That’s why at Zift, this time of year is all about giving back. Our NC office’s holiday party featured a casino where all “winnings” were donated to deserving charities. It feels good to give back (especially after racking up at the blackjack table).

That’s also why we extend the opportunity to give back on behalf of our awesome customers and friends this time of year. Zifters voted on which organizations we’d most like to donate to, and we let you choose how we spread the love to the various charities. Here are the four we chose this year:

ASPCA

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is one of the largest humane societies in the world and the first to be established in North America. Their work to end animal cruelty and educate on treating animals with respect and kindness is further carried out through animal rescue, adoption, and protection.

Make ASPCA Your Pick

Cancer Research UK

Cancer Research UK does just what the title suggests — they’re searching for a cure for cancer and raising money to further cancer research. Additionally, they develop evidence-based policies to inform government decisions related to cancer.  

Support Cancer Research UK

California Community Foundation

The California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Relief Fund goes toward helping relief and recovery efforts after wildfires. With the recent wildfires, this is a timely opportunity to help those who were affected start to recover and rebuild.

Choose Wildfire Relief Fund

Americares

Americares is a health-focused organization that responds to the needs of those affected by poverty or disaster. They have been instrumental in providing continuing support in response to Hurricane Florence, which not only closed our Cary, NC offices and personally affected several Zifters — but had devastating impacts in North and South Carolina with historic flooding that destroyed homes, industry and infrastructure.

Help Fund Americares

Does your company have a yearly charitable tradition? Do you personally donate every year? The holidays are a time of traditions and of sharing — so why not share your story with us? Tell us all about your traditions, whether business or personal, in the comments. Most of all, have a wonderful holiday season!

The post The Season of Giving: Zift’s Annual Holiday Program Returns appeared first on Zift Solutions.

First of all, I will no longer complain about traffic. With their itty bitty cars, winding narrow roads and driving on the “wrong side” of the road, London turned my Raleigh to Cary, NC commute into a dream ride. It also turned me into the guy who kept trying to get into the driver’s seat, when I was supposed to be the passenger.

Cheers to Zift’s Award-Winning Customers

Once I did make it to the SD Summit in Europe, I was excited to see the growing emphasis on channel-focused content. And even more thrilled to see so many Zift customers received Program of the Year awards, including VMware, Cisco and HPE, as well as a Return On Integration award for Tata Communications. A big “Cheers!” to all. (I also learned in the UK, “Cheers” is not just for before sharing a beer or cocktail – It’s hello, it’s goodbye, it’s thank you, it’s great job!) All of these companies are fantastic examples of how to leverage technology to drive go-to-market strategies — and the results they achieved would not have been possible without the work they accomplish everyday on the Zift platform.

Partner Engagement (and Segmentation) Stays Top of Mind

I attended several educational sessions at the Summit, where Partner Engagement was a top topic. Experts stressed the importance of segmenting and engaging partners according to type. Great advice but tough to deploy without some help. A poll in one session showed that only 13% of attendees were adapting their partner approach based on go-to-market strategies and partner type.

If you are looking for guidance or help assessing, segmenting, onboarding or engaging partners on a one-to-one, one-to-few, or one-to-many basis, our Channel Engagement team can help. Interested in learning more on this topic? We will be hosting a joint webinar with SiriusDecisions’ channel sales expert Chris Cleary that digs deeper into channel productivity and enabling partners based on type.

Making it without My Mountain Dew

In case you were wondering, I did manage to survive without my morning Mountain Dew while overseas due to my discovery that UK bacon, while not the crispy strips I’m used to at home, is more like what I would call country ham and equally delicious. Plus, the people are great. Very polite. I experienced this first hand as I left Wembley Stadium with 90K of my now closest friends after the football (aka soccer) match between Tottenham and Barcelona.

My friends and colleagues from the Zift team in Oxford scored the coveted tickets and it was great to meet the IT, engineering, QA and Finance experts that keep the Zift machine running smoothly overseas.

While I was plenty ready to return home, I left the UK inspired by Zift’s growth and ability to turn a vision of Enterprise Channel Management into a powerful reality. During my six years with Zift, I’ve seen us grow from a relatively small start-up channel marketing technology firm to a global enterprise channel management leader. Seeing first-hand how our R&D investments, hundreds of employees, sales and engineering teams across the globe (US, UK, Australia, Romania, Mexico, Ukraine and more), in-language support for 13+ languages and more come together reminded me how much more we deliver to customers than we (or our competitors) initially thought possible. Impressive to see what happens when you truly focus on the channel for nearly 15 years.

P.S. Don’t forget to register for Zift & SiriusDecisions upcoming webinar: Powering 2019 Channel Sales: Why Segmentation and Onboarding Matter, October 23 featuring channel experts Laz Gonzalez and Chris Cleary. Attendees will receive a free copy of the Sirius Decisions Research Brief Channel Sales: Planning Assumptions 2019 detailing the five areas of opportunity that should drive the priorities of sales leaders in 2019.

REGISTER NOW

The post Cheers to Our Channel Leaders & A Pint of Partner Engagement appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Last time, Laz Gonzalez talked about how marketers need to update their practices and step up to get customers engaged, since email marketing, particularly “spray and pay,” is no longer a viable tactic. So what else is there? Marketing is still a wild west for creative ideas – GDPR has only forced our hands in implementing the bold campaign ideas that we were too timid to try earlier. Since emailing any email address you could get your hands on is no longer a viable option, especially in the EU, some brands have really stepped up their game recently. Here’s a round-up of brands that I believe are pulling off memorable marketing campaigns.

Domino’s: Paving Potholes for Pizza Perfection
Domino’s is paving potholes in several cities to protect pizzas that get damaged in route for delivery orders. Thus far, four cities have been accepted. Convincing your potential customers and reminding them your brand helped them out may incline them to send their business your way, especially since many consumers are more willing to give companies their business if they have a solid set of brand values. Want to get Domino’s to fix your pizza delivery route? You can apply to have your city considered for pothole treatment over at Domino’s campaign website.

What you can take from this:  Helping customers solve a problem that affects your solution, even in a minor way, can earn you major brownie points – and more customers ordering your pizzas.

Country Time Lemonade: Lemonade Legal Aid

Country Time Lemonade has launched a campaign for Legal-Ade, which is a legal team that helps pay fines and permits for children with lemonade stands. When neighborhoods come citing permits and fines to try and squeeze the lemony fun out of the classic summer tradition, Country Time decided to help young entrepreneurs keep their business up and running.

According to their website, “Life doesn’t always give you lemons, but when it does, you should be able to make and share lemonade with the neighborhood without legal implications.” They’re covering fees or fines up to $300, which is a sweet deal – and, of course, great publicity for Country Time Lemonade. Why not use their brand’s lemonade if they’ve got your back?

What you can take from this: What’s not to love about this campaign? A brand standing behind customers, especially customers like kids with lemonade stands, will always make a good impression on their audience.

IHOP – or rather, IHOb
This list would not be complete without mentioning IHOP – or, as they’re known for a limited time, IHOb. Whether they’re successful long-term or not will remain to be seen, but it got the internet’s attention. Part of the reason this campaign worked out was announcing the change a week before revealing what the “b” stood for (burgers), and presented many opportunities for interaction. Other brands gave their feedback, joking about changing their name and focus – Burger King notably changed their Twitter handle and icon to Pancake King.

This attention paid off, at least in the short-term. #IHOb was a trending topic on Twitter for multiple days. Was the stunt worth the questions they’ll have to field at individual IHOP stores for the next few weeks, as anxious customers wonder if this pancake will be their last? That remains to be seen. It was a bold move, and it definitely brought more attention to their business, so it’s at least a short-term win.

What you can take from this: Being bold pays off. IHOP’s brand was so well-known that it was being overlooked for other meal options. By pulling off a campaign out of left field, they reminded customers that they’ve got range – and guts. They’ve seen an uptick in customers post-IHOb, too.

Interesting campaigns with real-world tie-ins garner more attention than just blasting out emails. Marketing spaces are inundated with companies promoting products and solutions without a real hook for the customer. Depending on your audience, that may be exactly what customers want. Exploring new routes of marketing post-GDPR can grant plenty of buzz. Let’s leave “spray and pray” behind. It’s time to be bold.

What are some campaigns that have caught your attention recently? Share what you liked or disliked in the comments below.

The post GDPR and the Channel: Three Brands Changing the Marketing Game appeared first on Zift Solutions.

As the NCAA Final Four draws to a close with the National Championship tonight, I can’t help but think about some of the great stories. The first time a 16 seed has beaten a number 1 with UMBC taking down overall top seed Virginia. The cinderella story that put Loyola-Chicago into the Final Four (maybe with some spiritual help from Sister Jean). Or the run by Michigan through the tournament without having to play a team seeded higher than 5.

However, one thing missing from the Final Four this year – One and Done freshmen.

Barring anything crazy at the 2018 NBA draft, there were no freshman first-round draft picks playing in the Final Four. This is only the fourth time since the NBA implemented its  “one-and-done” rule in 2006 mandating that players be at least one year removed from high school (read: done a year in college) to be eligible for the draft. The thinking is that it gives their future players more time to develop. Others believe it makes a joke out of the college system by forcing talent grudgingly into a recruiting system where they have no plans to contribute long term.

By now, you might be wondering why I am bringing this up on Channel Chatter. Hopefully you don’t buy into “one and done” when it comes to your channel marketing. If years were tactics, you need more than one to succeed. As Zift’s Chief Strategy Officer, Laz Gonzalez often says, “It’s simply not a one-sum game anymore.” You need to be able to tell a story using multiple, integrated marketing tactics that not only grab a buyer’s attention, but hold it as well.  

What does this look like? Generally, an integrated mix of inbound (SEO, website, content, blogging, social media, etc.) and outbound (advertising, trade shows, telemarketing, cold calls, direct mail, etc.) tactics help increase marketing program effectiveness. You need to provide your channel partners with real campaigns and programs to generate demand using scripts, playbooks, multi-touch campaigns and value-added content that is easily accessible in a way that keeps partners coming back for more. You need them in it for more than a freshman blitz.  

Some of the top teams today have managed to thrive in the one-and-done era.  Think Kentucky. Look at Duke. But they are the exception, not the norm and neither was able to use that strategy to get to the Final Four this year.  You need exceptional for your channel marketing, and the best way to get it is using a full bench.

The post One and Done? Not in Channel Marketing appeared first on Zift Solutions.

I love pimento cheese. Seriously love it. A Southern classic, it’s the taste of my childhood in Raleigh, NC. Being from the South, I “cut” the lights out at night. I also “carry” my kids to soccer practice. I love college sports (Go Pack!) and never miss the annual State Fair. I sometimes say “warter” instead of “water.” And the folks who grew up with me in the South know exactly what I’m talking about. They speak my language and know the intricacies of southern culture, including that delicious pimento cheese.

Zift feels the same way about the channel that I do about pimento cheese. We love it. We get it. We grew up in it and know the language. We understand the challenges people working in the channel face every day — from the inside out. During our recent 2018 kick off meeting, our sales and marketing teams were discussing how many years of channel experience we had among us. Just counting the people sitting around that dinner table, it was over 200 years. No one else can say that. In fact, there are a lot of organizations out there that now claim to provide channel-focused solutions and partner communities, but they often fail to support real channel success because they didn’t grow up in the channel — and they simply don’t have that insider channel knowledge and expertise.

I still call Raleigh home and I’ve seen it grow from a small town to a thriving metropolis that is continually changing. As an insider, I have an edge over the newbies as I maneuver through the increasing congestion and complexity of today’s busy Research Triangle Park traffic. Ask me where you want to go and I’ll tell you the best way to get there. I know the roads outsiders and newbies to town don’t. I know the roads because I’ve been traveling them all of my life.

Zift has experienced (and is now driving) the evolution of the channel in the same way — as an insider. We’re constantly guiding our customers and their partners to help them reach their goals faster with best practices, insider knowledge, expert services and proven processes honed by working with hundreds of channel organizations and more than a half a million channel partners. We’re also increasingly being asked to shape key industry events, like next week’s B2B Marketing Exchange (#B2BMX), where Zift and our own Laz Gonzalez are taking a leading role.

Get a Taste

Come get a taste of what real channel insiders can do for your programs and partners in Booth 210 at B2BMX and don’t miss:

• The brand new Channel Marketing track, designed by Zift and B2BMX to help channel organizations get more from their marketing and sales efforts  
• To-, Through- and For-Partner Marketing, Feb 20 @ 11:40 am, where Laz Gonzalez will explore distinct tactics and delivery options for modern marketers — and why all must work in unison to drive true channel performance
• Panel: Top-of-Mind Topics for Channel Marketers: Feb 20 at 4:10 pm, moderated by Laz and featuring channel experts from IBM, SAP; Q2E.com; and HomeSmart

And, if you get hungry in the meantime, try out this incredible pimento cheese recipe from fellow NC-Native and forward-thinking celebrity chef Vivian Howard.

The post Channel Expertise and a Bite of Pimento Cheese appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Each year, Zifters select three charities near and dear to our hearts, and ask our community to participate in sharing the warmth.  This year, we selected Kids Alive International, Doctors Without Borders, and Cure Alzheimer’s Fund.

We invite you, our Channel Chatter reader, to choose the charity that speaks the most to you.  Simply click the gift and let us know where you would like us to donate:

For over 100 years, the mission of Kids Alive International has not changed: to rescue and redeem orphans and at-risk children. We believe in families, so we work to strengthen them; but when a child’s own home is no longer a safe option, we care for them in loving, family-style homes.

Doctors Without Borders is an international medical humanitarian organization that provides aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters.

Cure Alzheimer’s Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to funding research with the highest probability of preventing, slowing or reversing Alzheimer’s disease.

Join us in helping to make the season brighter, and a little warmer, for those in need.  Learn more about the ways Zift gives back by following us on Facebook.  From all of us, to all of you, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The post Share the Warmth: Zift’s Annual Holiday Giving Program is Back appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Three channel experts from Forrester Research, visual analytics leader Qlik® and Zift joined forces to share their insights on integration. We’ve talked about integration a lot here in Channel Chatter. That’s because Zift believes strongly that integration is absolutely vital to channel success. In this new webinar, our experts took a deeper dive, exploring three key elements of integration: Function, Process and Technology.

Step 1: Integrate Functions to Boost Performance & Results
Toni Adams, SVP of Partners and Alliances at Qlik, was up first to talk about function. Toni emphasized how integrating critical functions, like sales and marketing, can boost channel performance and results. He noted that the key to unlocking the true potential and value of channel partners is an integrated extended team, with coordinated interplay between sales and marketing teams. Organizations must align and integrate functions to ensure every phase of a partner’s sales cycle is supported with simple, predictable, and profitable action.

Step 2: Integrate Processes to Create a Seamless Partner Experience
Next up, Zift’s Laz Gonzalez spoke to the importance of integrating key processes to create a seamless channel and partner experience. Far too many partners feel like they’re working with different companies as they are moved through the processes of recruitment, onboarding, training and activation. Laz stressed that if channel organizations can’t move partners through all of these processes within 90 days, the likelihood of success over their lifecycle is very low. Channel leaders must integrate all of these processes to create one seamless, consistent partner experience from initial interaction through demand creation and beyond to really push the needle on partner performance.

Step 3: Integrate ChanTech to Stay Ahead of the Curve
Forrester Principal Analyst Jay McBain then took the ball to discuss how and why channel technology must work together to improve adoption, productivity and ROI. He pointed out the average channel manager is attempting to oversee a vast array of activities and partners every day. To get a handle on everyday functions and processes, they are cobbling together a variety of disparate technology solutions. And they are failing. Jay stressed that it makes much more sense to have a robust set of integrated tools that address challenges across the entire channel lifecycle and also work with the legacy systems and infrastructure in place today. Because your channel is growing, influencers are changing and buyers are evolving, an integrated approach to channel technology is the only way to stay ahead of the curve.

Learn More
I encourage you to watch the on-demand webinar to learn more about these three distinct branches of integration from three true channel experts, each of whom brought a unique perspective to the discussion. Far from a crowd, I think you’ll find that, when it comes to integration and channel success, three is indeed a magic number.

WATCH NOW

The post 3 is a Magic Number: Driving Higher Channel Performance through Integration appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The networking at Summit is top notch, and the social events are always a blast. But the two things that always stand out most to me about this event are the high quality learning and focus on data. This year is no exception.

If you’re a channel marketing or sales professional and haven’t planned your agenda for the event, here are a few channel specific sessions you won’t want to miss:

Programs of the Year: Third-Party Channels
Wednesday – 3:40
We all love a good case study, but it’s not everyday you can get up close and ask your own questions of winning channel programs. Learn what works (and what doesn’t) from the channel programs recognized as best-in-class.

Partner Enablement: Building Fluency in B-to-B Channels
Wednesday – 4:30 & Thursday – 4:00
I’ve had the pleasure of working with Maria Chien over the past several years, and look forward to seeing her present on new ways to give channel partners the training and processes needed to successfully drive brand equity and revenue. I’m particularly interested in seeing the new SiriusDecisions framework for meeting the varying enablement requirements of partners and learning new approaches for partner enablement.

The SiriusDecisions Channel Partner Segmentation Model
Thursday – 1:10
This session promises to show some new SiriusDecisions methodology to help develop a partner segmentation strategy that works. While partner segmentation is not a new topic, it certainly is a hot topic these days. This session covers the ever challenging balancing act of partner relationships. How do you keep your top channel partners rockin’ while focusing energy on those partners who have the “right stuff” to really break out if you just had the right engagement program in place? Should be insightful.

Editor’s Note: Zift Solutions is proud to be part of the Marketplace at SiriusDecisions Summit. Stop by booth #122 for more information on Channel as a Service (CHaaS) – an easy-to-use, integrated software as a service platform that automates channel sales, marketing and operational processes.   CHaaS integrates all of the multiple, and traditionally disparate, applications modern channel organizations require, making it easier for suppliers to generate revenue from their channel by simplifying planning, partner recruitment, partner enablement, demand generation, customer transactions and lifecycle management.

The post SiriusDecisions Summit 2017: Must See Channel Sessions appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The right platform is essential to providing the transparency both suppliers and channel partners need. Technology goes a long way by providing clear visibility and reporting into what specific source campaign generated a lead, and its journey throughout the lead lifecycle. But it takes more than tech. It requires thoughtful process and good communication skills to achieve happily ever after.

In this episode of our special manufacturing-focused video series, Zift’s Chief Strategy Officer Laz Gonzalez shares more on the love/hate relationships going on, and ways to help maintain the transparency needed for healthy partnerships and ultimately more revenue.

For more insight, download the full report from Zift and MAPI, “Manufacturers Collaborating with Channel Partners to Drive Faster Growth.”

The post Love, Trust & Leads – A Manufacturer’s Channel Story appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The 3 Power Points of Data

To get started, channel expert and Zift’s Chief Strategy Office Laz Gonzalez encourages manufacturers to focus on three key data points:

Partner Data:  It’s vital for manufacturers to know their partners. Use data to determine: Who’s performing? Who’s missing the mark? What techniques do they prefer? How do your marketing programs align with the partners selling solutions to end-buyers?

Customer Data: You’ll have a powerful advantage if you can dig into data that demonstrates which campaigns have worked to promote specific solutions or services to buyers. What do your customers prefer? Examine campaign data to see which campaign tactics resonate with buyers, be it online advertising, webinars, social media, content syndication or something else. Then align marketing plans to match the behaviors demonstrated by your buyers.

Performance Data: Marketers must challenge themselves to measure, know and demonstrate their contribution to the pipeline. Look at pipeline data before leads are passed to partners to get an honest look at how marketing is performing.

Watch this video from Zift and MAPI to discover how to use data to make an impact on your channel program.

Be sure to catch all episodes in our special “Manufacturers and The Channel” series.  

The post Create a Data-Driven Manufacturing Channel appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Check out the infographic below and get the full research report here.

The post The Manufacturing CMO ‘Must-Do’ List [Infographic] appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Instead of just throwing content over the fence to their distributors, or even trying to tailor content to the needs of distributors themselves, channel expert and Zift’s Chief Strategy Officer Laz Gonzalez recommends focusing content on the market problems facing end-buyers.

Take a Staged Approach

Aside from focusing content on distributors’ customers, manufacturers should identify and align content to each stage of the buyers’ purchasing process. This means knowing what’s important to the end-buyer – and when to deliver content that matches his or her interests.

• Thought-leadership oriented content that convinces buyers a product, service or even company is something that is relevant to them is perfect for early sales and marketing stages.
• Educational content should fall within middle stages of the sales cycle, and demonstrate why your organization is different and better than the competition.
• Success stories that show real return on investment (ROI) are ideal even after you’ve made the sale, as they validate the purchases customers have made.

Watch this new video from Zift and MAPI to learn how to make the most of your content, and check out the entire series here.

The post Content for Every Stage of the Buying Cycle appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Building on our insight and relationship with MAPI, Zift is taking a deeper dive into the challenges facing manufacturers and their channel communities in an exciting new series of videos.

Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day (Your Partner Community Won’t Be Either)

The first video in this co-produced series provides clear-cut advice for Building Channel Partner Programs that Scale. In it, Laz Gonzalez, Zift’s resident channel expert and Chief Strategy Officer, discusses:

• Taking a bottoms-up approach to channel marketing automation
• Creating a pilot with a limited set of tactics – and a limited number of partners
• Developing a roadmap for success that includes multiple steps that align with your  partners’ marketing journeys

Watch more here to see how aiming small at first can help manufacturers build much larger, and more successful channel partner communities in the long run.

The post In Focus: Manufacturers & The Channel appeared first on Zift Solutions.

“In 2017, Google is excited to help the channel partners (VARs) reach the B2B buyers through digital marketing. B2B buyer behaviors have dramatically shifted to online, but the channel partners still lack a presence digitally. Google is teaming with Zift to enable Tech companies to bring SEM programs to market at scale, helping channel partners find net-new prospects digitally.”
Seenu Brahmarouthu, Strategic Partner Manager, Google Marketing Solutions

“Channel Wish List for Partners:

• Programs that don’t require jumping through needless hoops
• Communications that inform, not bombard
• Demand generation materials that fit their business
• Leads that convert

Channel Wish List for Vendors:

• Partners who are active and responsive
• A Partner database that outlines roles, preferred communication methods and ideal marketing program or customer
• Partners that nurture their leads to opportunities and opportunities to closed business
• Metrics, metrics, metrics
• And a Channel Maven Assessment….think Elf on a Shelf without the silly outfit.”

Heather K. Margolis, Founder and CEO, Channel Maven Consulting

“I would like to see a continued drive in 2017 towards a simplified partner experience. For me this is a commitment to partner enablement in everything from Digital Marketing to program eligibility. Understanding that creating simplification, not to be confused with gratuitous coddling, often takes a lot of work. We need to see the best of the best in the channel rise to the top, and reward excellence appropriately all along the well thought out way. And to quote George Carlin, Simon Bailey and our own industry pundit Sal Patalano (Lenovo Software), ‘perhaps it is time for some vuja de.’ ”
Steven Kellam, President, CCI Global Channel Management

“The lack of a rigorous and best practice partner segmentation during 2016 seems odd when considering the millions of dollars’ technology vendors invest in partner recruitment, enablement, and incentives. Historical partner segments have morphed into different business models due to the rapid growth of cloud platforms, solutions, and services. Lines between partner segments are blurred: Larger VARs act as Cloud Aggregators. Resellers and VARs are offering telco services. Distributors have augmented their traditional finance and logistics roles with the role of Cloud Broker. You can no longer rely on traditional partner segments for your partner profiling. In 2017 more than ever before, vendors will need to have a best-in-class methodology in place to ensure that they are recruiting and onboarding partners that can thrive in a rapidly changing marketplace.”
 Claudio Ayub, VP – Chief Channel Strategist, Perks

“My greatest wish for the channel in 2017 is for suppliers to make enabling partners a top priority and area of differentiation. Channel leaders must suspend their beliefs about partner enablement and embrace a fresh and innovative approach to meeting the increasing demand of enabling partners beyond sales enablement. This means moving beyond random acts of enablement and taking a strategic look at the critical importance partner enablement has on growing and accelerating channel business from marketing, to selling and to supporting customers.”
Maria Chien, Service Director, Channel Marketing Strategies, SiriusDecisions

“Twenty-seventeen ushers in a great deal of expectations.  Everybody seems to be taking a wait-and-see attitude – both in politics and business.  In terms of a wish-list, we see channel leaders planning for success in three key areas:

• Integration.  This is the year channel programs will see the benefits of integrating channel processes.  It will be a real turning point for most programs, which tend to work in silos across sales, marketing and operations.  Channel marketers, for instance will be able to employ partner profile data into their marketing campaigns, making them more targeted and effective.
• Better Visibility.  Visibility is the Holy Grail for most channel programs.  With the emergence of data as a key performance driver, channel programs will begin to exploit propensity data, sell-through data and begin to carve out key performance indicators and dashboards, which will lead them to become more predictable over the next 12 months.
• ROI.  We’ve always heard “I will not fund what I cannot measure,” but in 2017 this mantra rings in the new year with a move by most channel leaders to gain greater accountability and contribution from their channel teams and partners.  Every channel expense is on the table and channel programs will be on the lookout for those activities which drive revenue, doubling-down their efforts in those with the highest ROI.”

Laz Gonzalez, Chief Strategy Officer, Zift Solutions

What’s on your list for 2017?  Share in the comments below.

The post Wish List 2017: What’s on Top Channel Leader’s To-Do Lists? appeared first on Zift Solutions.

It may sound cliche, but it still holds true.  In the midst of the busy holiday to-do lists, it’s easy to forget that the season is really all about slowing down to appreciate the gifts we have and remember those less fortunate.  Zift is extending the season of giving well into 2017, and we encourage you to join us.

YOU CHOOSE. WE GIVE.

We’ve selected three worthy organizations in need of our support. We encourage you to choose the charity (click the image above) that speaks the most to you. Zift’s donations will reflect the responses from our valued customers, partners, and Channel Chatter readers.

As part of our commitment to the community, we are continuing our participation in Pledge 1%, a corporate philanthropy movement dedicated to improving nonprofits in communities all around the world. Zift is leveraging 1% of our company’s time, equity and product to charitable pursuits in our local communities and beyond.  We invite you to follow us on Facebook to see all the ways Zifters give back throughout the year.

Join us in making this holiday season brighter, and a little warmer, for those in need.
Happy Holidays from all of your friends at Zift.

The post Tis’ the Season for Giving Once Again appeared first on Zift Solutions.

While 69% of manufacturers believe collaboration with channel partners is more important than ever – only 5% are effectively engaging their partners. Moreover, nearly 80% of manufacturers are feeling the pressure to be more data driven. Yet, only 26% have they data they need to measure ROI.

Why is this happening? Explore the powerful research and reasons behind ‘Manufacturers & Channel Partners: A State of Disconnect’ in this informative new infographic. You’ll see just how many manufacturers rely on antiquated methods for distributing much-needed marketing materials and support to their partners – and get a peek into the dramatic impact digital portals can make in improving partner alignment.

Learn what can be done to repair the schism between manufacturers and their channel partners in the infographic below. Then, get the full research report here to drive faster growth with better channel partner collaboration.

The post Manufacturers and Channel Partners: A State of Disconnect [Infographic] appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Zift’s Chief Strategy Officer Laz Gonzalez served as our host, welcoming and pulling insights from powerhouse panelists:

• Maria Chien, Service Director, Channel Marketing Strategies, SiriusDecisions
• Kevin Espinosa, Digital Experience Manager, Caterpillar, Inc.
• David Johnson, Director of Product Marketing, Oracle/Oracle Marketing Cloud

The group quickly keyed in on the fact that having easy, organized access to prospects and customers via modern marketing automation platforms has really transformed channel marketing – but serious gaps remain. They noted that new, unique and, sometimes, blended technology is required to overcome current challenges and empower the full potential of marketing through a network of channel patterns.

Addressing Adoption Challenges

Panelists dug into the reasons why portal and program adoption remains such an ongoing problem within the channel. They shared perspectives on the critical importance of the partner experience along with best practices for mitigating adoption challenges.

While today’s technology streamlines adoption, the burden ultimately falls to people and processes to create a personalized partner experience that extols the benefits of channel programs overall. Laz emphasized that, to capture mindshare and loyalty, partners really need to be treated like leads. The group also encouraged channel marketers to deliver prescriptive guidance and be proactive with concierge services to help partners drive higher performance.

Today’s Tech Moves Marketing Forward

Leading-edge marketing automation platforms lend themselves well to solving key channel challenges. During the second half of their discussion, our panelists dove into the transformative power of today’s technology, including the power of cloud-based open platforms that integrate well with established infrastructure and systems.

Regardless of the level of user experience, new applications, software and technology solutions should work within or in tandem with the systems and tools sales teams and partners are already using, be it in an enterprise or SMB environment. Of course, new technology should be accompanied by built-in support, partner services and training to get them up and running quickly, demonstrate benefits to end users – and keep them moving forward with new solutions.

A Must-Watch

This panel provides a great opportunity to map the steps and tech you can use to address the needs of high and low-touch partners with varying marketing resources and capabilities. With real-world industry examples and best practices applicable to both the channel and the direct-side, this is a must-watch webcast for marketers.

WATCH THE WEBCAST

The post Automation Fusion: Blending Platforms to Drive Direct and Indirect Channel Revenue appeared first on Zift Solutions.

 As Director of Partner Digital Marketing for Cisco, I’m fortunate to get to work with many of our channel and ecosystem partners on joint marketing programs. With 60K+ channel partners and 300K+ partner sellers worldwide, channel partners are absolutely essential to Cisco’s DNA and they drive more than 80 percent of our revenue. We also do a lot of demand generation with our partners.

During the past decade, we’ve definitely seen a shift within our customers and prospects’ behavior. They are moving heavily toward the Internet to educate themselves, making digital and social marketing much more important than ever before. Our own sales organizations have recognized these changes and are asking for new tools and materials to support them in reaching out to customers across the web, mobile, social media, video and digital platforms. The old division between traditional and digital marketing has essentially disappeared. Today, Digital Marketing is Marketing – and we must deliver the vehicles, tactics and content to our channel partners to build a strong digital relationship with prospects and customers.

Building a Digital Relationship

To establish digital relationships that deliver value and build trust, we’re delivering several types of integrated marketing tools and tactics to help partners reach prospects at different phases of the buyer’s journey. We encourage all of our channel partners to weave a consistent experience through integrated marketing. That means using a mix of both in-bound and out-bound tactics, like syndicated social media, landing experiences with content offers, video and banner plug-ins and paid search with network buyer and security banner ads, for example, to capture attention. Prospects that aren’t ready to buy are put into a nurture campaign and treated differently than those further along in their journey. Research and our experience shows that using a mix of four or more tactics together elicits a much better response and results than relying on just one or two digital marketing methods.

Data as Differentiator

At Cisco, we’re leveraging data to become more effective with our channel partners. In fact, we see data as a true differentiator from a marketing perspective. We use data in many ways, from leveraging predictive analytics to find customers that are ready to buy and passing those leads to partners, to personalizing data and targeting entities that are showing purchase intent online. Currently, we use data in three primary ways: To drive personalization, define and target audiences online, and measure campaign performance. However, I believe our data usage, machine learning and applications will continue to expand. We’re sharing analytics with our partners to make both of our models even stronger. For example, we share data so our partners know how their prospects and customers are engaging on Cisco.com.

Meeting the Content Challenge

Cisco is really focused on helping partners connect with buyers through content and digital transformation. We’re working to capture our customers’ attention via relevant engagement content and transforming content so that it’s digital first. That entails more than just delivering a PDF online. Digital-first content takes into account the channel, platform and context through which content will be consumed by customers.

Balancing Marketing Investment

A great way to balance and even double your marketing budget is keying in on optimization. This can include optimization of your marketing budget as well as digital execution itself. When you’re talking about digital, you can’t just focus on delivering the demand generation service itself. If you’re just focused on delivery, you simply won’t get the ROI you desire.

Cisco recently saw this play out with paid search. In the beginning, we focused solely on delivering a paid search offering to partners. But when we looked closely, we weren’t getting the ROI we had hoped for. So, we started to focus on optimizing that service and dedicated resources to helping partners get the most from paid search. Soon, we were getting a greater than 40 to 1 SQL return rate on our investment. Now, we’re working with Zift Solutions to automate paid search for partners in real-time and expect to see an even bigger jump in ROI through automated and programmatic optimization.

Shifting the Mix

To help our partners embrace and truly benefit from digital, Cisco has delivered an initiative we call Partner Engage, which is an end-to-end program designed to drive digital marketing adoption and engagement within our extended partner community. The goal is to engage our mutual customers and drive pipeline revenue. It all starts with education to train partners regarding the importance of digital in today’s marketing landscape.

We also worked with Zift Solutions to launch Cisco Partner Marketing Center, which is an enterprise-grade Channel Marketing and Management platform that ties our marketing funds and programs together – and creates a highly personalized experience for our channel partners. Partners can use their MDF to “purchase” pre-approved campaigns and digital tactics. Partners gain direct access to customizable, platform-delivered demand services along with real-time campaign syndication via partner digital channels. Automated campaign performance reporting keeps everyone informed of what’s working, what’s not, and how we can tweak campaigns and digital tactics for better results. Moving forward, we hope to incorporate and leverage shared analytics to mutually orchestrate the customer experience with our partners depending upon where customers are in their journey.

To learn more and see more explicit examples of how Cisco is empowering partner engagement and success in the digital space, watch this on-demand webinar Adapting to Channel Change, featuring Chad and Laz Gonzalez, Zift’s Chief Strategy Officer. Watch the Webinar.

About the Author: Chad Reese is responsible for enabling digital marketing execution and orchestrating the customers experience with and through Cisco’s partner ecosystem.

The post Adapting to Channel Change: The Cisco Story appeared first on Zift Solutions.

We’ll show you what happens to manufacturers who still rely on manual processes for lead distribution and status updates. You’ll learn exactly how good leads get lost and why closed-loop visibility can act as a powerful lead life-line. Best of all, we’re sharing a safety checklist you can follow to reach new heights of channel success.

Manufacturing Lead Status Research

Explore the infographic below and get the full research report here to delve deeper into the reasons lead status remains a black hole for most manufacturers.

The post The Manufacturers’ Black Hole of Lead Status [Infographic] appeared first on Zift Solutions.

A new study from the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI) and underwritten by Zift Solutions, shows that while industrial manufacturing is primed for growth, manufacturers themselves are missing big opportunities to engage their dealers/distributors (i.e. channel partners) – and underutilizing modern digital marketing tactics and collaboration tools that drive channel sales.

That’s not the only distressing data turned up in this round of research.  Under serious pressure to measure and demonstrate results, chief marketing officers in the manufacturing sector are also under-performing. While they share marketing development funds (MDF) with channel partners, they simply lack the visibility to measure marketing ROI across the channel and can’t really tell whether or not MDF spend is paying off.

“Even the best content in the world is meaningless unless the channel partners get it in the right format at the right time,” notes MAPI Senior Vice President Cam Mackey in a press release about the study results. “More than half of the companies are still emailing updated content to their distributors.”

The news isn’t all bad. Of the 56 mid- and large-cap industrial manufacturers surveyed, those with connected systems are successfully engaging their channel partners, effectively measuring ROI and capturing more market share. The study shows that digital marketing, channel partner alignment and engagement platforms can give manufacturers the edge over competitors, lift the burden of reporting and positively impact profitable growth.

The full report, “Collaborating with Channel Partners to Drive Faster Growth,” offers critical insight organizations of all types can put to work. Also included in the study:

• Why and how manufacturers are missing key opportunities to drive partner alignment and growth
• How better lead visibility provides the fundamental building block to better partner engagement
• The impact of digital marketing and how connected systems can improve visibility, empower collaboration and help measure ROI
• Key CEO expectations confronting the CMO and other channel sales leaders

The report is available for download here.   We encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments below.

The post Are Manufacturers Missing Out? New MAPI Study Says YES appeared first on Zift Solutions.

But, in my mind, the big idea was around channel management transformation. In an era of tech disruption and rapid channel changes, where strategic partnerships are more important than ever, event hosts noted that as many as 70% of alliances fall short of expectations. They encouraged channel leaders experiencing week program performance, lack of partner adoption and passive execution of activities to rethink their approach and realign channel investments.

Making Connections to Make Your Channel Cha-Ching

Zift President and CEO Ken Romley presented a keynote address with Chad Reese, Director of Partner Digital Marketing at Cisco. Ken and Chad emphasized:

• Optimizing marketing with Channel Marketing and Management (CMM) solutions
• Coordinating tactics among partners and tying Marketing Development Funds (MDF) to execution
• Betting on partners based on their marketing sophistication, technology infrastructure and engagement levels
• Using coordinated, co-branded partner campaigns to maximize results
• Leveraging analytics to understand how partners succeeding inside your systems

As part of this presentation, Chad shared details on the recent launch of Cisco Engage digital marketing services. According to a recent article from TechTarget, Cisco Engage strives to get partners to become digital marketing warriors. Chad also shared the ENGAGE launch video.

Miss the keynote presentation?

If you missed it and are interested, you can click here to download Ken and Chad’s keynote presentation.

Over to you…

If you were able to attend the event and have any great insights you learned, I’d love to hear your comments below.

The post Channel Management Transformation on Tap at Channel Visionaries Event appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The Channel Program Model, One Year Later

SiriusDecisions Senior Research Director of Channel Sales Strategies, Stephanie Sissler took a fresh look at the Channel Program Model, a blueprint for building and optimizing B-to-B channel efforts. She explored how the model is helping channel leaders in five key areas of channel management, including planning, recruitment, enablement, demand creation and transacting/reporting. (Read Channel Data – Tracking Partner Program Performance to learn more.) Using case studies from the past 12 months, Sissler demonstrated several quick-win improvements all channel programs can put into play to manage activities in a more structured, productive way. Key takeaways include:

• Partner Experience is more than just buzz. It continues to be a critical factor to success. (Learn more about best practices for partner experience in 5 Key Ingredients to a Positive and Profitable Partner Experience.)
• All partners are not created equal and therefore having menu-based “plays” are key to give them the right tools and knowledge to drive adoption, in addition to the up-sell and cross-sell campaigns.
• Consider having a “voice of the partner” program to get direct feedback. Many suppliers are creating advisory councils to better support their partner community.

Channel Programs of the Year

Laz Gonzalez teamed up with Maria Chien, SiriusDecisions Service Director of Channel Marketing Strategies to call attention to specific organizations that are driving B-to-B channel excellence, particularly in the areas of recruitment, partner enablement, demand creation and technology/infrastructure. I was especially excited that 3 out of the 4 companies recognized – EMC, Oracle and Intel – are Zift Solutions Customers. It was evident from the recognized organizations that are very clear themes to achieving best in class channel status, including:

• Recruitment: Be very prescriptive and consider gamification for partner onboarding.
• Enablement: Collaborate with your partners and use automation to drive engagement.
• Demand Creation: Shift to an integrated marketing approach, have a clearly defined process and use nurturing to source pipeline.
• Technology: Evolve from basic email campaigns to multi-touch campaigns with multiple tactics and integration is key to drive usage.

If you missed it, I encourage you to attend the next summit May 16-19, 2017 in Las Vegas, NV to experience new innovations across the B-to-B space firsthand and network with an elite community of sales, marketing and product leaders.

The post WANTED: Best Practices from SiriusDecisions Summit appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The Rise of Channel Marketing & Management

Maria Chien compares the rise and growing importance of Channel Marketing and Management (CMM) tools to the advent and inclusion of Sales Force Automation (SFA) and Marketing Automation (MA) tools on the direct side of the channel.

“CMM is now reaching the channel because those platforms that were geared, born and built for the direct side of the business are not succeeding for channel organizations. They simply are not fulfilling the needs of an indirect channel,” she said.

What can channel organizations do? Maria encourages organizations investing in CMM platforms to look for built-in functionality that supports the partner/supplier relationship, including tools for measurement, driving partner adoption and offering prescriptive guidance to partners.

“Those organizations that are investing in tools specifically geared toward the unique needs of the channel are seeing those investments pay off,” she said. “What we’re seeing today is that it’s not about one marketing tactic or specialty. It’s about building a flexible platform that extends across the partner lifecycle and includes things like social media, measurement, capabilities and visibility that channel organizations have lacked up until fairly recently.”

Measuring Direct ROI

Maria noted that many organizations struggle with measuring direct ROI from the channel and offered fresh guidance for this familiar challenge.

“We’re seeing organizations measure channel ROI on a campaign-by-campaign basis while examining things like partner participation and partner adoption,” she explained. “When partners start to adopt a campaign, look at things within the campaign, as you would on the direct side of the house.”

Ask yourself:

• How many marketing-qualified leads were generated?
• How many resulted in sales-accepted leads?
• How many of those sales-accepted leads from the partner-side have been qualified – maybe using a deal registration system or through some of the lead distribution systems and CMM platforms?

Then, look at how to improve upon that productivity:

• How do you align your enablement programs against that?
• Are we seeing deal velocity go up?
• Are we seeing average deal size increase?
• Are we seeing organizations have higher close rates?

“I’ve said this on numerous occasions, but it’s vital,” Maria stressed, “If you can’t measure the success of your program, you should not be funding it.”

Learn more about what to look for in a CMM platform and tips for measuring channel ROI in and be sure to watch the full interview series with Maria Chien on ChannelVisions.tv.

The post Channel Visions: Measuring Direct ROI with SiriusDecisions’ Maria Chien appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Adapting to Change

Having worked many years in the channel, Maria Chien is quick to identify multiple industry and marketplace changes that are affecting today’s channel partners, including:

• The delivery of products – and products themselves
• The increasingly popularity of recurring revenue models and Cloud computing
• Self-empowered B2B buyer behavior

“Channel partners are adapting to these changes by trying to transform their organization while maintaining some consistency and predictability within their own business,” she said. “Partners are also changing the way they’re getting out in front of their end-user customers, which requires suppliers to change the way they get in front of their partners.”

The Cloud As A Change-Maker

Maria pointed to the advent of Cloud as a significant change-maker within the channel marketplace. “Many channel organizations think they need to have partners that were ‘Born on the Cloud,’ but the reality is that ‘Born on the Cloud’ partners aren’t brand new partners necessarily.”

She encourages channel organizations to look closely at their partners to determine how to best support them as they sell and support Cloud. “Suppliers must examine their own enablement programs, incentive strategies and determine how working with Cloud solutions impacts partner incentives. You’ll need to look carefully at how you attribute incentives, align market development funds (MDF), and adjust volume rebates along the lines of a Cloud business,” she explained.

To win with Cloud, channel organizations may need to revisit some of their programmatic elements, enablement incentives and portal strategy. Maria stressed that, “It’s really about examining how you are engaging with partners, making the right information available to them, and really standing them up to help them be successful with Cloud.”

Dialing Up Partner Mindshare

Partner engagement is absolutely essential to channel success. While partner mindshare is driven on a number of different facets, Maria emphasized that “Only when you properly enable your partners, can you ensure that they will be able to respond in the best light possible for your brand and product offerings.”

She points to creating an active enablement program across the partner lifecycle as a clear path to dialing up partner mindshare. “That means looking at where your partners are in their journey with you and their lifecycle, personalizing everything within your program and communications, and really reaching out to create a cohesive enablement strategy that leads to demand creation.”

Learn more about how partners are adapting to channel changes in Video 3 and how you can creating a cohesive, holistic view of the partner lifecycle that captures mindshare and economies of scale within your partner organization on www.ChannelVisions.TV

The post Channel Visions: Adapting to Change with SiriusDecisions’ Maria Chien appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Working in the Channel

While some may find working in the channel difficult or intimidating, Maria Chien has enjoyed spending the bulk of her career firmly ensconced in channel dynamics. She’s been with SiriusDecisions for nearly five years, initially serving as Research Director for Channel Marketing Strategies and now running the Channel Marketing Strategies Service. When Zift asked, “Why a career in the channel?” She didn’t miss a beat.

“I love the unpredictable nature of the channel,” said Chien. “For me, it’s about building the right relationships with the right partners, and putting programmatic infrastructure in place to drive the effectiveness of those partnerships. It changes on a day-to-day basis and that keeps it fresh and exciting.”

Channel Changes

Chien noted that the relationship between channel partners and their suppliers is undergoing massive transformation. And, while some organizations are focused on capturing partner mindshare, others are choosing not to do so.

“Ultimately, their channel programs will suffer,” she said. “Channel relationships and partnerships are vital for the success of an organization. They are your direct link to your end user customers. Those organizations that have learned how to capture and maintain partner mindshare are turning that into a strength that is ultimately a competitive advantage.”

Emerging Channel Trends Add Up to Big Partner Ideas

When we asked Maria to discuss some of the emerging channel trends that she’s seeing in the channel today, she pointed out that many channel organizations are taking their cues from the direct side of the business, including:

• Examining the partner’s role within the customer lifecycle,
• Determining how to involve partners in an account-based marketing strategy, and
• Digging into sales and marketing operations from a measurability standpoint.

“Some of the big ideas I’m hearing today focus on improving the partner experience, and that’s not a new idea, but it’s a big idea,” she said. “I call it a big idea because the partner experience is actually starting to get the resources and attention that it deserves. Programs that marry a strong product with a strong partner experience are succeeding – and they are the programs that partners are showing a preference for.”

Learn more about Maria Chien’s experience in the channel, what she sees as today’s transformative channel trends, and why maintaining a positive partner experience is more important than ever on ChannelVisions.tv

The post Channel Visions: Zift Talks Channel Transformation with SiriusDecisions’ Maria Chien appeared first on Zift Solutions.

MSM Solutions is a Premier Zebra Partner and leading integrator of barcode and RFID products. Founded in 1981, we’ve been in business for more than 30 years and have certainly seen a lot of change across the technology, marketing and sales landscape. Gone are the days of face-to-face handshakes, business card exchanges and steak dinners with potential clients. Instead, our buyers are online, actively looking for lowest priced solutions and immediate access to information – and we have to deliver in order to capture their business.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the capabilities that eCommerce and the Web provide, but it’s definitely a challenge to stay out in front of customers as well as the competition in today’s digital world.

A Go-To Marketing Resource For The Digital Age

In 2014, Zebra provided us with Marketing Advocate and we transitioned to Zift Solutions this year. Without a doubt, Zift’s Dynamic Content Syndication, Email Campaigns and Concierge Services are helping us build and maintain authority in today’s highly competitive digital landscape.

A simple web plug-in delivers fresh, relevant content directly into our website and also captures data about our site visitors, which eliminates much of the guesswork from sales and enhances lead nurturing. The email campaigns are also helping us build brand awareness and were instrumental after a recent name change in spreading the message that MSM is at the forefront of our industry and still the reliable solutions provider our customers know and love. The Zift Concierge Services team helps us keep up a steady stream of communications with bi-weekly email campaigns that promote a blend of Zebra products and MSM solutions. Because our campaigns are tailored to MSM’s manufacturing, retail and logistics verticals, we see very few unsubscribe requests and often get direct responses to our emails.

Zift quickly became our go-to marketing resource and has given us the platform, content and support to build brand awareness and market ourselves much more effectively. We’ve seen a spike in our web traffic, added more than $15,000 to our pipeline and closed $8,000 in sales in the first 5 months of using Zift. Since June of 2015, the 13 email campaigns that we’ve launched have garnered more than 5,000 interactions, we’ve added 1,800 new qualified leads to our system and now have approximately 4,000 prospects and new names in our database.

To learn more, read the complete new case study: MSM Solutions Establishes Authority and Builds Value in a Digital World with Zift Solutions.

The post Establishing Authority and Building Value in a Digital World appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The Barcode Factory is a Premier Zebra Partner that manufactures stock and custom labels for thermal printers, thermal ribbons and labeling applications. We also resell an array of printers, mobile computing, barcode scanning and software solutions along with RFID encoding and read/write systems, antennas, readers and RFID labels and tags.

Still with me?

Then you’re probably already getting the gist of one of our primary challenges. Just how do you make barcodes, labels and asset tracking technology fresh and exciting for customers and prospects? That was the dilemma we faced every day at The Barcode Factory and it’s not an uncommon one for channel partners.

Regardless of industry, it’s a daunting task to position the products and offers you’ve already put in front of current clients and potential customers as something new, different and engaging. We all want to make sure we’re not wasting our marketing funds and no one wants to create campaigns that bore or even alienate our customer base.

Fresh Content & Campaigns at our Fingertips

For us, the solution has been Zift’s Dynamic Content Syndication and Email Campaigns. We got a taste of the technology when Zebra provided us with access to Marketing Advocate in 2014 and we’ve since transitioned to the Zift Platform after Zift acquired the company in 2015.

We now have an extensive library of content and email campaigns at our fingertips, so fresh, product-driven content is always on-hand to help us capture the attention of our audience, nurture long-term relationships and drive new prospects toward a purchase. Plus, our Zift web plug-in automatically populates our website with syndicated content from Zebra, keeping our website on-brand and up-to-date with no extra effort on our part.

Raising the Value of our Brand

The ability to co-brand with Zebra is undoubtedly raising the value of our brand while strengthening our relationship with Zebra and our clients. We’re able to stay out in front of emerging trends and capture the attention of our target audience easily.

Our Zebra sales are up and we’re opening up large opportunities under newer RFID and portable print solutions. Best of all, Zift has become an extension of our marketing team, helping us identify potential campaigns and providing strategic direction through its Concierge Services. We’ve already seen great results and intend to integrate Zift with our new CRM system in 2016.

To learn more, read the complete new case study.

The post Making the Old New Again: Barcode Factory Drives Sales and Keeps Messaging Fresh with Zift appeared first on Zift Solutions.

As part of our commitment to corporate social responsibility and charitable pursuits, we’ve joined the Pledge 1%, a corporate philanthropy movement dedicated to making the community a key stakeholder in every business. Zift is pledging 1% of its equity, employee time and product to charitable pursuits in 2016. We’re also planning to launch our own Pledge 1% chapter in the Triangle to encourage other local NC-based companies to take the pledge themselves.

Choose a Charity!

We’ve also selected three very worthy charitable organizations and invite you to choose one that resonates with you. Our donations will reflect the decisions of Channel Chatter readers, along with those of all of our partners, prospects and clients, who have also been invited to weigh in.

Let us know which charity we should share a little more with this year and enjoy the holidays!

Choose This Charity

Choose This Charity

Choose This Charity

The post How We’re Extending the Season of Sharing & Caring appeared first on Zift Solutions.

It’s a great event that brings together the most forward-thinking thought leaders and cloud channel executives from leading vendors, distributors and solution providers in the IT and telecom industries. It’s also an incredible opportunity to soak up knowledge and insights from true channel visionaries, those who are using new ideas coupled with next-generation technology to break though barriers to partner engagement, brand allegiance, content and social media challenges and more. In other words, it’s the place where the industry is actually turning channel dreams into reality.

Zift & SiriusDecisions Share the Spotlight

One of the highlights of the week was a key note address from Zift’s President and CEO Ken Romley and Maria Chien, Service Director, Channel Marketing Strategies of SiriusDecisions. As Chien noted, “Few B2B leaders selling through indirect channels are actually achieving their goals.” Their presentation, “Key Ingredients for a Positive & Profitable Partner Experience” demonstrated:

• How to overcome critical partner engagement challenges via a marriage of SiriusDecisions’ Partner Experience and Maturity Model with a proven Channel Marketing and Management (CMM) Platform
• Why many of today’s channel partners are ignoring suppliers and resist adopting CMM technologies, including too many vendors and initiatives, lack of value, difficult to use, gaps in partner skills and resources
• The importance of using Cloud technology to support the partner experience, which promotes scalability and the flexibility to plug in new capabilities and needs and opportunities shift directly into the systems partners already use

Here are a few pics from the show:

If you missed the event, be sure to keep your eyes out for the next event coming in April of 2016.

Did you make it to the Channel Visionaries event?

What were your takeaways? 

The post Turning Channel Dreams Into Reality appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Like many channel organizations, we have a very small marketing team here at Faction. If you’re anything like me, that means spending a good bit of time wishing you had more resources to support and engage partners.

Faction offers private, public and hybrid Cloud infrastructure as a service and we are 100 percent channel based. In the crowded Cloud marketplace, that means doing everything you can to capture the attention of both partners and prospects. So, I know first-hand that It can be utterly overwhelming trying to support a full partner community on your own. Instead of continuing to juggle everything with limited resources, we turned to Zift for help.

We’ve been using Zift Solutions at Faction for a little over two (2) years now and currently have 70 to 80 percent of our partner community on the Zift Platform. Prior to Zift, it was nearly impossible to provide the level of support and customized collateral we wanted to deliver to our partner community. Zift’s comprehensive toolset allows us to create and easily distribute truly customized marketing and sales tools to our entire partner community. With Zift, one person can do the job of literally an army of 20 people. A small team can really look and appear much larger and much more sophisticated than it may actually be.

Turning Partners into Thought Leaders

All of our white papers, case studies and fact sheets are loaded into the Zift Solutions platform. With the press of a button, our channel partners can replace our logo with theirs or change verbiage to highlight their unique capabilities, essentially giving them their own unique stash of high-quality, customized marketing assets to use whenever they need to. We also utilize syndicated content and a news reel widget from Zift to build and distribute Cloud news weekly across our community. Using the widget, which embeds the content directly into partner’s websites, our partners look like true Cloud experts, with current, relevant Cloud news appearing on their website consistently.

Zift Gets Baked into Faction’s Sales Pitch

What I hadn’t counted on, but was pleased to discover, is that Zift is something that we’ve been able to incorporate into our own sales pitch to resellers. As the only Cloud service provider that is 100 percent channel-based, we are appealing to reseller partners that may or may not have resources and strengths around the channel already.

When partners sign up with Faction as their Cloud service provider, they get customized collateral and access to a powerful marketing automation tool that allows them to create and send email campaigns – and measure their results. They get access to our deal registration portal and our entire library of collateral assets along with syndicated content, news widget, our website tracker, and the list goes on. Many of our solution providers aren’t large companies and most are resource-challenged. The fact that you’re going to get all of these benefits as part of their relationship with us absolutely encourages partners to sign on with Faction. Now, not only do they gain a Cloud service provider, but also all of the marketing tools, campaigns and the automation capabilities to execute and measure success. All through a single Zift Platform. It’s a great value proposition for partners.

I was also a bit surprised at how many of our partners were already familiar with and using Zift Solutions. The partners love having a single sign-on that they can use for multiple companies and Zift has quickly become a standardized solution in the community.

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To learn more, watch the full videos to see how Faction uses Zift to empower our channel partners in the highly competitive Cloud marketplace.

The post The Power of Many appeared first on Zift Solutions.

I recently sat down with Laurel Burton, VP of Marketing for Faction, to get her take on the evolution of the channel landscape and find out how Faction is empowering channel partners as thought leaders and leveraging Distributors within the highly competitive Cloud market.

Here are a few highlights from our discussion:

Q: What do you love about working with channel partners?

A: The nice thing about working with channel partners is that they’re all coming from a different angle to solve some of the same issues for customers. Our partners have their own specialties and their own unique value proposition that they offer to customers. They know their customers well, and they can become a sphere of influence for their customers. Faction partners have a really unique and interesting cloud story to tell with a combination of their services on top of our infrastructure. They can really direct sales through that thought leadership and their unique specialties

Q: What is your relationship with your channel partners?

A: As Faction is the only Cloud solution that the majority of our channel partners sell or white label under their own name, we have to educate and empower them to be Cloud experts, which can be pretty difficult. My goal, in terms of marketing and meeting our sales goal as a company, is to empower channel partners with sales enablement tools that really help them learn quickly. That includes providing training tools and assets, marketing campaigns, lead generation campaigns, even telemarketing scripts, that are customizable and will allow them to sell Cloud overnight as opposed to the typical product development and marketing cycles that can take months.

Q: How has the channel changed?

A: The trends I’ve seen in channel marketing over the past few years really seem to be the level of intelligence and differentiation of each of the channel partners. When I knew channel marketing back in the day, companies often sold everything to everyone. Now, I see much more sophistication, especially in a lot of these fine-tuned, smaller shops that are focused on a very specific value-add stack. These guys know their customers well. They are the expert on that customer, and they know exactly how to direct their customers to buy.

Q: How has Faction followed these trends?

A: Over the last three years, I have seen an evolution in how Faction works with our channel partners. We tend to work much more closely with the Distributor community. The Distributor community not only resells on our behalf, but they’re also recruiting on our behalf, finding channel partners in their own ecosystems that want to sell Faction. We’ve also learned the type of channel partner that is going to be most successful selling, reselling or white labeling such a sophisticated product as Cloud.
We’ve also fine-tuned our target market in terms of partner prospects. Ideal channel partners really need to be managed services-savvy, used to recurring revenue models, and compensate their reps in a similar fashion as we would, with a monthly recurring revenue stream for Cloud. I think we’ve been able to really fine tune and hone in on what our true target market is, even within the partner community.

Q: What makes a successful channel partner?

A: To Faction, successful channel partners are now understanding, through the training materials, how to pitch and sell a complex product like Cloud. They are leveraging our marketing campaigns and our marketing tools. They understand how to execute successful lead generation campaigns, and they’re not just talking the talk, but now are converting leads into sales.

To learn more, watch the full video of our interview with Laurel Burton in our Channel Visions Video Series:

If you are interested in being considered for an upcoming edition of Channel Visions, please contact marketing@ziftsolutions.com

About Faction
Faction is an enterprise-focused IaaS cloud service provider offering private, public, & hybrid cloud solutions. At Faction we supply cloud the way you want it – deep control, broad customization, and extreme performance spanning eight cloud locations. Join Faction’s cloud revolution and take back the keys to your kingdom.

The post Channel Visions: Empowering Channel Partners as Thought Leaders and Leveraging Distributors with Laurel Burton, VP of Marketing for Faction appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Catch up with Part 1 and Part 2 of the series, and read on to get Heather’s take on content marketing, the impact of social media within the channel, the power of first impressions in inbound and outbound marketing – and why channel partners should focus on building an audience.

Q. CAN YOU DISCUSS THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTENT MARKETING?

A. Content and content marketing are the way that we are communicating to people today. Sending an email that doesn’t have a piece of valuable content that allows them to glean more information is useless. We’re not only bombarded with information, we’re also drawn to more information. Having something like a video, ebook or infographic is incredibly valuable. Think about how content is evolving and how important that content is to the recipient.

Q. WHY IS SOCIAL MEDIA IMPORTANT FOR CHANNEL PARTNERS?

A. By the time consumers are reaching out to someone regarding a product or service, they’ve already done a ton of research independently. If they don’t see a partner on social media, they are going to be less likely to do business with that channel partner and instead will reach out to the partners they’re already seeing on social media.

Q. ANY TIPS FOR INBOUND AND OUTBOUND MARKETING?

A. A positive first impression is essential or both inbound and outbound marketing. For inbound marketing, channel partners need to be sure that they are making a good impression when someone finds them online. When a partner is reaching out to someone via outbound marketing, and that prospect visits the partner’s website but isn’t impressed with the information they find, they will likely seek out someone else to work with.

Q. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO BUILD AN AUDIENCE – RATHER THAN BUYING A LIST?

A. One of the worst things that a partner can do is take an email that a vendor has created for them, go purchase a list of contacts who have never heard of them, and then send that email. We much prefer to help partners build their online presence and build their executives’ social presence.
For partners to be successful with demand generation and nurturing those contacts and connections, they must have a strong online presence, so that people can get used to seeing and hearing their name and reading articles that they have posted before prospects receive an email from them – not the other way around.

To learn more, watch Part 3 of our Channel Visions interview with Heather here:

About Heather Margolis, CEO, Channel Maven: Heather has led channel programs for companies like EMC, EqualLogic and Dell. She helps channel organizations build smarter channel programs, manage channel relationships to find added value, and engage their communities through social and traditional media.

The post Channel Visions: Making Channel Marketing Work with Heather K. Margolis, CEO of Channel Maven (Part 3 of 3) appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Don’t miss Part 1 of our discussion and read on to get the advice Heather gives to channel organizations regarding building partner programs that work, how best to educate and engage partners, and find out why she started Channel Maven:

Q. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO A CHANNEL ORGANIZATIONS?

A. Make sure that your programs and resources are what partners need to be successful. Don’t make them jump through hoops if those hoops aren’t going to benefit their company as well. You want partners to build habits that train them to build a stronger business.

Also, be sure that you’re communicating to your partners without bombarding them. The information you’re sharing with partners should also be to their benefit. Instead of just announcing that you won an award, for example, explain how partners can communicate the benefits and impact of the award to their customers.

Lastly, truly enable your partners. Don’t just throw something at partners and tell them that they need to use it in their marketing. Make sure that you’re sharing tools, resources and information that will help them build their own business and integrate with their business.

Q. ANY ADVICE ON EDUCATING YOUR PARTNERS?

A. Make partner education efforts more face-to-face. Whether it’s via video or being present at a partner summit, providing partners with consultants who can sit down with them, look at their profiles and websites, and give them true advice is incredibly valuable.

Work with them to cater their content to their audience and make sure that they are leveraging their executives as thought leaders. People do business with people, not with logos. Partner executives should be engaging customers and prospects on social and in real life.

Q: WHY DID YOU START CHANNEL MAVEN?

A. I always joke that I’m a recovering channel professional. I worked in the channel for years and was always struggling with how to help partners, without being able to truly talk to them and understand fully what they were looking for. I started Channel Maven Consulting in 2009. Our goal is to drive more business through the channel by listening to what partners want and need, understand how their business is evolving, and then help manufacturers and vendors speak directly to those partner needs.

To learn more, watch Part 2 of our Channel Visions interview with Heather:

About Heather Margolis, CEO, Channel Maven: Heather has led channel programs for companies like EMC, EqualLogic and Dell. She helps channel organizations build smarter channel programs, manage channel relationships to find added value, and engage their communities through social and traditional media.

The post Channel Visions: Making Channel Marketing Work with Heather K. Margolis, CEO of Channel Maven (Part 2 of 3) appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Q: HOW HAS THE CHANNEL CHANGED?

A: Over the last few years, the channel has changed for a couple of different reasons. Partners are more business savvy. Small and mid-sized businesses have more resources – even CRM systems and marketing automation tools. So when you say to a partner, “Here’s a ‘campaign in a box’, go market it!” That’s not as smooth or impactful as it could be. Channel partners need to have the information that they see as beneficial and that they can disseminate to end users, who are bombarded by information. Partners need social posts and help with social media in general. They need to ensure that people are coming to their website, which requires Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and domain authority. There are a lot of different things that partners need today that they didn’t even know about five years ago.

Q: WHAT ARE SOME TRENDS IN THE VENDOR/PARTNER RELATIONSHIP?

A: Partners today have so many choices about who they can work with today. They gravitate toward vendors that will enable and empower them – as well as vendors whose products customers are asking for. If you have a strong product and a weak program, you might get some partnership. If you have a weak product and a weak program, you’re definitely not getting these partners.
Another trend is that partners are becoming much more self-sufficient with sales and marketing. With all of the different resources out there, like marketing automation tools and social media, partners can market themselves and use social selling to better engage end customers. Partners are building more of a brand for themselves and it’s important for vendors to cater to that. If you have a marketing automation tool, make sure that it integrates with your partners’ tools. Partners don’t want to log into multiple systems and portals. It’s important that partners feel like everything is streamlined for them.

Q: HOW ARE YOUR CLIENTS BETTER ENABLING THEIR PARTNERS?

A: First is education – helping partners understand all of the ins and outs of a truly integrated marketing campaign plan that includes great content as well as social selling. That’s not just for the marketing team. That’s making sure that every single sales person understands how important it is to build ethos with your audience before you start picking up the phone and calling them.

Next is engaging partners. If you’re expecting partners to use social media to drive demand with end customers, you better be using social to engage partners.

Third is enablement. That means providing partners with the tools they need to be successful, whether that’s a marketing automation tool, webinar capabilities, support for events or something else. It also means helping them with those tools by providing things like copy blocks or a campaign-in-a-box that they can use to connect with the appropriate audience. Sometimes enablement includes handholding. With just a little bit of help, growth partners can be so much more successful. Provide them with a field marketing or third-party resource who can show them, for three to six months, clear steps to be more successful.

To learn more, watch Part 1 of our Channel Visions interview with Heather here.

About Heather Margolis, CEO, Channel Maven: Heather has led channel programs for companies like EMC, EqualLogic and Dell. She helps channel organizations build smarter channel programs, manage channel relationships to find added value, and engage their communities through social and traditional media.

The post Channel Visions: Making Channel Marketing Work with Heather K. Margolis, CEO of Channel Maven (Part 1 of 3) appeared first on Zift Solutions.

• 78 percent of people watch videos online every week
• 55 percent of people watch videos online every day
• 50 percent of all mobile traffic is already dedicated to watching online video
• 60 percent of consumer internet traffic overall is video (4x as much as web browsing and email!)
• By 2017, 69 percent of online traffic will be video, with the trend continuing in 2018 to 79 percent.

Check out the complete Infographic here.

Providing Video Content to Partners

Clearly, your prospects and clients are watching videos online. If it’s not already, it’s time for video to become a fixture in your channel marketing efforts. Providing video to partners as an asset for use in outreach efforts, particularly as social media and web content, is a great way to extend your reach while engaging both partners and prospects.

Video brings channel marketing to life.  Instead of fixed, static assets, you’re delivering action, visual stimulation and layered messaging.  As such, video is a perfect venue for:

• Demonstrating solutions and services
• Delivering face-to-face insights from thought leaders and industry experts
• Sharing best practices, use cases and success stories

Today, 93 percent of marketers are using video for online marketing, sales and communication, and 96 percent of B2B companies are already planning to feature video in their content marketing over the next year.

Zift counts itself among those companies and video is a key element in our own marketing efforts. With our new Channel Visionaries series, we’re delivering insights and allowing our users, customers and prospects the opportunity to virtually meet leading channel experts. We’re also creating and sharing videos featuring real-life use cases and success stories, which detail how suppliers and partners are solving familiar challenges and capturing impressive results using Zift.

Tell us how you’re using video to enhance channel marketing efforts in the comments section below.

The post Video Brings Channel Marketing to Life appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Sal has worked on both the partner and supplier-side of industry-leading channel programs in the IT industry for more than 30 years, most recently with IBM and CA Technologies. He’s played multiple roles, primarily in channel transformation, channel sales and channel marketing. Currently, he is the Chief Revenue Officer at Stoneware, a Lenovo Company. Sal shared his perspective and insight on a variety of core channel challenges, issues and best practices.

Here are a few highlights:

Q. What do you love most about working with channel partners?

A: Channel Partners are where the rubber meets the road. So, the great thing about working with them is that it’s very straightforward. They’re driving toward a sale – hopefully, an eminent sale that has a great degree of urgency and immediacy around it. For them, it’s all about delivering value to the customer – so that the customer pays them money, and in turn, they can then support and grow their business. That model is very easy to understand and that’s what I love about it. It’s very black or white. You either succeed in your endeavor or you don’t.

Q: What challenges do vendors face today?

A: The biggest challenge Vendors face today, when it comes to working with their Partners, is developing a Partner experience that is positive, fluid and conducive to the Partner making money. Partners have a choice. Vendors need to create a program and experience that makes Partners say, “Working with this Vendor is not only profitable, but it’s relatively easy, it supports my business model, and it’s not going to draw down on my resources or take a lot of time.”

Q: How would you describe the relationship between vendors and partners?

A: The relationship between Vendors and Partner is a love/hate relationship – It always has been. It’s tenuous at best. Regardless, it’s something we’re getting better at. Why? Vendors are getting better because they have no choice. We have to be serious as Vendors about the Channel. If we’re not, someone else is going to eat our lunch – our competitors will grab market share and take our business from us.

Q: What are three things that can help the vendor and partner relationship?

A: The big three would be:

1. Systems and Tools: All of the different systems and tools that a Partner will touch and use to act as key interface points to interact with the Vendor, including things like Partner Portals, learning management systems, CRM, etc. These are critical.
2. Training and Education: Having a solid training and education program is essential. There should also be no difference between the training you offer to your direct sales team and the training offered to your channel. With minor tweaks and differences, they should be one in the same.
3. Sales Interlock Policies and Procedures: These should serve as a framework that governs all elements of the Partner experience. Though critically important, most Vendors don’t spend enough time developing their policies and procedures. As your rules of engagement covering all interactions and operations with Channel Partners, they should be written down, approved by the highest levels of your organization and formally presented to all Partners.

Q: What do you love most about working with the channel?

A: I love the freedom that comes with working in the Channel, whether on the corporate side of things, a Vendor, a Channel Partner, a System Integrator or ISV. There is a great deal of flexibility and creativity involved and things are always changing. I like to say that change is the only constant in business and I think that is most evident when you look at how the channel operates. Nothing moves in a straight line. Everything is fluid and, in many cases, very random. And that is the biggest challenge in this business.

Q: How has the channel changed?

A: The biggest change in the channel is that we went from channel sales being a “nice to have” to “we can’t live without it.” The channel perspective shifted from: “Hey let’s give it a shot – Let’s see what the channel can do for us…but our direct sales guys are where we need to focus,” to, “Holy cow! If we can’t build a strong channel model and program now, we’re in trouble!”

We’ve also seen a shift from perpetual pricing to subscription-based pricing, where the customer is not paying a large up-front fee. Customers can dial up and dial down the amount (and cost) of any solution or service that they want. This is a true consumption model and it will be critical to the channel. I would not be surprised over the next two to three years to see a full third of today’s channel partners no longer operating or continuing to conduct business, basically because of this pricing shift, which is going to put a lot of folks out of business. I hope I’m wrong. I hope businesses can adapt and that Vendors and Partners will take the appropriate steps to accommodate this dramatic shift.

Q: How important is marketing automation for the channel?

A: Like all of us today, Channel Partners are slammed. Constant pressure, constant phone calls, 250 emails a day, the traveling. We all know it, we all live it. Smaller partners, with less than 100 employees, (who, by the way, make up about 70% of any healthy channel ecosystem), rarely have sophisticated or well-staffed marketing organizations. As a Vendor, you need to be able to compensate for that. The way to do that is by offering programmatic marketing tools, services and support to Partners. That may include Concierge Services to Partners, which gives Partners the opportunity to pick from a variety of Programs, and then have tools and experts to walk them through the steps of a particular campaign. Having access to Channel Marketing Automation technology and Concierge Services has become very important to Partners when they’re evaluating their Vendors.

To learn more, watch the full videos of our interview with Sal Patalano in our Zift Solutions Channel Visions Video Series.

The post Channel Visions: Zift Sits Down With Sal Patalano appeared first on Zift Solutions.

What’s New?

The new Zift app for Hootsuite lets channel partners import social streams, publish content and access all of their supplier-provided marketing support materials directly within Hootsuite. There’s no more logging into and out of either tool to manage social media. Instead, users can easily connect, access and manage all of the Zift social media capabilities, content and materials they rely on right inside Hootsuite using the new app.

Easy as 123

Installing the new app is as easy as 123:

1. Open the Hootsuite App Directory
2. Search for “Zift”
3. Press the “Install” button

That’s it! Once installed, Zift123 users can log into their account from within Hootsuite to see and use supplier-approved content from their Zift social streams without having to leave Hootsuite. All of the materials that OEMs, distributors and suppliers furnish to channel partners flow directly into Hootsuite, so channel partners can select, edit and post these materials to all of their social media channels in seconds.

Bottom Line Benefits

With the new Zift app for Hootsuite:

• Social media management is faster and easier
• Channel partners get direct access to additional supplier-approved marketing posts and materials inside Hootsuite
• You can expand your social presence across more than 35 popular social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and more
• Everything you need for social media promotion, lead generation and measurement is available in one place

Are you a channel partner using Hootsuite to manage your social media? If so, let us know and we can help you connect with Zift to expand your social reach and drive more revenue. You can also read the press release announcing the new app to learn more.

The post New Zift App for Hootsuite™ Makes Social Media Hum appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Sales used to be something of a guessing game. It was difficult to look at a list of leads and determine which among them might be the best prospects.

Today, predictive-intelligence solutions can tell you which prospects are in the market to buy and identify net-new prospects who have not yet raised their hands. It works by aggregating disparate data sources across the Web and applying machine learning and modeling to make predictions about which products and services prospects need, when they’re likely to buy, and the potential value of the deal.

Predictive intelligence has opened up a world of new possibility for business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing teams. Here are five specific benefits.

1. Sales and marketing finally aligned

Alignment between sales and marketing teams is key to achieving revenue goals. If the leads aren’t sales-ready, sales wastes time and misses targets. In fact, recent stats show that 79 percent of marketing leads never convert to sales (Marketing Sherpa). Predictive intelligence ensures higher marketing-qualified-to-sales-qualified lead conversion rates by uncovering which prospects are ready to buy now and why. As a result, marketers can pinpoint and hand over truly hot leads to sales, setting reps up for success in closing deals.

2. Effective lead nurturing

Lead nurturing is an essential part of the customer experience and critical to funneling leads through the sales pipeline; however, in a traditional nurture process, messages are sent to a prospect with limited understanding of where that individual is in the buying journey. It’s like shooting in the dark. For example, sending “awareness stage” collateral (e.g., a broad, introductory white paper) to a well-informed prospect is irrelevant and not conducive to closing a sale.

Xactly’s chief marketing officer, Scott Broomfield, likens this typical nurture scenario to oversharing when dating. “When you go on a first date,” explains Broomfield, “you don’t barrage that date with everything about you and then at the end of the date ask them to marry you.” Similarly, overwhelming prospects with too much information can easily result in opt-outs and lost sales.

Predictive intelligence uses data to pinpoint a prospect’s location in the buying journey, arming sales reps with knowledge needed to send and say the right thing at the right time.

3. Faster prospecting, shorter time-to-close

Predictive intelligence allows you to shorten the sales cycle and close more business quickly. By knowing where the prospect is in the sales cycle, less time is spent on prospecting. Similarly, with a view into which accounts and contacts are ready to buy, what they want to buy, and what the deal value size might be, sales reps can prioritize leads intelligently and close deals faster.

4. Validated net-new prospects

Blindly pursuing prospects is a high-risk activity; yet sales needs new leads in the pipeline. Predictive intelligence uses activity intent data to uncover patterns of likelihood to purchase and applies that logic to unknown contacts, resulting in validated prospects outside of MAP and CRM data who are ripe for the picking.

5. Up-sell and cross-sell opportunities

Up-selling and cross-selling are effective strategies to boost revenue. Engaging an existing client is more certain than going after net-new business (at least, net-new business without predictive intelligence). For the average B2B company, up-sell and cross-sell opportunities can contribute 50 percent revenue opportunity – or more (SiriusDecisions).

Imagine your current customer is a single contact within an account. What if you could gain insight into the buying behavior of other unknown contacts (such as anonymous visitors to your Website) in that account? Predictive intelligence aggregates behavioral data from multiple contacts across an entire account, providing insight beyond a single individual. This insight can help to determine the right up-sell and cross-sell approach.

For example, if you’ve sold a video-conferencing solution to one team within a company and suddenly see interest in IP phones from an adjacent team in the company, it’s a good time to cross sell.

As you transform into a data-driven sales professional, consider how predictive intelligence might enhance your processes. I’ve given you five examples of such gains, but there are many more.

The post 5 Ways to Take the Guesswork Out of Your Sales Process appeared first on Zift Solutions.

We’ve heard you and we want to help. We know the channel marketing landscape is more complex than ever. We also know how frustrating it can be to watch some channel programs soar while yours remains stuck.

How are those other programs achieving more with their partners and prospects? Just what are they doing to capture the attention and business of today’s self-empowered buyers? What are the secrets to their success?

In this eBook, we’re unlocking 6 key secrets of channel marketing success and providing real-world examples of how industry-leading channel programs are closing the loop with partners to increase visibility, measure results and capture more revenue.

Over the next few weeks, Ken Romley, Zift Solutions President and CEO, will provide sneak peeks into the eBook and unveil individual secrets here at Channel Chatter, but why wait? Step into the driver seat right now to learn more!

Click here to get the eBook!

The post Handing Over the Keys appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Here are just a few highlights from our interview or you can watch the video below.

Q: How Has the Channel Changed?

A: Channel Partners need timely tools and information much more so than ever before. And it’s no longer just traditional sales tools, scripts and brochures. Partners need far more today as they and their customers are savvier. Partners need to actively market now and materials must be customized to their levels of expertise.

For example, Red Hat Premier Partners are very strategic and need materials that speak at a high-level of expertise. Our Advanced Partners are hardworking but not quite as high-level as Premier Partners. They face a lot of competition and need to differentiate themselves. Then you have the Entry-Level-Ready Partners, who are hungry but don’t have the tools and resources of more established Partners. They depend more on us to provide what they need. And we would rather deliver those tools and materials and allow them to focus on selling instead of struggling to market on their own.

Q: How Has Red Hat’s Relationship With Partners Changed?

A: Red Hat’s Channel Partner relationships have changed in that we’re more dependent on our Partners. They are not just Red Hat resellers. They are true Partners. It’s key for us to work with them on enablement and education to understand our products, but also understanding our customers. Our products are different. We’re not just a widget. Open Source is unique and it allows a lot of things to happen across the board and opens many opportunities and possibilities. Partners have to understand how our products extend capabilities for the customer and market to all of those possibilities.

Red Hat doesn’t really test out tools and programs on its Partners. It does its due diligence and then provides truly valuable tools to Partners like Zift Solutions. We’re committed to our Partners. There is no long line for help, assistance or account management for our Partners. If Partners need help or input, even from the executive level, they can get that very easily. It’s a great time to be a Red Hat Channel Partner.

Q: What Trends Are You Seeing In The Channel?

A: The Channel is like the music business in that it changes on a daily basis. I was around when everyone was a VAR (Value Added Reseller). Then people decided that we can’t just have somebody that supplies things, we need somebody to handle the services, someone else to handle implementation and someone else to evaluate the customer to determine what they really need. I’ve seen the evolution of System Integrators and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). The fact is, there are many more needs that are outsourced now, which has spurred the growth of Hybrid Partners, such as Distributors and High-Volume Partners, all of which have unique needs and new ways of going after business.

To learn more, watch the full video of our interview with Kimason below. This is the first of a new series of videos with channel executives that we will be launching soon called Channel Visions. If you are interested in participating in the series, do not hesitate to let us know.

The post Channel Visions: Zift Sits Down With Red Hat’s Kimason Brown appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Integrated Multi-Touch Channel Marketing Made Simple

In keeping with the event’s focus on effective ways to grow and outperform in today’s competitive landscape, Zift CEO Ken Romley co-presented with Lisa Vega, Senior Marketing Manager of pureIntegration, an IT Systems Integrator, HPE Platinum Partner and Intel Security Premier Partner. Their session, Channel Partner Case Study: Integrated Multi-Touch Channel Marketing Made Simple, detailed how:

pureIntegration expanded overall marketing reach by nearly 50% and increased opportunities by 20% month-over-month through Zift Solutions’ direct integration into SugarCRM®.

If you weren’t able to make it to the Summit, missed this presentation or just want to learn more about how pureIntegratinon filled their sales funnel and conquered familiar channel challenges, you can click here to read the pureIntegration success story.

The SiriusDecisions Channel Program Model

Channel Marketing Management (CMM) got some love on the main stage with a presentation by Laz Gonzalez and Maria Chen of SiriusDecisions. In The SiriusDecisions Channel Program Model, they dissected the ad hoc approach many B2B organizations take in developing a channel program and the optimal functions and processes required to drive successful partnerships and channel success. They focused their message on how to build a truly end-to-end channel management program. Key areas included the intersection of channel sales, channel marketing and channel operations. This image outlines the complete program model:

We’ll share more about the Channel Program Model in coming months, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here is a link to a recent SiriusDecisions blog post on the topic.

Critical Event Takeaways

After four and a half days there was a ton of interesting content. Here are a few critical event takeaways I wanted to share with you.

• Come to Win – Every Time! Magic Johnson kicked off the event with an inspiring keynote. It focused on the importance of understanding your customer, over delivering, and come to win – every time. Here is a post from SiriusDecisions that summarizes some of his presentation.
• Demystifying B-to-B Buying for 2015 and Beyond. This topic will surely be discussed much more in the coming months. We all know the buying process has changed, but don’t count out sales too quickly when it comes to educating prospects. SiriusDecisions presented some new findings that speak to the buying process and how sales is involved in the education process. What this tells me is that now, even more than before; sales and marketing have to work together throughout the buying process. Collaboration is a must!
• Make it easy! This was the theme of a presentation from Stephanie Sissler of SiriusDecisions. She shared the five key drivers for effectively measuring and improving the partner experience. These five “P’s” are what partners are looking for – Product, People, Programs, Processes and Promotions.

Overall, I thought it was an inspiring event. Did you attend? If so, share your thoughts, experiences and insights in the comments section below.

The post The Channel Goes Country at SiriusDecisions Summit 2015 appeared first on Zift Solutions.

• Utilizing multiple modern marketing tactics to engage self-empowered buyers
• Integrating directly with the technology and systems your partners already use daily
• Connecting marketing efforts and actions with analytics
• Establishing a more collaborative sales process by participating in a growing and expanding partner community

Take a look at this new video to see how Zift uses connections to build partner engagement and channel revenue like no one else. Watch the video below and then let us know what you think in the comments section.

The post Making the Connection (New Video) appeared first on Zift Solutions.

California has always been on the cutting edge, so Orange County is the perfect setting for Channel Visionaries 2015. The event brings together industry thought leaders, visionaries and change makers to discuss how they are combining out-of-the-box thinking with proven strategies to open new channels and redefine channel marketing and sales methods.

Zift was proud to be a Channel Visionaries sponsor and we enjoyed speaking to so many channel leaders from around the globe. Zift CEO Ken Romley presented “Beyond Leads: Using Lead Distribution Management to Help Partners Turn Opportunities into Real Revenue.” During the session, Ken presented key insights into how the buying process has changed and best practices for using lead distribution management and multiple marketing tactics to drive partner loyalty and more sales results. He also shared insights from a case study with ResultsPositive, an HP partner, including how they were able to increase discovery meetings by 25%, cut lead lifecycle time by 30% and build pipeline. You can read the full case study here.

Some other highlights from the Channel Visionaries event include:

• The Digital Imperative – Lynn Anderson from HP shared great insights into how the digital world is changing the way companies buy. You must embrace these changes and support your partners in their journey or you will be left behind.
• Tiffani Bova from Gartner shared her thoughts into the new reality in partnering. She suggested you consider the cloud not the destination, but instead where you start.
• Heather K. Margolis, from Channel Maven Consulting discussed best practices in communicating “to” and “through” partners. Here is a recent webinar we did with Heather that includes some of the key topics covered.
• Our good friend Sal Patalano shared his extensive channel experiences and how SaaS is changing the vendor / partner relationship and what that means to sales and pricing. Here is a snapshot of his Keys to Success!

I could go on and on with all of the great content that was shared, but we’ll save some of those for future posts.

Did you get the opportunity to attend Channel Visionaries or visit the Zift Booth? Share your impressions in the comments section.

The post California Dreaming: A Look Inside Channel Visionaries 2015 appeared first on Zift Solutions.

A Day In The Life

Take, for instance, Lisa Vega, Senior Marketing Manager for PureIntegration, who recently shared A Day in the Life of a Channel Partner for Channel Chatter. Serving as the sole marketing resource for pureIntegration, a Virginia-based Systems Integrator, HP Platinum Partner and Intel Security Premier Partner, is no easy task. Taking time to become a guest blogger and give our readers an inside view of how Zift has remade her daily workflow, simplifying social media management and making it easy to overcome the daily challenges of channel marketing, is inspirational and much appreciated. Moreover, being both time and resource-constrained is something that I know is familiar to many of our readers. Be sure to read Lisa’s guest blog post to see how Zift is lifting the burden and opening new opportunities for pureIntegration.

Video Success Stories You Won’t Want To Miss

Aside from serving as a guest blogger, Lisa also worked with us to create two new Video Success Stories you won’t want to miss.

The first, Pure Integration Extends Capabilities and Conquers Channel Marketing Challenges with Zift, demonstrates the overall value and impact of Zift Solutions on pureIntegration. Watch it to get a glimpse of how easy it is now for Lisa to track social media email campaigns, content syndication and more using Zift.

The 2nd video, Real-Time Integration with CRM Delivers Impressive Results For pureIntegration, examines how integrating Zift directly with SugarCRM has allowed pureIntegration to enhance visibility and empower results by delivering leads directly into the CRM system they use daily.

A Deeper Dive: PureIntegration Case Study

Looking for a deeper dive and some measureable results? Check out this new detailed case study: pureIntegration Extends Capabilities, Fills Sales Funnel and Conquers Channel Marketing Challenges. You’ll get even more insight into the challenges pureIntegration was facing prior to implementing Zift and see exactly how, in just nine months of cross-platform usage and Concierge Services, they:

• Expanded Overall Marketing Reach by 46%
• Increased Month-Over-Month Opportunities by 20%
• Boosted Month-Over-Month Leads by 9%
• Drove a 7% Month-Over Month Increase in Site Traffic

It’s a compelling story that Lisa will co-present with us at the upcoming SiriusDecisions Summit. If you are planning to attend, don’t miss this session on Tuesday, May 12th from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm ET.

In one of the interviews, Lisa mentioned that being able to call on Zift at a moment’s notice means the world to her. The fact is having partners so willing to share their time and stories to help educate the Zift community truly means the world to us here at Zift.

The post Partner Pride: PureIntegration Inspires appeared first on Zift Solutions.

As the single marketing resource for pureIntegration, my day starts early – and it starts with Zift Solutions. From the moment I log in, I know exactly what the day has in store for me. That sure wasn’t the case two years ago.

A Look Back

Back then, I was juggling all of the marketing tasks to support multiple relationships on my own. With two separate suppliers, each with their own distinctive messaging and brand identity, it was very difficult to keep website content fresh and on target let alone, manage social media, marketing campaigns and advertising.

Leveraging HP Marketing Development Funds, I started using Zift for Content Syndication two years ago on a few selected landing pages on our website. The visibility and value Zift provided quickly became apparent, and we have since worked our way up to cross-platform usage for both suppliers. Today, I rely on Zift Solutions for:

• Monthly email campaigns and quarterly newsletters
• Social media posts via Twitter®
• Pay Per Click (PPC) ads on Google® and LinkedIn®
• Automated lead distribution to sales reps

Zift Concierge Services have also become a powerful extension of the pureIntegration team, providing strategic and tactical support on nearly a daily basis. Plus, we’ve recently integrated Zift into our SugarCRM System, so the entire pureIntegration team can work within the CRM system they know and already use every day.

Mornings Start With Zift

With the Zift Platform, everything we need is all in one place and accessible with just a few clicks. Over morning coffee, I can log in one time and check campaigns or edit and make social media posts from one dashboard, which is my favorite tactic. At the same time, our Sales reps are logging into our CRM, where they’ll find new leads from Zift campaigns already populated into the system along with detailed insight that makes it easy to determine who they need to reach out to first and the best way to nurture those leads.

A quick call to Justin, our Zift Concierge, and we’re off and running with plans for new email campaigns, newsletters or PPC ads. Within the Zift dashboard, I can easily deploy and track the results of all of our marketing outreach efforts, check on top searched keywords and new leads, even send notes to the sales team, which is phenomenal.

All that functionality is available through just one platform that is well-designed, convenient and easy to understand. So, later in the day, when I have to generate reports for an all-hands meeting, all of the data I need to track and share ROI is easily available. I get automatic reports emailed on a bi-weekly basis based on the data pulls I’ve assigned. Plus, pretty charts and graphs make me look like a superstar during those meetings I used to dread.

People often ask, how would you rate Zift on a scale of 1 to 10? My answer: a solid 12. Seriously. I cannot imagine doing my job without Zift now. Why would I?

The post A Day in the Life of a Channel Partner appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Olympic athletes know something about reaching high-performance. What sets them apart though is their razor focus on refining every aspect of their sport to reach a singular goal. Shaving off .003 seconds can make the difference between gold and silver. However, sometimes not keeping the bigger picture in mind will actually not deliver the desired results. This was likely the case for the Team USA speed skating team in the Sochi 2014 Olympics. They focused much of their time and money on the skater’s suit, but with no apparent advantage.

But as experience often teaches us, it’s not how we do what we do, but what we do to get things done that matters most. Channel marketers can learn a lesson from this. For example, it’s not which tele-services agency is used to qualify leads for a partner marketing campaign as much as making sure the program includes a nurturing process beforehand. Then once a lead is handed over to the tele-services agent, there’re some behavioral data they can refer to when making them an offer.

Knowing which activities drive better results for different types of channel marketing programs can help optimize the effectiveness of these programs and help partners generate and follow up on leads.

Here are some of the initiatives we see high performance channel marketing organizations employ when contributing to partner pipeline and revenue.

Use a demand waterfall

They don’t just track hand-raisers and call them leads, leading channel marketing teams break down the lead process into stages that include inquiry, marketing qualified, sales accepted, sales qualified and closed. In doing so, when conversion rates fall – like poor conversion rates from marketing qualified to sales accepted stages – they can quickly remedy a situation by offering an incentive to partners to register deals.

Leverage propensity data

They use analytics to uncover propensity data that can help them target better partners and customers. These analytics are either developed in-house using tools or offered by distributors who are beginning to mine big data to provide more accuracy in their demand programs.

Focus on inbound to generate net new

As they evolve, leading channel marketing organizations begin to build a broader portfolio of tactics to their partners. We see them shifting their efforts to helping partners use inbound tactics, such as social syndication or ad retargeting.

Be fanatical about reporting

Like flour in a cake, channel marketers use reporting as a key ingredient in their marketing menus. But many have learned you can’t wave a magic wand between the supplier’s and partner’s CRM platforms (if they exist) to get them to report data; sometimes you just have to reach out and speak to someone.

Don’t invest in what you can’t measure

“We don’t fund what we can’t measure” is a phrase we often hear from results driven channel marketing organizations. As a result we see them using dashboards that offer them not only insights into what is going on, but also why. Using a mix of leading indicators (e.g. trained partners) and lagging metrics (sales per partner), they take a holistic approach to measurements.

Now that you have a solid baseline for what matters to these channel organizations, watch our on-demand webinar “Unveiling 5 Hidden Secrets of High-Performance Channel Marketing.”

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Channel Marketing: Planning Assumptions 2015 points the way toward better channel partner marketing programs, participation and results with the following five core initiatives for 2015:

1. Enhance channel partner portal experiences.

According to SiriusDecisions, less than 20 percent of partners consistently visit supplier portals. To drive partner traffic and improve portal relevance, suppliers should enhance portals by creating a cohesive content strategy that aligns with partner and prospect requirements, integrating new applications and empowering application mobility. We suggest considering pushing leads and content directly into the systems where your partners work today. We call that Embedded Access Apps and will be sharing more about it soon.

2. Establish successful alliances with other suppliers.

Supplier alliances hold great promise, but few achieve their intended results. Focusing on cross-organizational and cross-functional mindshare is critical to the success of alliance partners and should be fostered by identifying target marketing, establishing a joint sales strategy as well as joint rules of engagement from the start.

3. Implement or improve closed-loop visibility and reporting.

(Note: We believe this should be number one on the list.) Suppliers struggling to track partner progress and drive accountability should invest in Channel Marketing and Management (CMM) or Through Partner Marketing Automation (TPMA) solutions that can capture closed-loop data, deliver leads directly into partners’ existing sales force automation (SFA) systems, and automatically provide detailed data on lead activity and conversion rates back into supplier SFA systems.

4. Strengthen channel marketing competencies.

Developing specialized expertise in the areas of program development, measurement and ROI are required to increase channel marketing effectiveness and enhance partner results. Instead of simply focusing on delivering tactical support to partners, suppliers should identify knowledge gaps of both in-house channel marketing personnel and partners, then prioritize training needs to strengthen marketing skill sets.

5. Improve program delivery and performance.

Leaving channel partners to assemble and deliver marketing programs on their own is a recipe for failure. Channel partners need training on marketing fundamentals, end-to-end process guidance and pre-packaged, menu-based program execution to succeed. We also know that leveraging services to execute turn-key marketing campaigns for your partners is a great way to improve results. Here is a Managed Services Infographic we created that highlights some of the results we’ve seen.

Download Channel Marketing: Planning Assumptions 2015 to read the Research Brief in its entirety and tell us: What tops your 2015 channel marketing to-do list?

The post What Tops Your Channel Marketing To-Do List for 2015? appeared first on Zift Solutions.

We all know the buying process has changed and research shows that marketing has to change with it. Analysts estimate that today’s buyers are 66-90% through their sales journey before they reach out to a salesperson, and they don’t typically do so until they are ready for price quotes.

With buyers spending 63% of the time they are online keeping up with industry and/or technology , channel sales organizations must be properly positioned to capture their attention. That’s why nearly 90% of marketing professionals agree that successfully integrating multiple channels under a single integrated marketing strategy is crucial to long-term success.

Content is Critical

Clearly, marketing plays a larger role in the sales process than ever before. Marketing automation has also become one of the fastest growing technology segments due to these shifts. Powering marketing automation and integrated marketing efforts requires one essential element: Great content – and lots of it.

Unfortunately, the content challenge remains a daunting one. Channel marketers are already overwhelmed and many channel partners are resource constrained. Generating enough high-quality content to meet demands, especially when you consider all of the various channels and tactics you have to support, is no small task. Managing a small marketing team here at Zift, I understand the content challenge first hand.

Solving the Content Challenge

Flexibility is the key to solving the content challenge. To make your content go further, stop creating one-off pieces. Instead, carefully plan your content development efforts and create flexible assets that can be “stretched” or used multiple ways to support multiple marketing tactics.

We put this best practice to work here at Zift and we are always on the lookout for new ways to capture the time and cost-saving benefits of repurposing content. After recently developing a webinar about Lead Distribution management, we transformed it into several assets, including an eBook, series of blog posts, several social media posts, multi-touch email campaigns, landing pages, a website resource and more. With the right planning and insight, your content can easily stretch to meet multiple needs and go further toward nurturing prospects to close.

Need more inspiration?

Check out Oracle|Eloqua’s Content Pillar Approach below, which details how you can produce at least 269 pieces of content from a single eBook!

The post Stretching Content Out: The Benefits of Repurposing appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Mary Abdian, President and CEO of Macabe Associates, explains: “Sage branding was changing on a regular basis. We had to try to keep our website current but we didn’t always know what message Sage was sending – and we wanted to complement their messaging rather than conflict with it.”

Sound familiar? Of course it does.

With limited resources, it’s tough for today’s channel partners to stay up-to-date with supplier messaging, branding and product updates let alone keep up with the continuous content demands of the modern sales process.

Dynamic Content Syndication: A Powerful Solution to a Common Problem

For Macabe Associates (and thousands of other channel partners), the solution was Dynamic Content Syndication from Zift, which automatically embeds content into channel partner websites and dynamically adjusts content based on a website visitor’s unique interests, online behavior and personal characteristics.

Discover the benefits, best practices and real-world results of Dynamic Content Syndication in Zift’s eBook, Content Syndication: A 360-Degree View of the Channel. You’ll get a clear view of the success that can be achieved with this powerful marketing tactic and see exactly how Macabe Associates was able use Dynamic Content Syndication to:

• Get in front of customers 4 times more often
• Lower marketing costs by 25 percent
• Simplify brand management
• Easily maintain, update and tailor content to meet the needs of end-users
• Gain insight and analytics to measure results, demonstrate lead activity and provide metrics to Sage
• Leverage a continuous flow of current content for social media efforts, blogs, newsletters and email campaigns

“Syndicated content allows us to deliver consistent key product information and easily personalize the message.”

Mary Abdian, President and CEO, Macabe Associates (Sage Software Partner)

Watch this brief video to learn more about Macabe’s content syndication efforts and results – and check out the new eBook here (or below) to dig into the broad value of Dynamic Content Syndication.

Content Syndication: A 360-Degree View of the Channel

Find out how to lift the burden of content creation for your partners, boost conversion rates by 50% and enhance visibility across the sales cycle.

Download Free eBook

 

The post A Clear View of Success appeared first on Zift Solutions.

We are excited to have guest blogger, Heather Margolis, Founder and President at Channel Maven Consulting.

According to SiriusDecisions, 67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally. That means customers and partners are looking at you, talking about you, and making decisions about doing business with you before they utter so much as a simple “hello.”

So, how do you make it easy to say hello? Simple. Be the company that you would want to do business with.

Here’s a start:

Digital First Impression: Analyze your website. Take your time and be honest. Look at design, layout and content. Is it appealing and informative? Does it convey the first impression you want?

Be an Expert: Your website houses your expertise in the form of blogs, white papers, videos, tutorials, free-trials and other content. Buyers are 67% through their journey, before saying hello because websites like yours make it easy for them to research their choices. Be great at it.

Socialize to Find Engagement Opportunities: Friendships, partnerships and sales absolutely do happen on social platforms. Take time to learn where your buyers hang out, then meet them on their turf and don’t forget to bring your content to the party. Social platforms are where thought leadership is passed around, your opinions are voiced and knowledge is shared. It’s also the vehicle that ultimately delivers curious visitors to your website and curious visitors become leads.

See, simple, right?

The complicated part is coming up with and executing a strategy, but don’t worry, we have a few tricks up our sleeve that will go a long way to helping you become more successful. And, to that end, we’re here, guest blogging with Zift Solutions to cordially invite you to learn more.

Please join us on September 10th at 1:00 pm ET for Searching for the Channel Marketing Silver Bullet? Turn Silver into Gold! We’ll be talking about how to better engage your leads. Think for a minute about the tips we listed above – is your website ready? Have you joined the social networking scene? If not, you still have time and we can help. If you have, congratulations! You’re ready to move to the next steps and that’s where we come in with ideas and tactics to help you shine.

At Channel Maven Consulting we’re spreading the word and helping Vendors and Channel Partners find their buyers in the digital landscape. Find out more about our offerings and our President, Heather K. Margolis at www.channelmavenconsulting.com. We invite you to contact Heather before or after the webinar with comments, questions and suggestions heather@channelmavenconsulting.com and of course, we’d love to connect on social too.

Channel Maven
On Twitter (@ChannelMaven)
On LinkedIn

Heather Margolis
On Twitter (@HeatherMargolis)
On LinkedIn

The post 3 Proven First Steps For Increasing Lead Generation in the Channel appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Join us in welcoming guest blogger, Chris Becwar, Director of Marketing and Strategic Alliances at CCI Global Channel Management.

Having worked in and around tech channels for a while now, it’s been fascinating for me to watch how tech vendors use the enterprise technologies they tout to their customers and partners for running their own businesses.

While the leaders of the world’s top IT channel organizations have been busy over the last five years touting the benefits of SaaS enterprise solutions to their partners and customers, they’ve been hiding a painful secret: their personal experiences trying to leverage cloud enterprise platforms for running, and growing, their own channel organizations has often been very painful.

With a rallying cry of ‘cloud or bust’, major tech vendor CEOs and CTOs have signed up for enterprise-wide CRM, marketing automation and ERP software suites that made bold promises to automate everything sales-, marketing-, and finance-oriented, including the channel. And usually this has been done with little or no review or buy-in from the actual channel organization.

These projects have started out with a lot of fanfare and high expectations, but the honeymoons haven’t lasted long. Once it’s become clear that the ‘channel’ or ‘PRM‘ portions of these offerings are actually designed for SMBs with no more than a few hundred partners, the buyer’s remorse sets in and it’s time to ‘pay the piper’…the ‘piper’ being a major consulting firm, to build something custom with the application that can accommodate the full global complexity of the company’s indirect programs and operations. Initial build-outs tend to string out well beyond a year, with huge amounts of internal stakeholder time, and hourly pay, spent managing the project and all the people involved.

Once these systems are built, the pain really starts to snowball as the cost, time, and lost sales opportunities mount quickly. These projects tend to be:

• Astronomically expensive to manage, maintain, and repair. (Have you checked the hourly rate of a development consultant lately?)
• Not configurable in any adequate way as an organization’s channel structure and priorities change from year to year. In fact by the time they are built, they tend to already be out of date for the ever-evolving needs of their users.
• Inadequate as ‘systems of record’ that in many cases are not even remotely ‘financial-grade’ because of the ability of any admin to manipulate the pages and data.
• Consistently built by third-party developers that have little to no background, expertise, or interest in channel management best practices or global financial best practices.
• A place where innovative new ideas to improve internal and partner-facing processes ‘go to die’ because of the massive queue and expense of other maintenance requests for the system.

To be fair, software and services organizations ‘born in the channel’ have had their own challenges historically. Although they’ve tended to be more purpose-built by people who truly understand channel, they’ve often been bespoke, desktop applications that can’t evolve or integrate seamlessly with other, more complementary, systems. And they don’t carry the ‘name brand’ cache that their internal champions might prefer to tout with their boss when trying to sell these initiatives internally.

But the playing field has quickly evolved and cloud solutions purpose-built for large, global channels have been evolving and expanding quickly. The beauty of the cloud is that it tends to level the playing field for companies that deeply understand a certain business niche or industry to develop powerful tools that meet the unique business requirements of their clientele.

These new ‘born in the channel’ systems:

• Are purpose-built by channel practitioners deeply familiar with, and dedicated to, the unique needs and realities of the channel
• “Play well” with other internal systems and share data easily
• Put a heavy focus on scalability, through the global needs of a Fortune 500 player

So as channel teams close a painful first chapter in cloud automation and, one by one, give up on their customized ‘Frankenstein’ systems, a new generation of tools is rising from the ashes. Innovative, truly scalable channel solutions for through-partner marketing automation, PRM portals, deal registration, incentives/MDF management, and joint planning are changing the game.

Now that sounds like a cloud-rallying cry to actually get excited about!

Sound interesting? Watch our latest webinar: Embracing the New Era of End-to-End Channel Automation. You’ll learn more about these ideas and specific ways to implement solutions designed to hold your partners accountable, measure results and capture more channel sales. Click here to watch now.

The post Embracing the New Era of End-to-End Channel Automation appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Even if you aren’t in Canada, the law affects your business if you have people accessing your emails in Canada.

There is a lot of information out there about the legislation and as opposed to adding more; we thought it would be useful to share some of the information out there that we thought was relevant and useful. Here you go!

CakeMail – CASL: Coming to Canadian Inboxes Near You

Hubspot – A Guide to the New Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)

ReachForce – 6 Facts & 4 Tips You Should Know About Canada’s New Anti-Spam Legislation

For more information, you can also visit the Government of Canada’s website:
http://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/h_00050.html

The post How Canada’s Anti Spam Legislation (CASL) Affects You! appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The key word for me now that we are nearing the end of the group stage is “noise.” As a marketer how do you kick through the noise? (See what I did there!) We are inundated with commercials, tweets, YouTube videos, music, and advertisements surrounding the World Cup. With hundreds of brands vying for the attention of 2 billion viewers, B2B marketers can score (I did it again!) a few tips about marketing best practices while enjoying the games.

Just like B2B marketers, World Cup marketers are attempting to stand out from their competitors and reach their target audience. This is done through many different tactics, but let’s focus on Email Marketing.

Email is still one of the most successful forms of communication. Even with the rise of social media, email remains consistent with 91% of all U.S. consumers using email every day according to Business News Daily. So what can you learn from the World Cup to make your email more successful?

1. Find your focus

Irish poultry brand Moy Park is next to McDonald’s and Budweiser as a World Cup sponsor, so their focus is raising brand awareness and engaging new customers. They aren’t selling a product, just their overall brand as they enter the UK market and try to gain global recognition. By streamlining their marketing toward one goal, they are more effective and powerful, even when seen next to a well-known brand.

Establish a specific goal for your email campaigns. Be sure to tailor your messaging and content to a targeted list. Ask yourself: Are you selling a product? Promoting brand awareness? Building relationships? Each goal calls for a different style and different message, so once your focus is clear, you can choose your style and messaging.

2. Adapt and be creative

Brands have changed their style to fit with the World Cup, using the environment and ideals of the soccer community to tell their own story. For example, Castrol, the industrial and automotive lubricants brand, signed Brazilian football star Neymar to help raise brand awareness while emphasizing their company beliefs. “Neymar demands the best performance from himself in every game he plays, just as Castrol demands the best performance from our oils every time the engine starts,” says AS Ramchander, vice-president of global marketing at Castrol. They’ve used the atmosphere of the event to create a message that is consistent with their brand, as well the sporting world.

Be creative: not only with your content, but also your design. Consider aesthetic and content alterations based on your target audience and don’t forget about analytics. Measure your open and click rates to see what’s working and what’s not. Adding some variety to your emails will engage the recipient and show them your brand voice and personality.

3. Personalize your message

Brands are keeping their global messaging but are adding local flair to target their audience. Coca-Cola has created 32 different versions of the same song, “The World is Ours,” for the World Cup, using local artists singing in their native language for each version. Coca-Cola is maintaining their overarching message while personalizing it, hitting 85% of their markets during this one event.

Personalization may seem simple, but being innovative and meaningful can make all the difference. Don’t just add ‘Dear (FIRST NAME)’ to make it personal. As we’ve discussed before, it’s best practice to segment your lists based on geographical location, job title, industry, etc., to shape your messaging. Keep your main message consistent while modifying certain aspects to fit your audience. Soon your readers will feel a connection to your content and brand, increasing engagement and ultimately driving revenue.

How are you kicking through the noise and boosting your email marketing efforts?

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You’ve got a large email database.

You use a killer design and you launch your email campaign.

The next morning you eagerly log into your email marketing tool only to discover that no one has clicked, or worse yet, opened the email! Sigh.

When it comes to email: One size does NOT fit all. Just blasting emails to your entire database won’t work. Instead, you must segment your email marketing lists and tailor messaging to connect with specific prospects and customers.

According to HubSpot, “Targeted and segmented lead nurturing emails generate an 8% click-through rate compared to general email sends, which generate just a 3% click through-rate.” That’s a substantial increase, especially if you have a large database. And JupiterResearch has shown that, “Relevant emails drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails.”

List Segmentation: A proven best practice

Now a widely recognized best practice, list segmentation can dramatically improve your email marketing efforts and results. Even the smallest segmentation can increase success rates, which MailChimp recently demonstrated by measuring statistics from 2,000 users who sent 11,000 segmented campaigns to nearly 9 million recipients. They found that, “Segmented campaigns distinctly improved email performance almost across the board.” And The Lyris’ Annual Email Optimizer report showed that, “39% of marketers who segmented their email lists experienced higher open rates, 28% experienced lower unsubscribe rates, and 24% experienced better deliverability and greater revenue.”

All buyers are not the same

When it comes to segmenting your lists, recognizing the differences in your buyers is a must. Look for specific attributes that you know about an individual to segment your lists, then tailor the content and offers specifically to those individuals, groups, etc. Categorical examples that can be used to segment your email lists and customize content include:

• Established Customers vs. Current Prospects: An established customer should receive different messaging and offers than a new prospect that may be unfamiliar with your products and services.
• Location: Establishing a location is an easy way to segment your audience and tailor the timing and elements of your emails. An invitation to an event in Arizona is probably going to be of more interest to recipients in the southwest rather than those in Maine or Mumbai.
• Industry: Professionals working in Finance typically have different interests than those in Transportation & Logistics or Healthcare. Segmenting your lists by industry then ensuring that your content is industry-specific will improve the likelihood that your message will hit the mark.
• Professional Role or Title: Professional profiling extends to individual roles and titles. Use them to refine messages and connect with your target, be it the C-level Executive, Director of Marketing or Entry-Level Sales Representative.
• Size of Organization: The needs of Enterprise businesses are much different than those of SMBs and your emails should reflect that fact.
• Previous Behavioral Patterns: Leveraging behavioral data such as opens vs. clicks, visits to a webpage, attending an event, completing a form, contacting a sales rep to express interest, etc. can help you determine where buyers are in the sales process to help you target emails.

Don’t forget analytics! Use them to capture data then segment email lists and tailor your messaging to specific audiences to demonstrate you know and care about the interests of your recipients. The simple fact is: The more targeted and relevant your campaign, the better your chances are at garnering a response, making a sale and enhancing customer loyalty.

Do you segment your lists? If so, how and what type of results have you seen? We look forward to hearing more from you experiences.

The post One Size Does NOT Fit All: The Vital Importance of Email List Segmentation appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The focus of this year’s event has been on how transforming sales, marketing and product through alignment is essential to powering B2B top- and bottom-line growth.  We will be sharing many of these best practices and ideas in the near future, but today I would like to focus on a specific presentation that makes all of us at Zift extremely proud.

After evaluating more than 100 programs around the world, SiriusDecisions announced the Channel Program of the Year.

Congratulations to our customer: 

We have had the opportunity to be a part of HP’s efforts to grow their channel revenue for the past 7 years.  When we first began working with them they had many of the same challenges that we hear from other channel organizations:

• Low partner adoption
• Declining partner trust
• Lack of visibility into leads passed
• Desire to provide scalable programs to drive channel revenue

Maria Chien, Research Director at SiriusDecisions, said that HP was chosen because of the system-to-system integration and their ability to pass leads directly into the partner CRM systems.  When you are able to see both sides of this process, you have:

“The holy grail of data in the channel.”

Maria Chien

Research Director, SiriusDecisions

Here are some of the elements from Maria’s presentation.

Critical Success Factors: HP sought to capture all data with a single source of truth, and integrate data into both HP systems and partner systems.

• Partners have a critical role in the demand creation process, but recognize they cannot go alone.
• Suppliers can’t manage what they can’t measure – capture any and all information about mutual prospects and customers.
• Key investments in strengthening trust with partners; data protection guaranteed that their leads remained theirs.

HP Results:

• Shared pipeline visibility with HP, PBM and partner
• Improved lead conversion tracking (MQL-SAL-SQL)
• Accelerated Sales

Partner Results:

• 25% improvement in lead cycle time
• Lead-to-pipeline-to-close visibility
• Improved relationship with HP sales
• CRM usage up 60%

Once again, we are proud to be the technology behind HP’s success and their selection as Channel Program of the Year!  If you are interested in reading more here is a case study that outlines how one partner was able to cut lead lifecycle time by more than 30% and expand their pipeline.

HP Partner Expands Pipeline and Cuts Lead Lifecycle by 30%

The post SiriusDecisions Channel Program of the Year appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The concept of “understanding your target audience” is, ironically, one of the most misunderstood with SMBs. It is not enough to know whom you should go after, but how you should go after them as well. Different audiences have different psychographic personas, purchasing behavior and media consumption habits. Even within industries, specific businesses differ. Individuals have different titles, departments and job functions. They may even belong to different associations within their industry. All markets are not equal. Understand the behavior and needs of your potential customers so you will have a better chance of capturing them through a tailored message.

We all want to grow our business and grow it quickly, but you can’t conquer all. Start small. Pick your top target audience and then have laser focus to own that market. As you begin to gain traction with your audience, leverage that success to start expanding into new markets.

Here are five things to consider when you think about marketing your business.

1. Identify your best target audience.
2. Determine how best to reach your target audience.
3. Build messaging specific to the audience.
4. Start small and then build on your successes.
5. Focus! Focus! Focus! Dominate! Dominate! Dominate!

Have you recently refocused? Or determined your audience? What have results have you seen? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Are you finding it tougher than ever to transform prospects into customers?

That’s because today, it takes from 7 to as many as 25 touches to convert a cold lead into a sale and 5 to 20 people will likely be involved in the buying decision. That means that you need to engage 5 to 20 people – and remember everyone consumes content differently. Add the fact that consumers are interacting across five or more channels every day, it’s clear that multi-channel marketing tactics are a must.

As discussed in a previous post, there is a method to the madness of multi-channel marketing.

1. Start with a clear goal.
2. Support your end goal with solid strategy.
3. Drive results with the right tactical mix.

What tactics work?

According to a recent survey of LinkedIn’s B2B Technology Marketing Community, customer testimonials, case studies, in-person events, online articles and videos top the list of the most effective B2B marketing tactics. Podcasts, printed books and games are considered the least effective.

It’s important to have a mix of tactics all working together to support your strategy and your goals. Keep in mind that, according to Forrester, today’s buyer might be from 66% to 90% through their journey before they reach out…buyers now put off talking to a sales person until they are ready for a quote. This means marketing is now more involved throughout the purchasing process. Choose your tactics wisely.

Do you agree with some of those tactics? What have been your experiences? Let us know in the comments section below.

3 Steps to Successful Channel Partner Marketing: Working Collaboratively to Drive Sales

Discover how to ensure channel partner marketing success with this informative eBook!

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The post How You Can Drive Better Marketing Results by Selecting the Right Tactical Mix appeared first on Zift Solutions.

“March Madness” may work wonders for basketball fans, but the same can’t be said for marketing. It’s time to put an end to multi-tactic marketing madness.

Sure, there are tons of marketing tactics to choose from, including online, print and search advertising, email newsletters, direct mail, webinars, trade shows and events, advertorials, social media and more. And a multi-tactic approach, when done right, can work wonders. However, you can’t and won’t build a successful campaign by starting with tactics.

Here at Zift, we work with thousands of companies from around the globe who want to capture and keep the attention of their prospects and clients. Many of them come to us for help and immediately announce, “We want to do an email campaign!” Or they are intent on purchasing Google ads. Or they’ve heard that they should be doing more events and want to plan one now! Our response? “Let’s take a step back and talk about what you are trying to accomplish: What is your goal?”

The fact is, you must clearly define your goal before starting any channel marketing program. Use your goal to develop a strategy. And it’s critical to understand both your goal and strategy before selecting the actual tactics your campaign will utilize. Unfortunately, too many people confuse goals with strategies and let tactics determine the course of their channel marketing activities, which does not work.

Goal > Strategy > Tactics

1. Goal:

Specific, measurable and results-oriented, a goal is how you “win the game.” Channel marketing goals should be tied to overall business goals and KPIs.

For example: Generate 10 sales qualified leads to help us bridge our Q1 revenue gap.

2. Strategy:

An idea or vision that conceptualizes how you can achieve your goal/s. Some possible strategies might include creating awareness, overcoming objections or enhancing product understanding. Winning strategies put customers first and demonstrate that you are listening and responding to client needs and providing value to the customer.

For example: Re-ignite current prospects that have stalled in our lead management process.

3. Tactic:

The individual actions you take or activity required to execute your strategy are tactics. Think of tactics as ingredients rather than the finished product. Your overarching goal and defined strategy should be the driving force behind the selection of campaign tactics.

For example: Create a series of emails with quality offers to nurture stalled leads.

Agree? Disagree? What’s your approach or advice? Let us know in the comments section below.

Also, be sure to check in with Channel Chatter for the next installment to learn more about tactic trends (what’s hot and what’s not) and how to effectively combine tactics to create a successful multi-tactic campaign.

4 Simple Steps to Drive Channel Sales with Rules-Based Lead Distribution

Find out how you can transform lead distribution and empower channel partner success with this insightful eBook!

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The post Stop the Marketing Madness! appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Not only are our customers some of the best channel organizations, but we have worked with nearly 10,000 partners from around the globe since we began in 2006.

We are constantly innovating. Everyone else is playing catch up. Not only to our technology and proven success framework, but even to our marketing and web design it seems. It reminds us a little of this scene from the comedy classic Coming to America.

But, hey, we’ll take the similarities as a compliment and keep doing what we do best: Helping our customers increase channel sales.

It motivates us to continue to be the leader and watch everyone else try to play catch up.

The post When You Are The Leader… appeared first on Zift Solutions.

That’s exactly why forward-thinking suppliers are providing their channel partners with direct access to marketing automation tools, including content and social media syndication, through partner marketing automation (TPMA), automated lead distribution and more.

There’s no doubt that marketing automation helps channel partners streamline marketing efforts, connect with prospects and close more deals. Adding Managed Services to the mix yields even better results.

With Managed Services, channel partners get end-to-end, hands-on support from channel marketing experts across the lifecycle of their campaigns. Rather than trying to navigate the complex sales landscape on their own, partners can collaborate with experts to define priorities, identify and execute the best campaigns and then tweak efforts with strategic insight and closed-loop analytics. Zift Solutions has seen the dramatic impact of Managed Services over self-service first-hand and the numbers are impressive.

We’ve created a new infographic to showcase the impact of Zift Managed Services:

Summary of Statistics:

Channel partners with access to Managed Services benefit from:

• 93% more new leads
• 94% active leads
• 33% more active hot leads
• 27% more hot leads

Fortifying marketing automation technology with Managed Services increases partner adoption rates along with campaign effectiveness. For example, channel partners leveraging Managed Services have seen email performance skyrocket, with:

• 48% increase in emails sent
• 31% increase in emails opened
• 79% increase in emails clicked

The post How Suppliers Can Maximize Channel Success With Managed Services [Infographic] appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Think you’re doing a great job providing channel partners with the marketing assets and tools they require to create effective co-branded campaigns?

According to B-to-B marketing and sales experts SiriusDecisions, you may not be doing enough. That’s why we wanted to share their Prescriptive Marketing Research Brief, so that you can learn best practices and grow your business.

Download “Prescriptive Marketing: Supporting Partner-Driven Demand” to read the Research Brief in its entirety. (This research brief also includes a great Prescriptive Marketing Checklist you won’t want to miss.)

To ensure partner marketing success, SiriusDecisions recommends delivering marketing programs that require the least possible effort and expertise along with concierge-like assistance in the following areas:

1) Communication

The most important role a supplier can play is as a marketing advisor, which requires ongoing communication with channel partners.

2) Tactic Selection

Help partners choose the right demand tactics that address target market segments.

3) Deliverables

Offer to guide the partner through assembling a contact list with clear guidelines on how it will be used.

4) Timeline

Set a timeline including dates for specific tactics, due dates and debrief calls.

5)  Implementation

Stay in touch with partners throughout the implementation process.

6) Measurement

Suppliers should only fund channel programs that they can measure.

[Click Here to Download the Reseach Brief]

Are there any other areas or tips you would add to this list? We would love to know.

The post 6 Critical Areas to Ensure Partner Marketing Success appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The event began with a series of case study presentations from various organizations including “Growing Channel Partner Revenue – Sage’s Journey to Improved Results” presented by Ken Romley, Zift Solutions CEO, and Mary Abdian, CEO and President of Macabe Associates. In addition to the key steps to improve marketing through the channel, it was great to hear Mary share her experiences leveraging the Zift Solutions platform to support her relationship with Sage. She shared how she has been able to grow her business while saving time and money using key marketing tactics including nurturing campaigns for prospects/customers, website content syndication, event promotions and ad retargeting.

The general sessions began with Richard Eldh, Co-Founder and Managing Director, SiriusDecisions. He discussed the importance of aligning sales, marketing and product in order to drive top line growth. With the majority of prospect and customer interaction happening online, the need for tighter alignment has never been greater. Consider these three to be the legs to the revenue-generating stool.

The highlight of the general session was the keynote given by four-star General Stan McChrystal. You knew from his first words that it was going to be a no-nonsense, straight to the point presentation. He told amazing stories from his years of leadership experience as former Commander of U.S. and International Forces in Afghanistan. To be a successful sales and marketing leader you must:

1. Understand the need for change and appreciate change – having understood something isn’t the same as understanding.
2. Take advantage of collaboration – work together and communicate.
3. Not overlook the power of relationships – they are what keep things together.

So, think about this in terms of your channel.  Do you appreciate change?  Are you equipped to truly understand their sales and marketing needs?  Are you collaborating with your partners? Are you providing them with the right solutions to make them successful?  If they are successful, then you will drive channel sales. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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It started with Shaun Jones, VP Marketing, IBM Software – Business Partner and Mid-Market with his inspiring keynote, “What’s the Role of the Vendor in Enabling More Effective Partner Marketing?”  He challenged the audience to re-think their requirements for channel partners when it comes to marketing.  Not only do you need a true marketing owner at the partner organization, but you also need to provide the necessary training to ensure they are successful marketers.  Much like you do when it comes to educating partners about your products and technology, you must do the same with your marketing strategy and tactics.  He also discussed the importance of providing a mix of multiple tactics in order for your Through Partner Marketing to be successful.

This was a great transition into another workshop about the “Five Golden Rules of Partner Marketing.”  This session covered many of the same topics covered in the Day One session, which you can read from my Channel Focus Conference: Day One post.  There were a few additional thoughts shared by this group including:

• Provide partners with pre-built campaigns, but also allow them to do their own.
• Remember partners are at different stages of their business and therefore you need to understand their specific needs to support them with marketing.
• Email campaigns are most successful when used to drive upsells and for ongoing nurturing of current prospects.
• Remember to re-purpose the content you already have across the various channels to offset the need to create new content.&
• Consider going into the field to train your partners and drive adoption.
• Analytics and measurement was again an important rule to ensure you have visibility into what is working and what is not.

The conference sessions closed with Ken Romley, CEO at Zift Solutions as he shared “Five Steps for Improving Marketing Through Channel Partners”. Here is the summary slide with the five steps:

As you can see it was another great day in Miami with a lot of great conversation and key takeaways for suppliers. I hope that you will consider these as you continue to drive more through your channel.

Whether you were at the event or you’ve just been following online, we would love to hear your thoughts. What do you think are the key things suppliers must do to have effective partner marketing? Let us know in the comment section below!

The post Channel Focus Conference: Day Two appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Here are some of the highlights from day one.

It started with breakfast and a great keynote, “Today’s Channel, A Reality Check” from Bill Griffin, VP Worldwide Channel Sales at Autodesk. He focused on three key areas important to success for suppliers.

1. Listen to your customers
2. Listen to your channel
3. Listen to those who have been there before

The Five Golden Rules

Attending this conference for the first time, I was interested in the Workshop Series, which many attendees have mentioned as the most engaging activities from previous years. These 1-hour sessions are intimate (about 20 -25 participants) and include a facilitator that helps drive the discussion. The facilitator prepares their “Five Golden Rules” on the topic, but is only there to initiate conversation and encourage participation.

What an excellent opportunity to network and learn from your peers.

Of course the workshop I was most interested in attending was all about Partner Marketing and led by Zift Solutions COO, Bryan Ferren. Here are the “Five Golden Rules” that were the basis for the discussion and some of the key inputs:

1) Keep It Simple

Make it easy for partners to participate in your marketing programs. Ideas included:

• Campaign in a box
• Execution engine
• Focus on the 1st step in the sales process
• Smaller/Focused events
• Recipe Book – who to target and how to use

2) Collaborate

Work with your partners to ensure campaigns promote the partners’ value proposition to their prospects. Ideas included:

• Enable customization of collateral
• Share trends with partners and non-product specific points
• Deliver “bite size” components of content
• Start with understanding the partner business and compensation models
• Focus on both the vertical and high-level solutions

3) Integrate Multiple Tactics

Deliver various tactics that support the ways prospects choose to learn about your offerings. Ideas included:

• Provide partners with access to marketing automation tools
• Consider access to agency support that handles multiple tactics including key areas such as social media
• Incent education within partner organizations and include rewards for partner participation

4) Drive Adoption

Focus your time and energy to ensure partners are leveraging the campaigns you develop for them.

• Consider cross-partner competition (at the rep level) for campaign execution and leveraging new products
• Ensure ease of use in ordering and execution

5) Measure

Actively measure pipeline activity through partner marketing campaigns to know what is working and what is not.

• Ensure visibility into the activities by partners
• Competition requires reporting on pipeline activity to be successful
• Confirm results reporting from partners that leverage agencies

Finally, the sessions wrapped up with an engaging panel that discussed “The Changing Shape and Role of the Channel.” The group included suppliers, partners and Zift Solutions CEO, Ken Romley. There were a lot of great points shared, but the key discussion surrounded the idea that the landscape is changing. Customers are ultimately driving the change and in order to be successful, you better understand their needs.

Wow! That’s a lot to consume in one day. Be sure to check back again tomorrow. We’ll post a wrap up of day two.

What are your thoughts on the 5 golden rules? Did you attend the event? If so, what else did you learn? Let us know in the comments section below!

The post Channel Focus Conference: Day One appeared first on Zift Solutions.