A recent webinar put on by SiriusDecisions highlighted the current and assumed future priorities of channel leaders. Here we break down where channel leaders should focus their resources in the immediate future.

Channel Marketing Strategy And Planning

Master the art of partner ecosystems – increasing partner engagement begins with providing them with adequate materials to sell your product. Making content assets easily available through channel management software can greatly increase the revenue your partners bring in. Training materials, blog articles, premium content, call guides, emails and even social posts can all ease the burden of the channel partners to market your product. This gives them more time to sell and better aligns their messaging with that of the parent company.

Channel Demand Creation

Assess current state of demand data utilization – knowing exactly how your partners are performing and where they are falling short will enable you to better support them. Having access to detailed analytics on their campaigns and assessing which areas they need improvement will allow you to provide them with the proper support. It may even help you to discover who may not be a fit to sell your solution and sculpt your on-boarding criteria in order to improve the quality of future partners.

Partner Program Design And Optimization

Adapt partner programs to new opportunities – it is essential that your partner program provides a substantial benefit to those reselling your product. When it comes recruiting new partners and increasing the engagement of your current ones, there is nothing more effective than providing incentive. This should not only include a healthy margin and incentives for the partners, but also market development funds to help improve their marketing campaigns.

Partner Enablement And Engagement

Adapt to the evolved partner’s journey – each of these priorities are aimed at improving partner engagement and properly supporting them. Improving margins and incentives, providing MDFs and providing sales and marketing materials will all contribute to greater engagement, which in all likelihood will improves sales. This is particularly important when dealing with smaller partners, who may have the expertise, but not the resources necessary to excel in your program.

Channel Marketing Functional Design And Development

Alignment with channel sales drives focus – aligning marketing and sales has long been a topic of conversation among marketing and sales leaders of all types. Clearly defining what constitutes a lead and where in the buyer’s journey they should be passed along to sales greatly improves relations between the two departments. Sharing information is essential as well. Marketing departments should outline which pieces of content should be used at which stage of the process and sales should provide detailed feedback from prospect and client experiences. This will help to improve campaigns and encourage collaboration.

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