Tag Archives: Channel Marketing

B-to-B Sales and Marketing Haikus: Channel Management

Here’s another installment of haikus dedicated to b-to-b sales and marketing. This edition addresses channel management and partner productivity.

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The Road to Repeatability in the Channel

Each year, channel sales and marketing leaders are assigned a revenue goal. The goal may require that they increase last year’s channel revenue by 20 percent or even 30 percent, leaving them to wonder where that growth will come from? Obviously, it will come from partners, but which partners? The ones they already have, or will they need to recruit new partners to reach their goal? For many suppliers, the right answer is not to add more partners into their program just to drive short-term sales; instead, they’re learning that revenue goals must be reached through continuous, repeatable performance, not by just counting on one deal per partner. They are redoubling their efforts to enable partners as one way of getting them to upsell to existing customers and close net new customers.

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Changes in the Channel

B-to-b channel ecosystems are changing – not because icebergs are melting somewhere in the North Atlantic, but, most recently, because changes in supplier solutions are altering the role of the channel partner and how it helps take these solutions to market. One notable change is the expansion of partner types. B-to-b companies are continually asking themselves: “Do we have the right partners to drive success?” New cloud solutions, for example, are forcing channel programs to recruit new types of partners, some of which are native to the cloud.

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Partner Portals: Are We There Yet?

As the summer winds down, some of us are reminded of those long family drives to a vacation destination when someone inevitably asked, “Are we there yet?” Depending on how long the journey or how many times the question had already been asked, the answer could either confirm our hopes and expectations, or be met with a stern rebuff. Why haven’t channel programs stopped asking themselves this question as it pertains to the buildout of their partner portals?

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Mileposts on the Fast Track to Channel Demand Creation

There are six stages that act as mile markers on the road to fast-tracking demand in the channel. However, realize that this is a continuous process; each stage must precede the next in order to effectively engage partners in marketing activities they can use to drive pipeline revenue.

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Marketing Certification: The Missing Ingredient in Partner Enablement

Suppliers commonly provide channel partners with sales and product training, but often miss essential marketing training. Partners frequently lack the expertise to develop and execute demand programs that align to target markets and address specific buyer needs, so they need a recipe to follow to skillfully market supplier solutions. That recipe is marketing certification.

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For Channel Success, Focus on Total Partner Experience

“Before you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you first have to take off your own.” In other words, before trying to examine a situation from someone else’s perspective, an observer must try to abandon all biases and preconceptions. A case in point in the b-to-b world is the concept of total partner experience (TPE), used by leading organizations to review their channel programs from a partner’s perspective.

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B2B Channel Strategy: Getting a Seat at the Product Marketing Table

As B2B organizations rush new products to market, failing to carefully plan a channel strategy is a common mistake. Often the biggest challenge with a new offering is forging a ...

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Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride: B2B Channel Engagement

If someone is always a bridesmaid, never a bride, they never quite get the commitment they’re striving for. Our research reveals that most partner reps manage one or two key ...

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Your Partner Program Is Served

Imagine you are dining in a fine restaurant and, after taking your order, the waiter returns with a box of ingredients and says, “OK, here’s everything you need to prepare ...

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