As we shared in our previous post, Times have Changed: The Evolution of the Sales Environment, there have been dramatic shifts in today’s sales landscape. These shifts call for a much more collaborative sales process.
Navigating these changes can be difficult, especially for channel partners who lack the resources and expertise to properly position your solutions and services. Building co-branded campaigns that leverage supplier-side materials and expertise to help channel partners close more deals fast is essential.
You can empower partners with effective marketing campaigns that optimize their ability to drive channel sales by following these three (3) critical steps:
Step 1: Develop a Multi-Tactic Strategy
As your direct line to the marketplace, channel partners need an effective marketing strategy and your help building integrated, multi-tactic campaigns that nurture engagement with qualified prospects. Without a multi-tactic marketing strategy that encompasses an optimized website, social media content, email outreach, newsletters, telemarketing and more, channel marketing efforts will fall flat. However, coordinating and managing a multi-tactic marketing strategy is tough. Marketing automation makes multi-channel marketing easier by providing channel partners with the solutions they need to engage prospects (such as content and social media syndication and efficient lead distribution) without increasing their workload.
Step 2: Nurture Demand
Investing in lead nurturing is critical and an ongoing, automated touch process is required to generate sales opportunities at lower costs. Suppliers can and should establish themselves as a primary resource for channel marketers by providing an integrated marketing platform that makes it easy for partners to educate prospects and customers across today’s extended sales process.
Step 3: Set the Stage for Collaboration
Channel partners deliver the best results for the suppliers who offer support that aligns directly with their current sales incentives. By working closely with channel partners to understand their needs and end goals, suppliers set the stage for collaboration and are better positioned to provide more effective marketing campaigns that resonate with prospects.
Effective collaboration requires connected systems in order to share all marketing touches. Using integrated marketing platforms; channel partners can execute complete multi-tactic campaigns, capture and track leads. As a best practice, be sure to take full advantage of extensions built into enterprise marketing automation systems (such as AppCloud extensions in Eloqua or Marketo Markplace add-ons) to connect with your partner community and enhance the value and impact of total solutions.
Learn more about the sales environment evolution and the 3 Steps to Successful Channel Partner Marketing in our new eBook.
