Developing and maintaining a profitable channel partner ecosystem requires a continuous investment and hands-on support of your partners. As channel leaders look for effective ways to grow their channel, increase revenue and make the recruiting process more efficient, it is important to have a plan that aligns with the goals of your organization as well as your partner’s. Here we’ve broken down five steps channel leaders can take to improve their channel partner ecosystem.

Evaluate The Health Of Your Channel Ecosystem

The first step is to identify which partners are most profitable and determine why they are having more success than the others. Using tools such as PartnerOptimizer allows you to analyze the commonalities between your most successful partners and establish guidelines for your ideal partner persona. This will help you recruit channel partners that best fit your organization. Knowing your ideal partner also helps you provide a better support infrastructure to guide your current partners toward becoming more profitable.

Recruit New Partners That Fit Your Ideal Persona

Although a lot of information can be found through online tools and research, more specific questions that are company centric are necessary to determine quality partners. Reaching decision makers within a target company can be difficult and time consuming. This is a task better suited for a marketing team so that recruiting can focus on warm leads. Well-developed qualifying questions and appointment setting campaigns will ensure your recruitment team is speaking with truly qualified potential partners.

Make Market Development Funds Easily Accessible

While you do want your partners to meet certain criteria to ensure your MDFs don’t go to waste, a lengthy and difficult application process can be a deterrent for both current and potential partners. Provide clear guidelines about what the funds can be spent on upfront as well as a list of approved partners they can used to implement their campaigns. You want your funds in the hands of people that can generate revenue for your organization. Don’t dissuade your partners from taking advantage by creating an arduous and restrictive application process.

Continuously Deliver New Co-Branded Content

Offering a continuous stream of co-branded content to your partners allows them to focus their resources on making sales. Many smaller organizations may not have the bandwidth or the expertise to create content that is consistent with your brand. Providing it for them ensures a consistent message that clearly communicates the value of your products. Campaign templates will help them stay organized and ensure their marketing outreach is fresh and up to date. Providing co-branded content encourages partners to focus on marketing your products.

Provide On-Going Sales And Marketing Training

While sales and marketing training should certainly be a part of the initial on-boarding process, continued training is extremely beneficial as well. As new product lines get released and partner’s sales teams evolve, periodically updating them on new tactics, procedures and products is invaluable when it comes to generating long-term revenue from your partners. These trainings can be done virtually or in person as the situation dictates. Have experienced sales and marketing team members on hand to share techniques, tips and tricks.

Leverage Winn's 30 years of channel experience and PartnerOptimizer to help improve the health of your channel partner ecosystem