Every great host knows that different guests require different levels of hospitality. Some are low-maintenance, asking little of their hosts and happy to take care of their own needs. Others need a little more TLC or handholding to make the most of their stay. The same goes for channel partners, whom we’ve established as guests or residents within the home of your channel program.

After architecting your program and once all of your channel partners, including Referral Partners, Resellers and Distributors, are segmented and settled in with the right tools, it’s your job to make everyone as comfortable and productive as possible. Doing so entails providing customized services to meet your partners’ varying needs and levels of expertise.

A Menu of Services and Support

Think of partner support services like a hospitality service menu designed to ensure partner engagement and success. The ideal channel program offers partners a menu of services to meet their tastes and desires. Suppliers should look for a Channel Marketing Automation (CMA) provider that understands the complexities of today’s channel landscape and offers a variety of support options that cater to the broad spectrum of partner needs.

Basic Support: Roll out the welcome mat for all partners with basic support services. Basic support should come standard with any and all marketing automation solution deployments. It should deliver on-line support plus easy access to on-line help and training, so that all partners can get fast answers to their questions and effectively use the tools that you are providing to them.

Premium Support: You wouldn’t hesitate to break out the fluffy towels and higher thread-count sheets to pamper your guests. By the same token, consider offering a premium level of support to partners that may lack resources or require more hands-on direction and training to thrive. Providing more proactive outreach and strategic direction to your partners will optimize their potential and marketing efforts.

Managed Services: Keeping partners continually engaged may require ongoing, hands-on support. Like a morning wake-up call or room service, Managed Services deliver ongoing and on-call expert support to help partners define priorities, execute campaigns and achieve more. Partners with access to Managed Services excel well beyond those left on their own, detailed in this infographic. The impact of Managed Services over self-service is striking, including 93% more new leads and a nearly 50% boost in email outreach.

Concierge Services: Perfect for partners that need a bit of extra attention, direction or pampering, Concierge Services deliver white gloved support on a one-time basis. Experts are on hand to help partners actually create and execute campaigns to capture qualified leads, nurture prospects through to close and promote your brand. They can also tweak campaigns, add extended services, such as telemarketing and analyze results.

Delivering services and direct support that aligns with varying channel partner needs is the best way to energize and care for all of the members of the channel program you’ve carefully constructed. This extra level of care demonstrates to partners that you’re putting their interests first, maximizes marketing automation investments and ensures the ultimate success of your program.

The post A Blueprint for Channel Success: Services and Support (Part 4) appeared first on Zift Solutions.

It’s time to talk about Distributors as we build out our blueprint for channel success, which thus far calls for distinctive placement and tools for Referral Partners and Resellers.

Give Distributors Elbow Room

Distributors are as varied as the programs they support and they require extra space and specific tools to succeed.

Following our architectural analogy, which placed resellers in the master suite and referral partners in a guest room, your Distributors require a large and comfortable bedroom. They are sticking around for a while, so they should be made to feel at home. Distributors also need a bit of elbow room to support their Resellers as well as their own marketing efforts.

Optimizing Distributor Outreach

Today’s Distributors have a direct relationship with Vendors as well as their own Sub-Resellers, who purchase directly through Distributors. This extended network may seem complex, but it actually gives Vendors the opportunity to broaden their reach without additional costs. To optimize the marketing and sales efforts of Distributors, Vendors should provide:

• Content Syndication: Distributors require content on multiple fronts. Providing them with fresh, relevant content for direct lead generation, their own Reseller recruitment efforts, and to educate both prospects and partners about available products and services will only strengthen a Vendor’s position within what can be an expansive distribution ecosystem. Another option is a simple widget approach, with a pre-built website page for a Vendor’s logo and a dedicated landing page to display value proposition information. These pre-built elements, coupled with a “Contact Us” button to drive “leads,” can work wonders.
• Social Media Syndication: Vendors can further extend their reach across Distributor communities by delivering Social Media Syndication, which makes it easy for Distributors and their Sub-Resellers to spread the word about solutions and services across their social media channels. Vendors may also want to offer a Distributor-only stream that they can use to syndicate content out to their Reseller base for promos, new products launches, SPIFFs and more. If Distributors are doing their own end-user demand generation, offer Social Media streams to this group, too.
• Pay-Per-Click Advertising: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising helps Distributors easily target and bring prospects to their websites. Low cost, high-impact PPC is much appreciated, particularly if Distributors generate their own leads.
• Through Partner Marketing Automation (TPMA): Use TPMA to create co-branded email campaigns and reseller-focused newsletters to promote Vendor news through to Distributors’ Reseller base. If Distributors generate their own leads, providing the tools they need to develop and launch end-user newsletters, demand generation and nurturing campaigns lifts a tremendous burden from Distributors themselves and puts your products and services out in front.
• Automated Lead Distribution Management: As Distributors may or may not be generating leads on their own, Vendors can use automated lead distribution to share leads directly with Distributors, who can then follow up on them directly or by passing them to their Resellers for follow up. Direct or 2nd Tier Lead Distribution Management benefits from automation as leads are delivered directly into the systems or hands of the right people, at the right time, to speed and strengthen lead follow-up activities.
• Shared Analytics: Shared analytics are great for Distributors managing campaigns on behalf of their own Resellers as they can easily track, analyze and share results to optimize campaigns, save time and measure ROI.

A truly valuable asset and avenue to expanding any Channel Program, Distributors should get the message that your home is there home. Providing these tools make it clear that you are doing everything possible to make their stay within your Channel Program as comfortable as possible.

Up Next

We’ll wrap up the series in our next post and examine the impact of adding services and direct support to energize and care for all of the members of your Channel Program household.

The post A Blueprint for Channel Success: Distributors (Part 3) appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The post A Blueprint for Channel Success: Resellers (Part 2) appeared first on Zift Solutions.

A Bit of Background

Prior to joining Zift Solutions, I spent nearly two decades in sales and marketing roles with the bulk of my career focusing on channel marketing as a director and manager of channel programs and marketing for well-known organizations like McAfee (now Intel Security), Hitachi Data Systems and Polycom. Over the years, I gained a strong understanding of what it takes to engage and enable partners in today’s marketplace. That’s one of the primary reasons that I enjoy helping our customers get the most out of the Zift Solutions Platform. I’ve been in your shoes and have faced what I know can feel like overwhelming channel marketing challenges firsthand. Now, I get to use my experience of being on both sides to help others use Zift’s powerful tools and resources to overcome them.

Success Starts with a Plan

To determine the right solutions for their channel partners, I often encourage channel marketing managers to take a step back to look at the big picture. Much like building a house, building a powerful partner program takes insight and forethought. You may have all of the materials and resources you need on hand. But without a structured plan for usage, they could go to waste.

No one builds a house without a blueprint and the same goes for designing a successful channel marketing program. Before you start building, you must be mindful of the characteristics of your occupants (channel partners) and provide exactly what each will need to contribute to the overall wellbeing of the “household” (channel program). In the case of channel marketing, that means taking time to carefully segment your partners.

Segmenting Partners for Maximum Impact

You can likely categorize and segment partners into one of three (3) primary categories:

• Referral Partners: These are typically independent consultants who receive a referral bonus for passing on a lead to a vendor after uncovering an opportunity or recommending a specific solution to a member of their client base.
• Resale Partners: These are your Value Added Resellers (VARs), Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Solution Providers and System Integrators, all of whom serve as a direct extension of a vendor’s sales and possibly support organizations. They are active sales professionals who are highly involved in prospect activities and relationship-building, providing pre-sales expertise and post-sales deployment services to prospects and clients.
• Distributors: These partners typically have a direct relationship with vendors and resellers, buying direct from manufacturers, selling to resellers, and providing the opportunity for vendors to broaden their reach without adding additional costs.

What Kind of Landlord Will You Be?

Like a homeowner or landlord, the channel marketing manager serves as the ultimate owner or head of your channel marketing programs, deciding how to prioritize and what to provide to each of your channel partners. By understanding and fulfilling their unique needs, you’ll either create a harmonious or dysfunctional atmosphere. So, who goes where and what do they actually require?

The Right Tools for Referral Partners

Let’s start with Referral Partners. Using the homebuilding analogy, Referral Partners don’t need a master suite and would be perfectly comfortable with the necessities of a guest room. They aren’t going to stay too long, so providing them with the basics works well, but don’t worry, you’ve made your “home” very easy and comfortable to live in, they’ll be back, and you are fine with that.

As Referral Partners are focused primarily on lead generation and don’t require extensive nurturing capabilities, you can deliver “set it and forget it” capabilities to help them fill the top of the sales funnel, pass on leads and move on with their business. Some of the ideal tools for Referral Partners typically include:

• Content Syndication: Great website content is critical as the sales journey and education process for today’s self-empowered buyers often starts online. Content syndication makes it easy for referral partners to deliver fresh, relevant product information to prospects, even when they don’t have the resources to develop it themselves. Product showcases and individual widgets allow you to automatically embed your content into a referral partner’s website. Plus, dynamic content syndication automatically adjusts content to match prospect interests and behavior to boost conversion rates.
  • Banner Ads & Lead Forms: Your Content Syndication solution should provide an array of online advertising capabilities for Referral Partners. Some of these include the ability to generate targeted banner ads on partner websites plus landing pages with lead forms, making it easy to capture and pass on the customer lead data that generates their referral fees. You control the content and duration of campaigns.
  • Website Analytics: It’s critical to provide the capabilities for Referral Partners to measure and monitor site visits. Both you and your Referral Partners should see exactly how content is consumed with real-time analytics, and reverse IP look-up even lets Referral Partners generate their own leads.
• Social Media Syndication: Referral Partners are often one- or two-man shops, so help them build their presence, jump start prospect connections and enable thought leadership through social media syndication. Provide Referral Partners with the tools needed to supplement their social contributions and enhance their social media presence across multiple sites with vendor-provided content and lead-capture forms.
• PPC Advertising: PPC is a flexible, low cost way to help Referral Partners drive in net new leads via online marketing through Google and/or LinkedIn.
• Campaign Analytics, Lead Scoring & Notifications: Referral Partners rely on measurement and need the freedom to focus on their business. Campaign analytics, lead scoring and notifications provide the information Referral Partners need and facilitate engagement without adding anything to their workload. They can easily download lead reports and pass that along to the vendor for follow-up.

Up Next

In upcoming installments of this series, we’ll explore how to further refine your house plans to match the needs of Resellers and Distributors. Be sure to check back in at Channel Chatter as we detail the best ways to utilize tools to meet unique requirements of your partners and ensure the overall success of your channel program.

The post A Blueprint for Channel Success: Segmenting Partners (Part 1) appeared first on Zift Solutions.

A Bit of Background

Prior to joining Zift Solutions, I spent nearly two decades in sales and marketing roles with the bulk of my career focusing on channel marketing as a director and manager of channel programs and marketing for well-known organizations like McAfee (now Intel Security), Hitachi Data Systems and Polycom. Over the years, I gained a strong understanding of what it takes to engage and enable partners in today’s marketplace. That’s one of the primary reasons that I enjoy helping our customers get the most out of the Zift Solutions Platform. I’ve been in your shoes and have faced what I know can feel like overwhelming channel marketing challenges firsthand. Now, I get to use my experience of being on both sides to help others use Zift’s powerful tools and resources to overcome them.

Success Starts with a Plan

To determine the right solutions for their channel partners, I often encourage channel marketing managers to take a step back to look at the big picture. Much like building a house, building a powerful partner program takes insight and forethought. You may have all of the materials and resources you need on hand. But without a structured plan for usage, they could go to waste.

No one builds a house without a blueprint and the same goes for designing a successful channel marketing program. Before you start building, you must be mindful of the characteristics of your occupants (channel partners) and provide exactly what each will need to contribute to the overall wellbeing of the “household” (channel program). In the case of channel marketing, that means taking time to carefully segment your partners.

Segmenting Partners for Maximum Impact

You can likely categorize and segment partners into one of three (3) primary categories:

• Referral Partners: These are typically independent consultants who receive a referral bonus for passing on a lead to a vendor after uncovering an opportunity or recommending a specific solution to a member of their client base.
• Resale Partners: These are your Value Added Resellers (VARs), Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Solution Providers and System Integrators, all of whom serve as a direct extension of a vendor’s sales and possibly support organizations. They are active sales professionals who are highly involved in prospect activities and relationship-building, providing pre-sales expertise and post-sales deployment services to prospects and clients.
• Distributors: These partners typically have a direct relationship with vendors and resellers, buying direct from manufacturers, selling to resellers, and providing the opportunity for vendors to broaden their reach without adding additional costs.

What Kind of Landlord Will You Be?

Like a homeowner or landlord, the channel marketing manager serves as the ultimate owner or head of your channel marketing programs, deciding how to prioritize and what to provide to each of your channel partners. By understanding and fulfilling their unique needs, you’ll either create a harmonious or dysfunctional atmosphere. So, who goes where and what do they actually require?

The Right Tools for Referral Partners

Let’s start with Referral Partners. Using the homebuilding analogy, Referral Partners don’t need a master suite and would be perfectly comfortable with the necessities of a guest room. They aren’t going to stay too long, so providing them with the basics works well, but don’t worry, you’ve made your “home” very easy and comfortable to live in, they’ll be back, and you are fine with that.

As Referral Partners are focused primarily on lead generation and don’t require extensive nurturing capabilities, you can deliver “set it and forget it” capabilities to help them fill the top of the sales funnel, pass on leads and move on with their business. Some of the ideal tools for Referral Partners typically include:

• Content Syndication: Great website content is critical as the sales journey and education process for today’s self-empowered buyers often starts online. Content syndication makes it easy for referral partners to deliver fresh, relevant product information to prospects, even when they don’t have the resources to develop it themselves. Product showcases and individual widgets allow you to automatically embed your content into a referral partner’s website. Plus, dynamic content syndication automatically adjusts content to match prospect interests and behavior to boost conversion rates.
  • Banner Ads & Lead Forms: Your Content Syndication solution should provide an array of online advertising capabilities for Referral Partners. Some of these include the ability to generate targeted banner ads on partner websites plus landing pages with lead forms, making it easy to capture and pass on the customer lead data that generates their referral fees. You control the content and duration of campaigns.
  • Website Analytics: It’s critical to provide the capabilities for Referral Partners to measure and monitor site visits. Both you and your Referral Partners should see exactly how content is consumed with real-time analytics, and reverse IP look-up even lets Referral Partners generate their own leads.
• Social Media Syndication: Referral Partners are often one- or two-man shops, so help them build their presence, jump start prospect connections and enable thought leadership through social media syndication. Provide Referral Partners with the tools needed to supplement their social contributions and enhance their social media presence across multiple sites with vendor-provided content and lead-capture forms.
• PPC Advertising: PPC is a flexible, low cost way to help Referral Partners drive in net new leads via online marketing through Google and/or LinkedIn.
• Campaign Analytics, Lead Scoring & Notifications: Referral Partners rely on measurement and need the freedom to focus on their business. Campaign analytics, lead scoring and notifications provide the information Referral Partners need and facilitate engagement without adding anything to their workload. They can easily download lead reports and pass that along to the vendor for follow-up.

Up Next

In upcoming installments of this series, we’ll explore how to further refine your house plans to match the needs of Resellers and Distributors. Be sure to check back in at Channel Chatter as we detail the best ways to utilize tools to meet unique requirements of your partners and ensure the overall success of your channel program.

The post A Blueprint for Channel Success (1 of 4) appeared first on Zift Solutions.