journey, and drive revenue for every player in their channel ecosystem. It is a strategic marketing lever for the 89% of companies that use partner sales.?It enables partner growth and creates partner loyalty.

TPM is an approach that must include people, processes, and technology. It is not a technology-only solution.?

Technology

Partner Marketing Automation is revolutionary and a key enabler for vendors to drive their marketing through partners at scale and with partners of all sizes. It enables vendors to syndicate brand-compliant web content across hundreds or thousands of partner sites, automate Email campaigns through partners, syndicate social media posts on partner channels, and conduct search engine marketing en masse.?

People

Resource expertise is required to select the best platform, customize the features and capabilities, and configure for each vendor’s unique partner ecosystem. Teams of people are needed to manage and integrate the program, build and customize content, manage the platform, onboard and support partners, and much more. ??

Processes

Processes must be put into place that connect the Through-Partner Marketing program across the organization, integrate with established marketing operations, deliver campaigns, refresh content, and operate the PMA tools.

It's only when all three of these elements - technology, people, and processes are in sync that a Through-Partner Marketing program will deliver on its promise.

Why Managed Services Make Sense

Companies are implementing Through-Partner Marketing because it’s innovative and helps them reach more customers with more control, but the complexity and the newness of the technology, and the heavy resource requirements are contributing to their under-utilization. In fact , "only 17% of companies are fully satisfied that they are getting the most from the systems." It's not that the technology isn't great - it is. The problem is the lack of a complete solution that includes the people and processes to make it successful - and it’s where managed services can offer real benefits and a better return on that marketing investment.

1. Reduced risk – A managed service model protects your program from the direct impacts of lay-offs and downsizing. Your marketing solution is delivered without the risk of disruption to your partners.
2. No new in-house resources required – A managed TPM service delivers the full solution with the required resources that a marketing team would need to find, train, and pull together internally – such as platform SMEs, partner support, content writing, graphic design, HTML programming, social media managers, and business analysts.
3. Flexibility – A managed service model enables you to build the solution that you want and only pay for what you need – so that your solution is never underutilized. You add on only when you are ready.
4. Time to market – How long does it take to acquire a new tech platform, find (or hire!) an internal resource, get that person (or people) trained, and then build the content to deploy on that platform? Probably 6 months at best. With managed TPM, you can be up and running in as little as 60 days.
5. Cost efficient – You get the best-of-breed resources working on and delivering your solution. And when you are only paying for what you use, you benefit.
6. Knowledge transfer – A managed service model means you are working with experts in that field, and your team learns from working with them.
7. Better outcomes – When you have experts leading the program and running the technology, you get the benefit of industry best practices. In the case of TPM, you can realize much better outcomes – such as better recruitment & onboarding, higher participation rates, better-built marketing content, improved content management, and diversity, richer business intelligence, and a better overall partner experience.
8. You’re always on the cutting edge – Companies delivering managed services are experts. It’s all they do. Your internal teams are almost never as up-to-speed on the technology or best practices as the experts delivering the solutions.

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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.

We know Through-Partner Marketing. Our team has many decades of technology marketing expertise, and we work with vendors and channel partners every day. ?We work with multiple technology platform providers so we can ensure that you get the best solution that fits your business needs. And we believe in the value of partnerships – within our team, with our vendors, and especially with our customers. Our customers are at the heart of everything we do. We are better together.

Whether you have a PMA investment that needs some strategic and/or operational support, or if you are looking for a holistic TPM solution, AscendX Digital can help.?