To answer this question, we spoke with six industry experts. Our panelists include:

• Greg Plum, Director/Principal – North America for fractional partner leadership company PartnerReady
• Theresa Caragol, Founder and CEO for channel consultancy AchieveUnite
• Heather K. Margolis, Senior Vice President of Marketing for partner engagement and business optimization company 360insights
• Melissa Van Dover, Senior Director of Partner Marketing for remote management and business communication software provider GoTo
• Staci Corbett, Senior Manager of Channel Marketing for global managed communication and Microsoft Cloud solution service provider Fusion Connect
• Nicole Steele, Global Director of Channel Marketing and Enablement for cloud-first WAN and security company Aryaka Networks

Want to skip ahead? Check out six tips for MDF and partner investment in 2023:

1. Prioritize Investment in MDF Over SPIFFs
2. Demonstrating ROI From MDF Is Challenging, But Doable With the Right Tools 
3. Tailor MDF Activities to Partner Type & Maturity Through Segmentation 
4. Remember MDF Is a Long-Term Investment 
5. MDF Programs Are No Longer Optional for Partner Programs
6. Invest in Partner Success Beyond MDF 

What Are Market Development Funds (MDF)?

Market development funds are resources that vendors provide to channel ecosystem partners to create or improve sales and marketing initiatives. Historically, MDF has been doled out as monetary reimbursement of pre-approved marketing activities like customized collateral, email campaigns, or tradeshow attendance. Lately, more creative vendors and suppliers are using those funds to cover the cost of training or services for their partners in the form of workshops or digital marketing services provided by a consultant or agency.

MDF is typically a component of a channel partner marketing program and part of channel marketing budgets. MDF requests and allocations are reviewed and approved by channel marketing departments but may also require approval from financial or executive decision-makers in vendor organizations. Typically, MDF transactions between a vendor and a partner are communicated through a channel account manager (CAM). All of these touchpoints can lead to poor communication, unclear requirements and delays in reimbursement, making it a frustrating process for both suppliers and their partners.

MDF is often an earned benefit for partners that have met established qualifications. For example, a partner program with metal levels (bronze, silver, gold, platinum, etc.) may offer MDF only to partners that have achieved the gold level or higher. Qualifications will vary by vendor but typically include some combination of sales or revenue attainment and technical, marketing or sales certifications by the partner’s staff.

Partners can use MDF for a variety of vendor-approved activities, including, but not limited to:

• Webinars
• Vertical or industry-related marketing and sales campaigns
• Booth space at tradeshows
• End customer events such as lunch-and-learns or in-person training
• Sales lead list rentals
• Telemarketing campaigns
• Marketing or sales-oriented vendors, consultants and agencies

MDF is more readily available from partner programs that are more mature or operated by enterprise or mid-market firms because MDF requires financial outlay with no guaranteed return. Newer or smaller programs may be unable to offer MDF as a partner benefit until the channel generates enough cash flow to justify it.

6 Tips for Channel Partner Program MDF & Partner Investment

How should your partner program invest in its partners to drive marketing and sales? Here are six best practices for MDF and partner investment that you should keep in mind.

1. Prioritize Investment in MDF Over SPIFFs

A common short-term sales incentive for partners is a sales performance incentive fund (SPIFF), which awards a monetary bonus upfront at the point of a deal close. A SPIFF is typically a monthly multiple of the deal value in the tech channel. For example, a “6X” SPIFF pays out six months’ worth of the monthly recurring revenue (MRR) to the sales partner at one time once the contract is signed.

When faced with a limited budget for incentivizing partners, you should prioritize MDF over SPIFFs. “Having run channel programs for several SaaS providers over the years, I have, invariably, been faced with the decisions: MDF or no MDF, SPIFF or no SPIFF,” says PartnerReady’s Plum. “The second one is easy for me. No SPIFF.”

There are implicit dangers of relying too heavily on incentives like SPIFFs because it can be difficult to tie them to demonstrable activity in a partner’s pipeline. “The solution that a partner offers his [or] her client should be dictated by best possible fit, and not a ‘kicker’ for the recommendation,” says Plum. “Partner experience (PX) is driven more by the support they receive than the bonus they are promised.”

Support comes from all aspects of a partner program, such as high-touch account management, adequate marketing and sales enablement materials, sufficient training and certifications, and, of course, MDF.

2. Demonstrating ROI From MDF Is Challenging, But Doable With the Right Tools

A common challenge that programs encounter is the direct attribution of MDF to sales activity. “Once you’ve given MDF to a partner, then what?” asks Steele. “How do you qualify that it was a good investment? Do you have a PRM, so the partner can enter leads from the MDF activity so that they can track it?”

Measuring ROI remains one of the biggest challenges for MDF programs because many existing processes and systems still fail to track and report attribution data. Vendors, however, must rise to the occasion and figure out how to tie MDF disbursement to quantifiable metrics that show finance teams why it’s worth making the investment.

“When a partner program is unable to demonstrate results and ROI from MDF activities,” says GoTo’s Van Dover, “it can often lead to decreased funding.”

Partners are busy, and MDF programs can often be time-consuming to navigate. Vendors also have to remember that, in most cases, partners aren’t just selling their solutions. A vendor is just one part of an overall stack the partner is weaving together to create a solution for their clients. Because of this, says Steele, it can be hard for partners to align specific leads back to specific marketing activities. If you’re lucky enough to have enough channel staff to take a high-touch approach with partners, that risk is mitigated somewhat through continuous conversation. But vendors that struggle with adequate account manager or sales rep coverage rely on partners to provide that deal information, which leads to a lack of attribution and onerous proof of performance (PoP) processes.

It’s even more difficult to track ROI when you’re relying on manual data entry instead of automated systems. Tools like partner relationship management (PRM) solutions can help streamline tracking information for channel account managers (CAMs) and help build the case to secure more funding for worthwhile market development efforts. For example, PRMs streamline deal registration by moving it from spreadsheets to an online portal so CAMs and partners can easily log new deals and deal sources. In turn, this enables your channel leaders to run reports based on attribution, offering total visibility into how MDF activities are performing.

When it comes to tracking ROI from MDF activities, our panel offers a few tips:

• ·Have a clear understanding of the results you want to see from your MDF investments beyond just “increasing pipeline.” New leads? Nurturing existing leads through the sales process? Expansion into new verticals or geographies? You can’t measure ROI until you know what you’re hoping to gain on a granular level.
• Once you’ve set those expectations, make sure they’re communicated effectively. One of the biggest complaints partners have about vendor MDF programs is that it’s often unclear what activities qualify for MDF and which don’t. On top of that, the process of getting reimbursed from providers for those activities can be muddy and take too long to complete. If partners don’t understand your program, they won’t take advantage of it.
• Carefully monitor the long-term results of your investment. MDF activities aren’t a “one and done” strategy but typically play out over time. If the goal of an MDF activity is, say, new leads, that’s all well and good – but are those leads actually turning into revenue? Where is the partner losing traction? Does the MDF activity need to be tweaked to get the results you’re looking for over the long haul?
• Report on and discuss results in periodic business reviews with your partners. As stated, communication is critical when doling out marketing development funds. It’s unfair to partners when long periods go by without talking about MDF results, and then seemingly out of nowhere, they’re denied reimbursement because of a lack of ROI. In a channel relationship, nothing should be a surprise to your partner.

3. Tailor MDF Activities to Partner Type & Maturity Through Segmentation

As with most issues facing partner programs, MDF isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Effective MDF programs create guardrails for the types of activities that are MDF-eligible. AchieveUnite’s Caragol explains: “Providing partners with guidance [and] restrictions on which activities will be most effective for them maximizes the ROI for the vendor and the partner. Activities should be based on the partner’s relationship maturity and business model.”

Caragol advocates that vendors should start allocating MDF activities based on partner readiness or how well-prepared a partner is to sell, promote, deploy or evangelize a supplier’s solutions depending on their partner type. “Partners new to a relationship with a vendor should allocate the majority of funds to partner readiness, while more mature partners should focus on demand generation,” says Caragol. “Tactical partners should also focus on demand, while strategic partners should utilize funding for executive collaboration, solution development and market penetration.”

But how do you determine partner readiness? Partner programs can require partners to take a partner readiness assessment to identify gaps in their current capabilities. With this data in hand, you can recommend next steps, such as training or co-selling, to get partners ready to go to market with their solutions. A readiness assessment must be customized to your solution stack and what each partner type requires to sell or support your solutions.

Creating an effective MDF program for your sales partners means expanding MDF-eligible activities beyond just initial pipeline creation, an emerging trend. “Historically, MDF has been focused on activities that fill the funnel,” says 360insight’s Margolis. “A true, end-to-end program will enable partners to fill the funnel, nurture the funnel, close deals, and nurture existing customer upsell and cross-sell.”

Margolis also advises channel leaders to consider abandoning tier-based programs around revenue since partners may achieve those revenue thresholds simply by being a part of the program long enough. “I see more MDF going to great proposals as opposed to certain tiers around revenue,” says Margolis. “I always suggest giving money to partners and programs that are going to do the work as opposed to accrual-based programs.”

4. Remember MDF Is a Long-Term Investment

ROI on vendor MDF programs may not fit neatly into quarterly or annual budgeting cycles depending on the type of services a supplier offers. Remember that MDF investment is a long-term play and may not materialize results in desired timeframes.

“MDF is a long-term investment that may not show short-term gains,” says Fusion Connect’s Corbett. “This causes internal pushback on both the partner and supplier sides and negatively impacts buy-in.”

Getting buy-in is easiest when you can show how MDF programs have performed in the past. If your program is new or doesn’t have historical metrics, a conservative estimate based on projected industry-standard campaign performance metrics is a safe route to go. As with any new business initiative, it’s a good bet to under-promise and over-deliver.

The long-term view is necessary for MDF activities not focused on direct sales and marketing campaigns. “Investments in partner success (i.e., competency and solution development) provides long-term results that may not be recognized for six to nine months,” says AchieveUnite’s Caragol. “These also may not result in a short-term 20X return, but they will provide exponential returns for years.”

5. MDF Programs Are No Longer Optional for Partner Programs

MDF is now practically a requirement for most partner programs and has become an expectation from partners looking for their next provider.

 “MDF has gone from being a ‘nice to have’ to being a ‘need to have’ when it comes to partner programs,” says Margolis. “Because automation of the MDF program and resources available through platforms are so prevalent, MDF is now table stakes.”

AchieveUnite’s Caragol adds that these tangible investments are part of competing for partner engagement. “Partners are focusing on vendors that invest in them,” says Caragol. “Meaningful MDF programs increase partner mindshare.”

Further, partners have to come to view MDF as a cue that you’re willing to put skin in the game and not just wait for sales to come in. “If you’re a new vendor, MDF will help you to get partners to kick the tires,” says Aryaka’s Steele. “If you don’t offer incentives and wait for them to come to you, it won’t happen. Partners are working with so many vendors and are not going to work with vendors that only take. They want a symbiotic relationship.”

6. Partner Programs Should Invest in Partner Success Beyond MDF

MDF is a proven strategy, but it’s not the only way programs should invest in their partners. As we noted, the proof of value for MDF investments may take months, if not longer, so you should simultaneously explore non-monetary forms of partner investment, such as joint business planning and joint account mapping.

The status quo has changed, and programs must continue to invest more than their competitors to stay ahead. “Gone are the days when you can take partners out to dinner and expect them to send you deals,” says Aryaka’s Steele. “You need to actively invest in their businesses.”

Fusion Connect’s Corbett adds that vendors should combine MDF with SPIFFs, partner training and systemic deal registration, among other incentives. “This helps to ensure a well-rounded strategy for success for both the partner and the supplier,” says Corbett.

GoTo’s Van Dover lists how vendor programs can invest in partners beyond MDF, including:

• Executive sponsors
• Access to demo licensing
• BDR call list program
• Self-service quoting
• Pre-sales partner solution consultant support
• Training and enablement options to fit a partner’s preferences
• Dedicated partner advocate
• Partner Success Team support
• Advisory board membership
• Custom incentives
• Dedicated marketing resources

Partner programs and ecosystems should consider adopting these strategies to get the most from their channel investments.

The post Investment with Market Development Funds (MDF) and Beyond for Partners appeared first on Zift Solutions.

6 Steps to Create a Successful Channel Incentives Program

Our last roundup blog covered best practices for a successful channel incentives program. As a reminder, channel incentives programs offer rewards from vendors for ecosystem partners to engage them in promoting and selling providers’ services, solutions and products. They improve partner ecosystems by:

• Driving partner performance and sales pipeline
• Boosting customer satisfaction
• Increasing supplier and partner revenue
• Earning partner loyalty for select providers
• Prioritizing vendor solutions and services
• Differentiating suppliers from their competition
• Gaining partner mindshare for vendors

Common types of channel incentives include:

• Channel sales incentives
• Channel SPIFFs
• Channel marketing incentives
• Market development funds (MDF)
• Channel enablement, training and certification incentives
• Channel rebates
• Channel referral incentives
• Loyalty incentives and partner retention

But what are the actual steps to create a successful channel incentives program? To answer this question, we spoke with six industry experts. Our panelists include:

• Anita Sharifi, Vice President, Co-Founder & President for corporate gifting platform DONO
• Nichole Gunn, Chief Marketing Officer for incentive rewards program consultancy and incentive management software provider Incentive Solutions
• Eli Jacobson, Director of Channel Strategy & Operations for deep observability company Gigamon
• Cyndi Radke, Strategic Advisor for global employee experience solution provider ITA Group
• Stacy Conrad, Senior Vice President of Channels for managed services provider TPx
• Heather Tenuto, Chief Revenue Officer for partner relationship management (PRM) and channel management platform provider Zift Solutions

Want to skip ahead? Check out six steps for creating channel incentives programs in 2023:

1. Determine Sales Incentives Based on Industry Standards
2. Match Internal Incentives to Partner Incentives
3. Use Market Development Funds (MDF) to Gain Partner Mindshare & Promotion
4. Communicate Incentives Through Multiple Pathways
5. Assign Dedicated Personnel to Your Incentives Program
6. Automate Your Incentives Program

What Are the Best Practices for a Successful Channel Incentives Program?

The survey for our recent blog on the best practices for a successful channel incentives program identified six essential incentive strategies to drive growth in partner ecosystems:

1. Prioritize Long-Term Incentives to Stay Competitive

Partner ecosystems should focus on long-term relationship development with select partners in a multilayered incentive approach, including:

• Loyalty incentives
• Rebates
• Universally applicable industry education

Short-term incentives, such as SPIFFs, can be effective but tend not to be a reliable point of differentiation between a supplier and their competition since all it takes is a competitor to provide a larger SPIFF to “win” short-term incentive deals from transacting partners.

2. Align Partner Goals & Supplier Goals to Inform Incentives

Alignment between vendors and their partners is critical to any incentive program. Providers should talk to their partners, look at overall business objectives and business models, verify they’re compatible and operate in tandem to reach goals following a joint business plan.

3. Design Incentive Types to Work Together

Partner programs often offer multiple incentives for partners, such as MDF, business development funds (BDF), points-based solutions, rebates, SPIFFs and more. Create a framework to combine these differing incentive types to drive toward the program’s targets. A simple example is a points-based program that incentivizes specific sales and marketing activities that are also supported by MDF and BDF.

4. Avoid Turning Incentives into Entitlements

Partner programs can easily fall into the trap of overreliance on incentives to bring in sales. In turn, partners may come to expect an incentive on every deal and interpret any incentive change as a compensation cut and stop sending deals to the supplier altogether.

5. Incentivize Roles Beyond Partner Salespeople

Partner programs commonly incentivize sales partners, yet sellers are only one of the roles in the partner organization responsible for selling and servicing the end customer account. To get organization-wide mindshare, consider compensating sales engineers, product specialists, customer service personnel and others.

6. Incentivize Pre-Sale & Post-Sale Activities

New account wins and deal closes may be a logical place to start incentivizing transacting partners, but it isn’t where your incentives should stop. Extend incentives beyond deal wins to pre-sales and post-sales activities such as marketing, training and collaboration to increase the likelihood of more new wins and retention of existing accounts.

6 Steps to Create a Successful Channel Incentives Program

Beyond the best practices, our expert panel also identified six steps companies should take to create their channel incentives program.

1. Determine Sales Incentives Based on Industry Standards

One of the first items partner programs must establish in their incentives program is compensation-oriented sales incentives. “I think the competition determines much of this [compensation],” says DONO’s Sharifi. “When selling technology, there is a general range of compensation that partners expect for certain products and falling somewhere within this range is what gives your product the mindshare it needs to be more successful in the channel. Since everyone at DONO has a background in technology, we are already familiar with the ‘acceptable compensation’ range for partners. We adjusted DONO’s pricing and compensation models to be more in line with industry standards.” 

Setting compensation and incentives may take some time if your products and services are new, even if you’re familiar with the expected compensation ranges for your industry. “This actually took quite a bit of time as we had to make sure our pricing made sense for the end user, based on the market, and we had to make sure it was lucrative enough for the partners who would be selling our solution,” says Sharifi. “We don’t have competition in the gifting space per se, but as a technology solution that partners can lead with, we aimed to be in the same ballpark as what other technology companies are offering.” 

Industry standards can evolve over time, so make sure you’re in line with current trends. TPx’s Conrad says more incentive programs will focus on subagents who are actually selling versus the technology services brokers (TSBs) or distributors. “The TSB programs have become so expensive that it is harder to differentiate yourself amongst the competition at the TSB level,” Conrad says. “But at the seller level, there is plenty of room to gain mindshare with unique programs.”

2. Match Internal Incentives to Partner Incentives

Our panel found that duplicating incentives between internal teams and external partners helps to create proper alignment up and down the sales channel. “At Gigamon, we have a channel-first strategy,” explains Gigamon’s Jacobson. “This means that if we have incentives in place internally, we extend them externally to our partner community. We’ve increased our incentives around new logo acquisition and cloud sales internally and have therefore extended those externally.”

Jacobson has found this strategy successful and his partners have vouched for it. “Per our partners, when we align our internal goals with our external incentives, it creates even more demand for our partners to proactively align with Gigamon to achieve our common goals,” says Jacobson. “Align incentives with company goals and be creative in how you engage directly with your partners to get their buy-in and participation.”

3. Use MDF to Gain Partner Mindshare & Promotion

Our panel has seen the deployment of MDF be a practical step in moving the needle with partners in ecosystem incentive programs. “Partners who take advantage of these marketing dollars, which the partner can use to market their own brand and their own events, often commit to a certain amount of sales with the company providing the MDF funds,” says DONO’s Sharifi. “This commitment gives the company an idea as to how much sales the partner is going to bring into their organization [as a measurable ROI].” 

Sharifi adds that MDF is a reliable way to entice partner organizations to promote supplier solutions actively. “…[W]e know it is an effective way to get mindshare and a way to get more people ‘on your side, promoting your product’ so to speak,” says Sharifi. “The partners that we see taking advantage of these programs are heavily invested with the companies offering the MDF and are constantly striving to better themselves and increase the value they bring to their customers.” 

ITA Group’s Radke echoes the same sentiments around MDF providing a clear ROI for partners and providers. “Using MDF funds can help partners achieve a positive ROI on the funds they jointly invest,” says Radke.

4. Communicate Incentives Through Multiple Pathways

The experts on our panel say setting incentives and MDF are only the first step. “Once a program has been established, it’s imperative that it is effectively communicated to partners …,” says DONO’s Sharifi. “Oftentimes, communicating with partners directly will help with much of these changes.”

ITA Group’s Radke agrees, noting “clear and frequent communication” are critical for a successful incentives program.

Incentive Solutions’ Gunn puts it another way, stating that a lack of communication is often the primary challenge to successful incentive programs. Communicating program incentives can be easier said than done, as vendors must rise above the noise to gain mindshare. “Our biggest challenge is getting the word out to our partners,” says Gigamon’s Jacobson. “They are inundated with so many newsletters and emails from vendors that it’s tough for them to concentrate on a singular vendor to drive success. To work through this, we’ve increased our ’through-CAM‘ marketing and partner engagement, as well as enlisting distributors via incentive, to scale our messaging directly to partners. This grassroots, direct approach to our partner sellers [have] paid off.”

5. Assign Dedicated Personnel to Your Incentives Program

Just as partner programs have personnel dedicated to partner recruitment, onboarding, training and marketing, they also need staff responsible for incentives. “Trouble comes when no one owns the incentive program,” says Incentive Solutions’ Gunn. “We [Incentive Solutions] are service focused, so we do the heavy lifting, but programs with dedicated program managers always outperform those that do not. Incentive programs should be seen and treated as integral tactics within a marketing strategy.”
Gigamon’s Jacobson agrees on the need for dedicated incentives program personnel, primarily due to the comprehensive needs of different partner types and departments. “The operational management can be burdensome,” says Jacobson. “Having an individual or team of individuals managing and auditing is a step in the right direction for a seamless partner experience.”

6. Automate Your Incentives Program

Once you’ve determined your partner incentives, developed communications strategies and assigned management staff, you can make it easier and more scalable by automating it using a partner relationship management (PRM) software platform.

“Long gone are the days of manually tracking commissions and incentive attribution in spreadsheets,” says Zift Solutions’ Tenuto. “If you want to scale your ecosystem and provide an error-free and timely experience for your partners, you need a PRM to automate incentive attribution. Requiring partners to register deals in your PRM to qualify for incentives simplifies processes for your incentives program staff but also fulfills a key need for your C-Suite — sales pipeline and revenue forecasting, which is notoriously difficult in channel-focused organizations.”

Both fledgling and mature partner ecosystems can take these six steps to design and launch an incentives program that will produce results.

The post 6 Steps to Create a Successful Channel Incentives Program appeared first on Zift Solutions.

According to the report, the primary business issues channel partners face include:

1. Managing Uncertainty
2. Driving Growth
3. Improving Speed to Market
4. Focusing on New Markets
5. Improving the Effectiveness of Sales and Marketing
6. Reducing Customer Churn
7. Attracting and Retaining Employees
8. Improving Profitability per Customer
9. Keeping Pace with the Competition
10.  Increasing No. of Offerings per Customer (Cross-Sell/Upsell)

The leading digital marketing priorities for channel partners include the following:

1. Social Media (with 70 percent of respondents identifying it as a priority)
2. Email Marketing (with 68 percent of respondents identifying it as a priority)
3. Vendor Partner Referrals (with 60 percent of respondents identifying it as a priority)
4. SEO Implementation (with 56 percent of respondents identifying it as a priority)
5. Analytics (with 52 percent of respondents identifying it as a priority)
6. White Papers/Thought Leadership (with 40 percent of respondents identifying it as a priority)

Suppliers can help address partner issues and marketing priorities via through-channel marketing (TCM) and through-channel marketing automation (TCMA). 

What is Through-Channel Marketing?

Through-channel marketing (TCM) is a B2B marketing strategy suppliers use to promote their products and services through their partner ecosystem to reach end-user customers. TCM requires vendors to enable their ecosystem partners to communicate with prospects through various marketing tactics.

Through-channel marketing activities include:

• Flyers and data sheets
• Battlecards
• Blogs
• Case studies
• eBooks
• White papers
• Presentations
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Webinars
• Events
• Digital campaigns
• Social campaigns

What is Through-Channel Marketing Automation?

Through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) applies standard marketing automation to through-channel marketing, specifically for vendors to provide their partners with materials to market their products and solutions. TCMA allows partners to compete in digital marketing without becoming experts in marketing strategies, tactics and platforms.

TCMA offers partner ecosystems various ways to streamline channel marketing efforts, including:

• Accelerating go-to-market for new product launches, service promos or other offerings by scaling instantaneously across a supplier’s partner ecosystem
• Automating distribution of sales enablement content to ecosystem partners quickly and efficiently
• Scheduling of automated emails and tracking performance so vendors can prove communication with their ecosystem
• Triggering sales enablement emails based on engagement activity (e.g., form-fills) to walk partners through a vendor’s sales process
• Sending surveys to get ecosystem partner feedback on product knowledge and areas to improve marketing enablement
• Removing as many manual hand-offs of assets between supplier and partner personnel as possible
• Gaining the confidence of key partners who now have a much shorter time to revenue due to automation

The ”automation” part of TCMA is enabled through a SaaS-based TCMA platform like a partner relationship management (PRM) system. A TCMA platform allows partner marketing activities to be scaled across large partner ecosystems with hundreds or thousands of partners.

If you’re considering getting started with TCMA platforms, you should know there’s never been a better time to do so. Think about this: automation enables efficiency. The more efficient your channel program’s processes are, the more likely you are to see a return on investment in it. You can do more with less. Let the power of TCMA achieve better results and pay for itself.

What are the Key Features of a Through-Channel Marketing Automation Platform?

Interested in a TCMA platform but not sure where to start? High-quality TCMA platforms come with the following:

• Streamlined workflows for ease-of-use
• Group and user management
• Digital branding software, including branding of video content
• Social media syndication
• Email campaign creation and automation
• Portal page creation
• Partner microsite creation
• A library of brand-compliant and customizable marketing assets
• The option to get translated marketing assets for different regions around the globe
• An efficient portal from which marketing programs can be launched, tracked and measured
• Robust analytics for suppliers to track and measure performance, MDF and BDF usage
• The ability to quickly operationalize asset delivery
• Simplified viewing for partners to track and spend MDF

Channel Partner Digital Marketing Priorities Addressed by Through-Channel Marketing Automation Platforms

A TMCA platform can effectively address four of the six digital marketing priorities for channel partners in 2023 identified by Techaisle, including:

• Social Media
• Email Marketing
• White Papers
• Analytics

Suppliers can create these customized, messaging-compliant and brandable materials for their partner ecosystem. Let’s walk through some examples viewable within the ZiftONE platform. 

Through-Partner Email Campaign Example:

Providers can customize email campaigns based on partners and partner types. Then they can package campaigns for their entire partner ecosystem without adding to their team’s workload.

Partners can send campaigns directly to customers, reflecting their own brand while promoting vendor products. An API automatically connects with email automation platforms and provides copy-and-paste HTML for partners that send emails through other services.

Customizable Collateral Library Example:

A TCMA platform provides a brandable asset library that allows vendors to apply partners’ branding to content easily, use text blocks to plug in partners’ information and put relevant content in partners’ hands fast, including the white paper and thought leadership collateral they’re looking for. 

Analytics Example:

A robust TCMA platform enables suppliers to:

• Keep track of lead registrations and attribution
• Which campaigns and collateral are being deployed and are successful
• Partner activity

Deploy a TCMA platform for your partner ecosystem and you’ll be on the path to meeting partners’ leading digital marketing needs in 2023.

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Partner access to lead generation programs is typically gated through a tiered framework in which partners must first meet specific criteria or sales thresholds. However, lead generation programs may also be part of partner training wherein new partners can get their feet wet through co-selling qualified leads. 

Lead generation programs may be managed ad-hoc if limited to select partners but quickly becomes unwieldy when they need to scale to dozens or hundreds of partners. That scenario calls for a formal partner lead distribution program.

What Is a Partner Lead Distribution Program?

A partner lead distribution program is a process wherein a partner ecosystem manager strategically assigns individual end-customer leads to specific partner companies that are best suited to sell to or service them or, as noted earlier, have prequalified to receive leads.

What Are the Benefits of a Partner Lead Distribution Program?

A partner lead distribution program enables suppliers to:

• Boost Partner Program ROI – By delivering targeted leads to select partners, suppliers can drive a more predictable ROI from their indirect channels. Here’s how: By ensuring well-trained and high-performing partners handhold significant prospects, deals go smoother and close rates increase.
• Increase New Partner Recruitment – It’s no secret that recruiting productive partners has become more competitive over time, especially in the information and communications technology (ICT) channel, where commoditized solution providers beat the competition by throwing larger SPIFFs and promotions at their transacting partners. Of course, there’s a limit to how many Xs you can add to a SPIFF before deals become unprofitable. Typically, only larger companies with higher volumes of cash flow can handle an 8X or 10X SPIFF. One way to lure partner deals away from a larger competitor paying higher SPIFFs is to provide partners with qualified leads.
• Train New Partners During Onboarding – New partners need practice and assistance selling or deploying your solutions, especially if they’re venturing into a new vertical or technology type. Your program can rapidly advance your partner’s development by providing them with real-life opportunities to interact with qualified prospects in a co-selling motion during onboarding.
• Ingratiate New Partners – What better way to communicate your commitment to a partnership than dropping a potential deal into a new partner’s lap? An early win within the first couple of months of a new partnership creates positive momentum. Conversely, investing time in unproductive partnerships can prove frustrating for your partners and your C-Suite.

What Are the Steps to Creating a Partner Lead Distribution Program?

A partner lead distribution program is an ongoing, iterative process that involves acquiring, qualifying, scoring and distributing leads.

Step 1: Acquire Leads

Entire books have been written on how to generate end-customer leads, but for this article, we’ll simply categorize lead acquisition into two major buckets — inbound and outbound.

• Inbound lead generation activities typically include search engine marketing (SEM), which consists of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimization (SEO) to attract visitors to your website. Website visitors have read your company blogs, watched your videos, listened to your podcasts and seen your organization mentioned in relevant industry publications. These visitors become leads by filling out lead capture forms on your site, engaging with chatbots, emailing the appropriate contacts and calling your company phone number to discuss engaging your services.
• All these lead-capturing methods enable you to gather contact information, including name, email address, phone number, company name, company size and location. This info is stored in your customer relationship management platform (CRM), which can be integrated with your partner relationship management platform (PRM).
• Outbound lead generation activities typically include sending email drip cadences, messaging prospects on LinkedIn and other social platforms and making outbound calls to:
  • hot leads acquired from tradeshows
  • warm leads from co-marketing efforts with ecosystem partners
  • cold leads on target accounts from resources like ZoomInfo

Once your company has a base of interested end customer prospects, you’ll need to qualify them to ensure they’re the right fit for your solution set.

Step 2: Qualify Leads

Based on the information you’ve gathered on each lead, you’ll need to assess if they’re serviceable by your company. 

For example, an Internet access provider that only offers services in the United States can quickly rule out a prospect that needs Internet services in the rest of the world. In contrast, a cybersecurity provider that offers a customized solution that must work within an existing tech stack may need to set up an initial consultation to further qualify leads by asking about their specific needs, budget and timelines. 

Once the leads have been qualified as serviceable, you’ll need to score these leads.

Step 3: Score Leads

Lead scoring is assigning a numerical value to each lead your company generates. Scoring leads help your marketing teams prioritize the leads, engage appropriately and hand them off to qualified partners in your ecosystem. 

Develop a scoring system with your ecosystem’s partner types in mind. A prospect may be an excellent fit for your solution set, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be an ideal fit for all of your ecosystem partners. You can score leads based on multiple factors, such as:

• Fit – Is the lead in the right region for your partner? The right industry? The proper role to be purchasing the solution?
• Interest – How engaged has the lead been with your online content? Have they reached out in the past, but it wasn’t the right time to deploy your solution?
• New Business vs. Upsell – Upselling an existing customer may be an easier close. However, determining whether to engage may be influenced by different behaviors than for prospects. For example, rather than looking at website visits and engagement with your content as you would with a prospect, you might assess a customer’s support tickets, engagement during onboarding and use of your current products or services.

Lead scoring can vary based on the type of data you collect from leads interacting with your company:

• Demographic Information – If your company only sells to specific buyer personas, like a CIO, CTO or IT director, and one of those positions fills out a form, the lead score will increase. If the lead is inside your service area but is interested in a type of service available only in a particular geography, their score would decrease. If the form-fill on the site includes optional fields filled out correctly, the lead score may increase. 
• Company Information – Your company may be more inclined to service customers of a specific size, type or industry. The more they fit into your ideal customer profile (ICP), the higher the lead score. 
• Online Behavior – How leads interact with your site can help gauge their interest in your solutions and where they might be in their buying journey. For example, if they frequently visit your pricing page, they may be actively comparing your plan levels to competitors, potentially indicating a buying state. A site visitor who fills out a form requesting a consultation or a quote will score higher than a visitor who fills out a form to download an eBook or subscribe to a newsletter. 
• Email Engagement – Measuring prospects’ email open and click-through rates can help your team determine those who are most engaged and more likely to close. The more click-throughs and emails opened, the higher the lead score. 
• Social Engagement – Similar to email engagement, look at which prospects clicked through from organic and paid social media to your site and engagement with your company content on those platforms.

Step 4: Distribute Leads

Once the leads have been scored, they’re ready to send to your partners. Not so fast! First, you must figure out how to distribute which leads to which partners. You have several options to choose from. The most common lead distribution models include the following:

• Round robin – A round robin evenly distributes leads across the entire partner base without tiering or criteria-based screening. Newer programs or programs without strict parameters for lead distribution may opt for this model as it’s technically the most equitable and “fair” model for all partners involved. 
• Cherry-pick – A cherry-pick method involves distributing all leads to a shared resource for qualified partners to pick the leads they want out of an established pool. Lead quantity and deal size parameters must be set to ensure equity between qualified partners.
• Regional – A region-based or territory-based model involves segmenting and distributing leads to partners based on their location within a given country. For example, a lead based out of Boston, Massachusetts, would be assigned to a partner based in the northeastern United States. This method is particularly useful for solutions that require in-person visits to deploy. In an ecosystem model, you could also involve multiple in-region partners in the deal, one to nurture the sale and another to install the solution.  
• Vertical – An industry-based or vertical-based model is similar to a region-based model, except it includes partners with specific industry expertise or who meet particular compliance requirements to serve specific leads. For example, a healthcare lead may be sent to a partner who is educated in HIPAA requirements and can deploy HIPAA-compliant solutions. Similarly, a retail sector lead may be sent to a partner educated in PCI compliance and deploys PCI-certified solutions. 
• Top performer – A top performer model distributes leads to partners based entirely on merit, such as attributed revenue for transacting partners or  influenced revenue for non-transacting partners. Deployment partners may be offered projects based on the number of error-free installations completed. This model has the added benefit of only sending leads to partners who have earned them based on prior performance, which maximizes the ROI on your lead generation efforts. 
• Shotgun – In a shotgun model, partners are pre-evaluated based on strengths, skills and experience, factoring in their partner type. Right-fit leads are then shared among like partners on a first-come, first-served basis. Like the top performer model, this has the benefit of being merit-based while adding an element of competition for the best opportunities.
• Hybrid – A hybrid model incorporates various strategies to meet your ecosystem’s goals. So, for example, if a key benefit of joining your program is guaranteed lead distribution to all partners, then you’ll select a round-robin model. However, you might also set up a select tier that receives leads following the top-performer model to maximize ROI. So, in this example, your program will deliver leads to all partners, reserving the best leads for partners most likely to close them. 

What Software Enables a Partner Lead Distribution Program?

Partner relationship management (PRM) software platforms help automate partner lead distribution management. PRMs automatically assign and distribute qualified leads through email notifications and integrations into partner CRM platforms. As a result, partners get data such as lead profile information (name, company, etc.) and lead history (campaign, emails opened/clicked, website views, etc.) to help them easily and quickly engage. And providers get a complete picture of the sales lifecycle for each lead they distribute.

Looking for a PRM with automated partner lead distribution management?

Lead Distribution Management from ZiftONE enables your partner program to:

• Deliver leads via email or partners’ CRMs, such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, SugarCRM, Sage and more 
• Enable visibility and tracking across the entire lead lifecycle 
• Speed and strengthen follow-up with deeper prospect data 
• Easily see and share feedback, track lead activities and measure results with automated closed-loop reporting 
• Leverage Zift’s Through Partner Marketing Automation (TCMA) to help partners nurture warm leads until they’re ready for sales

If you’re considering getting started with PRM software, you should know there’s never been a better time to do so. Think about this: automated partner lead distribution management enables efficiency. The more efficient your channel program’s processes are, the more likely you are to see a return on investment in it. You can do more with less. Let the power of PRM achieve better results and pay for itself.

The post Partner Lead Distribution: Benefits, Steps & Software appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Of course, it’s worth noting that channel management software’s capabilities extend far beyond analytics reporting. Partner relationship management, channel marketing, and channel learning all live under the channel management software umbrella. But for the purposes of this article, we’ll explore how channel management software like ZiftONE can specifically elevate sales performance in seven game-changing ways:

1. Unlock Comprehensive Channel Analytics
2. Make Data-Driven Decisions
3. Gain Channel-Specific Insights
4. Benchmark for Success
5. Monitor in Real-Time for Agile Intervention
6. Leverage Forecasting and Predictive Analytics
7. Continuously Optimize Your Channels

1. Unlock Comprehensive Channel Analytics

Channel management software collects and consolidates data from various sales channels, providing you with a holistic view of your channel performance. With access to key metrics like sales revenue, conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and channel-specific profitability, you gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your channel strategies.

2. Make Data-Driven Decisions

Equipped with accurate and up-to-date performance data, you can make informed decisions to optimize your channel strategies. Identify underperforming channels, evaluate the impact of pricing and promotional activities, and allocate resources effectively based on channel performance insights.

3. Gain Channel-Specific Insights

Delve deeper into individual channels to understand their unique dynamics and performance drivers. Analyze channel-specific metrics such as customer preferences, order patterns, or geographic trends, enabling you to tailor your strategies and maximize sales while ensuring customer satisfaction.

4. Benchmark for Success

Channel management software allows you to compare the performance of different channels against predefined benchmarks or industry standards. This benchmarking process helps identify areas for improvement, highlight top-performing channels, and establish realistic goals for channel growth and profitability.

5. Monitor in Real-Time for Agile Intervention

Access real-time performance and analytics dashboards and reports that provide instant visibility into your channel performance. Quickly identify deviations or anomalies, enabling timely interventions and corrective actions to mitigate risks and capitalize on emerging opportunities.

6. Leverage Forecasting and Predictive Analytics

By harnessing historical channel performance data, leverage forecasting and predictive analytics capabilities within the software. Anticipate future trends, demand fluctuations, and customer behavior, empowering you to proactively plan and allocate resources for optimal results.

7. Continuously Optimize Your Channels

Channel management software facilitates an iterative approach to channel optimization. Experiment with different strategies, monitor the results, and fine-tune your approaches based on data-driven insights. This iterative process fosters continuous improvement in channel performance and overall business outcomes.

Implementing channel management software, such as ZiftONE, can be a game-changer for businesses looking to boost channel sales and drive growth. Channel management software provides a range of powerful capabilities that go beyond streamlined operations. By leveraging these capabilities, businesses can drive tangible results, achieve sustainable growth, and stay ahead in today’s competitive market landscape.

The post Boost Channel Sales and Growth with Channel Management Software appeared first on Zift Solutions.