Key Ingredient #4: Shared Analytics

Successful recipes rely on accurate measurement. Sure mom and those famous chefs you see on TV may look like they’re winging it with a pinch of this and a sprig of that. But, if you’ve ever spent any time baking or sautéing, you know full well that a tablespoon vs. a teaspoon of any ingredient makes a big difference. For channel organizations to accurately measure what’s working and what’s not, and make adjustments to improve outcomes and ROI, both suppliers and partners need direct access to real-time data and info. That’s why shared analytics are a must-have within any CMM Platform.

Seek out CMM Platforms that offer built-in or tightly integrated analytics. That way, you can push real-time notifications to partners within the systems and tools they’re already using to save time, enhance visibility and empower engagement – without requiring any behavior or process change from partners. Save Partners even more time and effort by ensuring consolidated reporting and audience segmenting capabilities are included in the CMM mix. Doing so makes it easier to strengthen and evaluate the performance of partners, continuously improve campaigns and enhance visibility across the sales pipeline.

Key Ingredient #5: An Open Platform

Tastes and technology change quickly. Today’s increasingly crowded and rapidly evolving marketing technology (MarTech) landscape makes it clear that channel organizations must seek out CMM platforms that are open and flexible. With an open platform, you can:

• Ensure that your CMM system will work with your partner’s preferred tools and systems today and well into the future
• Get a clear idea of how to build applications and foster connections with multiple systems via a published Application Program Interface (API)
• Scale easily to meet future demands and enable the turnkey execution of additional capabilities
• Maximize return on investment, provide new opportunities and make it cost effective for partners to access leading-edge technology

Serve Up Success

With these five (5) key ingredients, it’s simple to serve up success to channel Partners:

1. Lead Distribution Management automates delivery of high-quality leads and increases visibility across the sales lifecycle
2. Syndicated Content & Social Media lifts the content burdens from partners and extends your brand
3. Centralized Marketing Database & Integration puts the tools Partners need within easy reach
4. Shared Analytics delivers real-time access to the data and insight required to accurately measure results and make adjustments
5. An Open Platform lets you plug in new capabilities as technologies evolve

More Insight & Key Ingredients

Get even more insight into all 5 Key Ingredients of a Positive & Profitable Partner Experience by downloading the complete eBook now.

The post Sharing Is Caring: 5 Key Ingredients of a Positive & Profitable Partner Experience appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Key Ingredient #2: Syndicated Content & Social Media

There’s no ignoring social media in today’s channel marketplace, but serving up social media takes time, talent and resources that many partners just don’t have on hand. Social Media Syndication fills the gap, slashing the time and costs of partners’ social media efforts and extending the reach and impact of your social posts by more than 50 percent.

Look for a Channel Marketing and Management (CMM) Platform that makes it easy for partners to enhance their social media presence with syndicated content and:

• Make the Message Their Own: Partners should always be able to personalize and customize the way supplier-provided content displays on their websites and social media outlets.
• Enhance Credibility: With socially relevant, educational content along with high-value assets, such as videos, white papers and other calls-to-action that partners can use to drive leads.
• See and Share Results: In-depth analytics are a must-have in order to see and share how well joint social media efforts are fostering community interactions and sales.

Key Ingredient #3: Centralized Marketing Database & Integration

Many partners already rely on specific tools and systems, such as CRM, PRM, marketing automation and SFA systems, social media schedulers, email clients and more. The last thing you want to do is disrupt their established processes and routines or add more work to their already busy days. So, adding yet another system to the mix isn’t going to promote partner engagement. In fact, it may undermine it.

Providing partners with a CMM Platform that offers a centralized marketing database and seamless integration with the systems they already use, ideally through Embedded Access Applications (EAAs), is a much a better alternative. Think of it like providing partners with a central, well-organized pantry, fully stocked with all of the very best ingredients. Instead of forcing partners to log in and out of multiple systems or visit your portal, they get direct, immediate access to an array of CMM tools and functionality that can greatly enhance the Partner Experience overall and significantly boost results.

More Insight & Key Ingredients

Get more insight and learn all 5 Key Ingredients of a Positive & Profitable Partner Experience by downloading the complete eBook now.

The post Keep it Simple: The 5 Key Ingredients of a Positive & Profitable Partner Experience appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The ‘Secret Recipe’ for Success

When it comes to recipes, who better to ask for advice than a celebrity chef? For this ebook, we looked first to the channel and global B2B experts at SiriusDecisions. They point out that channel organizations seeking the elusive ‘secret recipe’ for success should first take stock of the tools, support and overall experience they provide to their partners.

The simple fact is, today’s partners have more suppliers and product lines to choose from than ever before. According to SiriusDecisions, resellers are typically balancing six to seven vendor relationships at once and the Partner Experience or PX has become a primary decision driver. Without proper programs and tools, partners look elsewhere, engagement plummets, and so do customer satisfaction and sales.

Recognizing the vital importance of the PX, SiriusDecisions devised a framework organizations can use to measure their own capacity to provide partners with a holistic and rewarding channel program and experience. Within their PX Maturity Model, they call for Suppliers to provide “Tailored programs and tools based on discrete Partner needs” along with “fully-automated and integrated partner-facing and systems with SLAs monitored continuously for improvement.” Sounds like a tall order, but that’s exactly what a Channel Marketing and Management (CMM) Platform can serve up for hungry partners.

What’s Baked into Your CMM?

Equipping yourself and your partners with a Channel Marketing and Management (CMM) Platform is the fastest path to a mutually rewarding Partner Experience. There is no easier way to automate essential channel marketing tasks or provide an optimized Partner Experience. Done right, implementing a CMM can set suppliers apart from the crowd. So, it’s important to seek out a CMM that bakes in specific capabilities (or ingredients) specifically suited to partner palates. Streamlining Lead Distribution Management (LDM) is a great place to start.

Key Ingredient #1: Lead Distribution Management

Without high-quality leads, Partners will fail to engage and perform. And without a straightforward process for delivering leads to partners, even high-quality leads will get lost in the shuffle. Look for a CMM Platform that:

Minimizes Work: Your CMM should be able to deliver leads directly into the workflows and/or systems partners are already using, eliminating duplicate work and the number of systems partners have to log into.

Pairs Leads with Insight: Accompanying leads with activity history and insightful prospecting data helps partners to speed and strengthen follow up – and ultimately close more business.

Moves Beyond Automation: The right CMM Platform doesn’t just automate lead delivery, but also provides control, visibility and quantitative feedback across the entire lead lifecycle and sales process, so you can accurately measure results.

More Insight & Key Ingredients

We’ve packed a lot more insight and 4 additional essential Partner Experience ingredients into our latest eBook. Learn more, including the Top 5 Reasons Partners Don’t Engage with Suppliers, by reading the complete eBook 5 Key Ingredients of a Positive & Profitable Partner Experience:

The post What’s the Secret Recipe For a Profitable Partner Experience? appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The Spring conference is a can’t-miss event that delivers best practices and the latest technology innovations in the fields of marketing automation, cross-channel orchestration, content and social marketing, and more.

While everything that happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas, we wanted to share a few insights from the show. I believe these are the top three takeaways:

1. Extend existing investments

Oracle Eloqua and Marketing Cloud users are steadfast and with good reason. As the most scalable, secure and trusted cross-channel marketing automation platform in the industry, organizations have already invested money and time into these tools. Users should look for channel marketing and management tools that allow them to extend rather than abandon current investments.

2. Embrace the ecosystem

If one thing is clear, Oracle Marketing Cloud is moving toward one of the most comprehensive – and connected – automation ecosystems out there. That’s why Zift continues to invest heavily in our integrations with the Oracle stack – to provide automated rules-based lead distribution, end-to-end visibility of sales activities, lead data for prospect follow-up and closed-loop analytics to measure marketing impact.

3. Work within established environments

No one wants to log in and out of multiple, disjointed systems to get their job done – and research shows partner portals rarely work. Seventy percent of portal solutions will fail outright and partners ignore 50 percent of supplier portal content and functionality. You can lower costs, increase opportunities and boost partner engagement by delivering leads, multi-tactic marketing functionality and enhanced analytics within the systems partners are already logged into and using on a daily basis.

If you didn’t make it to the show, we hope to see you at Oracle’s Modern Marketing Experience next year. Click here for more information about how connections, like those between Zift and Oracle, drive engagement and sales.

The post Making the Most of the Modern Marketing Experience appeared first on Zift Solutions.

For example, while reporting between CMM and PRM is fundamentally different, it could prove incredibly powerful when viewed as a whole. CMM reporting tends to focus on things like adoption rates, numbers of campaigns offered to partners and executed, campaign results, etc. PRM portals don’t necessarily care about those metrics. Instead, they focus on logins, content usage, deal registration policies, certifications, et al. Taken together, both sets of analytics provide a more in-depth picture of what’s really going on across a partner community than they could alone.

The market is beginning to demand a more unified solution set, which is driving the different systems toward each other. CRM and PRM systems are looking for ways to offer current users CMM capabilities. Zift’s Embedded Access Apps (EAAs) extend the functionality of many of the most popular CRM and PRM systems with seamless integration that delivers CMM functionality directly into the systems partners are already using. Conversely, CMM Platforms, including Zift, are recognizing the need to provide sales tools along with marketing capabilities. They’re closing the sales enablement gap and exploring partnerships with organizations that provide sales training and certification along with CMM.

In my estimation, we’ll continue to see CRM systems and PRM portal vendors first partner with, then merge with CMM as the space continues to consolidate. So, when looking at or choosing vendors, be sure to seek out those that have a proven history of integrations and growth. Also be sure what you choose has an open platform, making it easier to connect the various systems.

Ultimately, choosing which system is best is about where channel organizations are in their journey to implement the next generation of partner enablement capabilities. Portals and CMM platforms both have their place to drive channel success.

The post The Next Wave of Channel Partner Performance and Management appeared first on Zift Solutions.

If you find the answer isn’t obvious, you’re in good company. With so many vendors claiming their system is absolutely vital to work with partners – and so much at stake when it comes to optimizing channel revenue – it’s understandable why many struggle to determine which system(s) will best meet their partner engagement needs. The last thing you want to do is waste valuable resources, invest in another system that won’t deliver value, or worse, confuse or alienate partners.

So let’s break down the real differences and overlap between CRM, PRM and CMM to determine why or if you need all three.

Decoding the Basics

CRM: Customer Relationship Management systems manage and analyze customer interactions and data across the customer lifecycle with an eye toward strengthening customer relationships. Some of the most popular CRM systems include Salesforce.com® (SFDC), SugarCRM®, Microsoft® Dynamics, Sage®CRM and Zoho®.

PRM: Partner Relationship Management systems are designed to help vendors manage their partner relationships. Popular examples of commercially available PRM systems include Salesforce®PRM, SAP® PRM and Relayware®. Some organizations also design and build their own custom PRM solutions or partner portals.

CMM: Channel Marketing and Management solutions allow you to coordinate multiple complementary marketing activities with partners, like email campaigns, online advertising and co-branded sales collateral as well as automate key marketing processes, including lead distribution management, content syndication, social media, analytics and reporting.

Critical Differences, Similarities and Overlap

Both CRM and PRM systems offer real value for tracking customer and partner activity, as well as registering deals, highlighting the sales “bend” of these systems that are more transactional in nature. They do not offer CMM, which has proven to be essential for empowering channel partners with personalizable co-branded campaigns and demand generation activities while maintaining partners’ privacy.

In keeping with the spirit of sales vs. marketing enablement then, one finds most CRM and PRM systems have joint business planning for Customer and Partner Account Managers (CAMs and PAMs) to help maintain and manage relationships with current and prospective customers and partners, which are typically absent from CMM systems. PRM portals also offer a layer of sales training and certification that CRM systems and CMM platforms do not. They often have a full database of sales staff and are designed to deliver educational content to aid in the sales process, which is considered secondary to the marketing function CMM provides.

Some PRM systems also have content repositories and management capabilities regarding versioning and refined reporting on usage, which is sometimes more in depth than what CMM currently offers though the differences are nominal these days. PRM systems are somewhat ahead of the game on deal registration, which is typically tied to Salesforce.com and delivers better rules and tighter integration than CMM platforms offer and I don’t see that changing for the foreseeable future.

To be sure, there is some overlap between CRM, PRM and CMM. PRM, in particular, provides everything an organization needs to register deals and engage partners with lead distribution. Zift’s CMM Platform also offers Lead Distribution Management, which makes it easy to automatically deliver sales qualified leads and sales data to partners as well as see what partners are doing with the leads you provide. Most PRM portals offer the same type of workflow routing, notifications and lead pushing technology that Zift provides with one notable difference. Zift allows partners to flow leads directly into their own systems of record, which portals do not.

Even with overlap, the different systems ultimately serve different purposes and that’s the rub. CRM and PRM are focused more on the sales function, while CMM is aimed mostly at marketing. The bottom line: CRM and PRM systems currently hold a critical place in the channel, which starts and ends with the customer and partner management, training, education, lead distribution and deal registration. CMM does the essential groundwork of actually delivering the content and marketing capabilities partners require for demand generation.

The post The Big Question: Do I Really Need CMM If I Already Have PRM or CRM? appeared first on Zift Solutions.

We are confident that this trend will continue as more companies automate traditional processes in how they work with their indirect sales channels. And as new systems are put in place to provision and enable partners to market and sell more efficiently, these companies also expect to see measurable results from their partners’ with a bottom line mentality on revenue production.

New Expectations and Differing Attitudes

This shift is creating a gap in sales expectations and correspondingly in enablement. OEMs want, even expect, partners to sell more of their products using specific approaches, conditions and even require certifications to sell higher end products with the best margins. While partners are feeling the pressure from suppliers, their attitude is a bit different. Already laboring under time and resource constraints, channel partners are selling what they can, how they can, in the manner that pays the most amount as quickly as possible. They don’t necessarily have the time or desire to travel to an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) training center for training and/or certification.

Both OEMs and partners have skin in this game. They all want the same result: to capture more revenue. However, as new marketing automation tools are accelerating partners’ ability to market – sales reps are often left behind.

So what is the solution?

MobilePaks CEO Chanin Ballance Weighs In

Chanin Ballance is the CEO of MobilePaks, an award winning, cloud-based marketing and sales enablement provider.

The age old problem of OEMs engaging partners and educating them to sell products is not new. That said, we see a growing trend of OEMs using technology to make training more friendly and accessible – easier to digest, as well as tying consumption to certification programs, SPIFFs and other benefits.

Examples include:

• Converting content to 2-5 minute bite-sized chunks vs. traditional 20-45 minute web-based training.
• Improving the user experience so accessing training is simple and available on- demand, on any device.
• Using notifications, as well as tracking usage and motivating completion of a collection or group of bite-sized modules through certification that include marketing funds, SPIFFs and other benefits.

With new sales enablement training software, OEMs can see at a glance which partners are engaged. They can correlate usage and seller competency to pipeline strength and quantitatively identify areas of improvement as a result.

Closing the Gap

Clearly, there is enhanced interest and need to close the sales enablement gap. As Zift’s customers are taking an increasingly comprehensive view of channel sales and marketing, they’re asking questions about combining partner certifications with marketing execution to create a more “virtuous” process that encompasses training, execution and evaluation.

For Suppliers and OEMs, it’s becoming imperative to evaluate training under the lens of value to revenue production. This is no easy task, even within a direct sales force, let alone an extended, third-party partner network. Technology holds the promise of linking once disparate marketing and sales disciplines and meeting today’s changing expectations for both.

Looking Forward

Using the Zift Platform together with tools like those MobilePaks offers will provide the ability to link sales and marketing enablement. Imagine being able to unlock unique demand-gen tactics after finishing specific training courses, achieving a certification or reviewing new messaging requirements. Marketing Development Fund (MDF) programs can be linked to both sales and marketing as well, driving toward complete partner enablement that is engaging and satisfying for both sides of the channel equation.

Interested to learn more?

Watch our upcoming joint webinar with MobilePaks: Closing the Sales Enablement Gap. We’ll demonstrate how technology can create a closed-loop process that engages partners and addresses both marketing and sales needs by encompassing training, execution and evaluation to generate more revenue for suppliers and channel partners. Click here to register now!

The post Closing the Sales Enablement Gap appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The Big Question

On this episode, Cox and Baily asked the question: How do you create a channel marketing program that motivates, engages and enables your channel? They point out that:

• 46 % of channel marketers say their key members do not have adequate access to the program and partner data they need to make informed decisions on a daily basis
• 80 % of channel partners are largely on their own when it comes to channel marketing
• Less than 20 % of channel partners consistently visit and use supplier portals, leaving suppliers looking for new ways to increase partner engagement

Listen and Learn

I was excited to join the discussion, which provides an inside look at the complexities of today’s channel marketplace and delivers some targeted and specific suggestions to build and strengthen the connections between suppliers and partners and achieve higher revenue targets. Listen in to learn about:

• Biggest challenges facing channel marketers today
• Marketplace shifts and the emerging importance and sophistication of Through Partner Marketing Automation (TPMA) and advanced channel marketing technology
• Forward-thinking channel marketing best practices for vendors and partners
• Vital importance of seeing and sharing analytics
• Impact of adding and scaling services like Concierge programs for partners
• Best ways for OEMs, suppliers and distributors to enable and empower the channel

Hear the full podcast and subscribe to VerticalX on:

Topliners:Click here to listen
iTunes: Click here to listen
Direct Link (MP3): Click here to listen

The post VerticalX Podcast: Best Practice Channel Marketing appeared first on Zift Solutions.

We’re proud to be an event sponsor and, even among 6,000 attendees, those streaming into the LaunchPoint Pavilion will see the Zift Solutions Kiosk right away. Our Kiosk is proving to be the perfect place to learn just how Zift Solutions extends Marketo to the channel, boosting Marketo usage and results by:

• Automatically routing leads to channel partners via the route that works best for them, be it email, Zift123 or direct CRM integration
• Empowering visibility and collaboration by relaying to lead lifecycle and pipeline data direct to suppliers
• Making measurement easy with analytics and dashboards both partners and suppliers

You can learn more about how Marketo overcomes the destructive disconnect of partner portals and powers closed-loop lead distribution and reporting in this datasheet.

With a theme of Innovation in the Nation, the Marketing Nation Summit also provides a powerful opportunity to connect with new ideas, marketers and resources. Here are few of the impactful insights I took away from the show that can help you achieve channel success faster:

• Continued integration of an “eco-system” of best in class providers throughout marketing tech is critical to mid to long term success.
• Expectations of visibility throughout the development, deployment and analysis of marketing initiatives is “crossing” the chasm into mainstream expectation vs. nice to have.
• If the energy of the show is any indication – Marketo will continue to lead the charge. Their customer base is as enthusiastic as I’ve seen in years and they have a strong base of advocates.

Were you able to attend the Marketing Nation Summit or stop by the Zift Solutions Kiosk? Share your experience in the comments below.

The post Making a Mark at Marketo’s 2015 Marketing Nation Summit™ appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The annual Modern Marketing Experience event brings together experts in marketing automation, social marketing, content marketing, and Big Data. Of course, Zift Solutions is among those leaders and we’re pleased to serve as an App Cloud Sponsor for the event. This is a great opportunity to share strategies and tactics designed to make modern marketing succeed. At our booth, we’re demonstrating exactly how channel organizations are using Eloqua and Zift Solutions in tandem to streamline channel marketing efforts, automate channel lead distribution and reporting, and extend the value of both solutions.

Here are a few additional observations I’ve made while attending the event:

• The pace of change in the marketing “tech” space continues to accelerate with no signs at letting up re: more has been sent on marketing tech in the last 10 years then in the last 50+ years combined.
• The level of visibility – and responsibility – of the marketing function is unprecedented and the expectations to prove performance have gone with it.
• The landscape of vendors and options has reached critical mass and now requires a systematic, purposeful approach that is both strategic (3 – 5 year plan) as well as tactical (how have you driven demonstrable revenue this quarter).

I encourage you to reach out – I’ve got additional insights and data from analysts and thought leaders I spoke with in this space – from Mark Hurd to Kevin Ackeroyd – valuable to know if you are embarking on a journey into marketing automation.

You can also learn more about the power of Zift’s integration with Eloqua here.

Did you get the opportunity to attend the Modern Marketing Experience or visit Zift in Booth #421? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

The post An Inside Look at Oracle’s Modern Marketing Experience appeared first on Zift Solutions.

On the other hand, it’s easy to be intimidated into doing nothing – a sort of rationalized in-action – by virtue of all the possibilities and moving parts channel marketing automation has to offer. Where do you start? Which tactics should you roll out to partners first? How many partners should be involved? How will you measure and share success? Both suppliers and channel partners sit still, overwhelmed by options and unable to move forward with proven tools and tactics that could drive sales and make their jobs easier.

A Method to the Madness: Crawl, Walk, Run

The fact is, when it comes to channel marketing automation and channel sales success, you absolutely have to crawl before you can run. After nearly a decade of empowering real results for channel marketing and sales organizations at Zift, it’s clear to me that there is a method to the madness and proven best practices for implementing channel marketing automation.

Instead of staying stagnant as competitors use new tools to capture market share or trying to boil the ocean by taking on every aspect of channel marketing automation at once, I suggest taking the following approach:

CRAWL

• Start with a small group of partners: Pick a small subset of your channel partners and use them as a test case. Often, these are your “go to” partners for advice and input on your program – you know who they are! Educate them. Get them engaged. Achieve small successes and then, from there, slowly expand your program.

• Set clear KPIs: Determine what you want to measure and communicate key performance indicators to partners from the start. Analyze results in a very detailed and forensic manner to ensure everyone is meeting set goals. If they aren’t, you have time to find out why and fix it before moving forward.

WALK

• Build success metrics: Create and build on what I like to call “mini-Champaign moments.” These are small wins that demonstrate success and can be easily measured. Did a partner launch an email campaign that created new opportunities? Connect with new prospects or a long-quiet customer? Improve response turnaround or shorten time of acceptance to a lead you shared? Recognize and celebrate small milestones. They lead to bigger successes down the road.

• Expect partners to testify: Suppliers can shout from the rooftops about the incredible benefits of content syndication, lead distribution, automated email marketing, social media syndication and more. But if the partners using the solutions aren’t singing the praises of channel marketing automation themselves, other partners just won’t listen. Encourage and expect partners to share their positive experiences, success stories and demonstrated results with your larger channel audience.

RUN

• Change the channel culture: Accountability is in: With tight or fixed budgets, no one can afford to roll out new tools and tactics without requiring accountability from all parties involved. By increasing measurement and expecting internal and partner stakeholders to be accountable for their actions, you’ll be better positioned to expand your program across your entire organization.

By starting with a small subset of channel partners along with a specific set of tools and planned campaigns, it’s easier to invest in their success with clear direction, education and support. Measure and share even small wins, encourage partners to share their achievements, and require accountability from all stakeholders involved. Not happy with the way your program is proceeding? Slow down and take time to refine your efforts before expanding it to include new segments of your partner community. You’ll move from crawling, to walking to running with a winning channel marketing automation strategy in no time!

The post Crawl, Walk, Run: A Proven Approach to Channel Marketing Success appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The Summit’s lineup of keynote speakers, complete with Former Secretary of State Hilary R. Clinton, Marketo Chairman and CEO Phil Fernandez, and Senior Vice President and CMO of GE Beth Comstock, was also impressive as were their thoughts on this year’s theme of Innovation in the Nation.

Partner portals are failing – but why?

There was one discordant note though for me from the show that came from one of the track presentations I attended and wanted to provide my thoughts on it.

The presentation was around channel marketing and portals. While the presenters noted that portals are failing to engage channel partners, they pointed to content as the problem. Moreover, they encouraged vendors to look for “an agency of record” rather than an integrated technology platform and a proven Through Partner Marketing Automation (TPMA) solution to solve channel marketing challenges.

After working directly with Marketo and thousands of channel marketing and sales professionals over the years, I must disagree.

The fact is, partner portals don’t work as a root cause because they force partners to leave the environment where they work day in and out and log in to yet another application environment to manage leads and opportunities.

Certainly content is important but is systemic to engagement with partners and is quickly fixed when one implements the right channel marketing automation solution. And it’s been my experience that the vast majority of channel partners don’t need another agency to hold their hands while charging exorbitant fees for services they don’t require. Instead, they need leads and prospecting insight automatically delivered within the systems they use every day.

“Measure twice and cut once.”

If you’re ready to extend Marketo to work with your channel partners then look for a certified Marketo Integrated LaunchPoint partner to ensure that your Lead Distribution and TPMA are actually integrated, so that you can seamlessly distribute leads and prospecting data directly into Marketo.

Before you make any decisions – it pays to do the research and follow the old adage – “measure twice and cut once.” When evaluating partners I suggest, keeping these vital points in mind:

1. Channel marketing automation is tough and very few do it well. Select an established partner with a strong reputation and proven technology to automate lead distribution and reporting as well as enhance visibility across the sales lifecycle.
2. Don’t be fooled by agencies with thin layers of technology and lots of costly services underneath. Look for a complete, integrated channel marketing solution that doesn’t require more work from your partners.
3. Expect integrations with Marketo to actually work with Webhooks and Marketo’s new REST API to push technology triggers, automate revenue processes and capture new opportunities. The right partner will help you take advantage of all of the latest Marketo features and capabilities.
4. Ask for live instances of real customers using their integrations to extend Marketo usage along with KPIs that demonstrate results.

Your Marketo investments matter. Choose a partner that truly extends your Marketo investments with seamless integration to supercharge channel sales efforts.

Did you attend the Marketo Summit last week? If so, what were some of your highlights? Let us know in the comments section below.

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!

Download Free eBook

 

The post Marketo Matters: Choosing the Right Partner appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Click here to read part 1 – Rethinking Lead Distribution to Transform Opportunities into Real Revenue
Click here to read part 2 – How to Introduce and Optimize Automated Lead Distribution
Click here to read part 4 – Do You Have a Clear Line of Site Into Partner Lead Activity?

Leads need a little TLC

As we’ve discussed in recent blog posts, automating lead distribution is a great way to help partners stay in close contact with prospects through the sales lifecycle. But along with leads, suppliers must arm partners with key insights they can use to initiate calls and take the best possible approach with those prospects depending on where they are in the buyer’s journey.

According to Forrester, lead origination and lead nurturing now account for the largest component of B2B marketing spend at 21% of overall marketing budget.1 A recent Marketo MobileIron Case Study demonstrated that such an investment pays off, with a 250% increase in sales pipeline by effectively nurturing leads who weren’t initially ready to buy.

Clearly, leads not going to close right away should be put into a nurturing process. To help partners accomplish this, suppliers should include current prospect “digital body language” that partners can use to connect with and present themselves as experts on topics that matter most to those prospects. A best practice is to augment the basics (e.g. name, title, email address, phone number) with complete lead history and activity details, including:

• Previous marketing activities used to qualify leads
• Details regarding specific products in which a prospect has expressed interest
• Recent online activity, including when a lead visited a website, exactly which pages they viewed and even links to those pages
• Campaign emails a prospect has opened
• Marketing materials prospects have accessed or downloaded, such as data sheets, white papers and case studies
• Revenue bands
• Contract stipulations

Coupling leads with such rich data helps suppliers establish themselves as a primary resource for their channel partners – and provides channel partners with the information and insight they need to improve lead follow up, establish themselves as subject matter experts and nurture leads through to close.

Do you have any other best practices or advice you would like to share? Let’s hear it in the comments section.

Learn More

Learn more about the power of automating lead distribution and the importance of lead nurturing in our latest eBook: 4 Simple Steps to Drive Channel Sales with Rules-Base Lead Distribution.

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!

Download Free eBook

 

The post Why Lead Nurturing is Essential to Channel Partner Success (Part 3 of 4) appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Click here to read part 1 – Rethinking Lead Distribution to Transform Opportunities into Real Revenue
Click here to read part 3 – Why Lead Nurturing is Essential to Channel Partner Success
Click here to read part 4 – Do You Have a Clear Line of Site Into Partner Lead Activity?

We recently discussed the value of Rethinking and Automating Lead Distribution to Transform Opportunities into Real Revenue. As Zift has helped some of the top channel organizations and nearly 10,000 channel partners automate and optimize lead distribution, we know exactly what it takes to ensure success.

As promised, here are a few key recommendations and best practices to introduce automated delivery of sales-qualified leads to channel partners:

Work where your partners work

To drive adoption and make the transition to automated lead distribution as easy as possible, partners should receive leads within the systems they already use every day. Depending on partner preferences, leads can be delivered via email, mobile or directly within their Sales Force Automation (SFA) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.

Set some rules

Suppliers should establish lead routing rules, so that the right leads get to the right people at the right time with the appropriate details about the prospects. Rules can be as sophisticated or simple as a supplier chooses but they should be consistent, so that leads are routed and delivered via a common methodology. Use feedback from partners to modify rules, enhance results and improve visibility.

Launch a well-defined campaign

Kick things off with a well-defined campaign that is relevant to partners and aligned with current sales incentives.

Establish clear KPIs

KPIs should demonstrate how quickly partners view and act on the leads provided. Initial KPIs may include response turnaround or time of acceptance to lead, lead feedback and opportunity creation.

Generate excitement!

Share early success stories to generate excitement and encourage adoption across your entire partner community.

Boost results with Through Partner Marketing Automation (TPMA)

Marry lead distribution with other aspects of TPMA to boost results. With Zift TPMA solutions, it’s easy to syndicate your message across your channel community, generate demand and enhance pipeline visibility.

Be sure to read the latest eBook from Zift to discover The 4 Simple Steps to Drive Channel Sales with Rules-Based Lead Distribution and check back in here over the next few weeks as we dig deeper into the importance of lead nurturing and enabling closed-loop reporting to track ROI.

Anything else you’d like to debate or ask? Let’s hear it in the comments!

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!

Download Free eBook

 

The post How to Introduce and Optimize Automated Lead Distribution (Part 2 of 4) appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Learning Where Others Have Failed

Channel partners can extend sales reach far beyond what suppliers are capable of on their own – what I call the force multiplier effect. However, when channel partners fail to capture and capitalize on opportunities in their own target audiences, the result is frustrated suppliers, apathetic partners and missed revenue performance.  The good news is that, with the right focus and use of marketing automation, you can avoid this fate and make the conversation all about the revenue.

Optimize Partner Sales

In this brief, informative video, Scott England shares three simple steps to optimize partner sales, strengthen relationships and capture more channel revenue.   Watch the video now to learn how you can align channel partners with sales objectives, track efforts and measure results.

Scott England has been the Vice President of Business Development at Zift Solutions since 2007. He has helped Zift expand into new vertical markets while deepening focus within its core customer base.

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