Businesses today are increasingly placing the responsibility of driving sales on their channel partners. These channel partners however, often lack the proper marketing tools, time, and manpower to promote the suppliers products. In order to optimize your channel partner’s ability to drive sales, an effective marketing strategy needs to be in place.
An Ineffective Commonality
The importance of a strong channel marketing strategy is undisputed. However, even channel communities executing strong communication and automation practices, can fall victim to an ineffective channel marketing approach. Channel marketing organizations are implementing a top-down approach to their channel which often results in a lack of partner adoption of the marketing materials that the supplier is providing.
Problem with Top-Down Approach
The problem with a top-down approach to channel marketing is the resources that the suppliers provide to their partner communities fail to address the pain points of their target audience. These resources don’t promote the partner’s value proposition and they subject the partner’s brand to the corporate brand.
Partner Focused Solution
At Zift Solutions we recommend a bottom up approach to channel marketing. This starts by collaborating with your partners to better understand their needs and goals. In implementing a bottom up approach suppliers develop more effective marketing materials that are capable of addressing their partner’s audience’s pain points, promoting the suppliers brand as well as the partner’s brand, and endorsing the partner’s value proposition. This approach builds loyalty and drives adoption across your partner community.
To learn how the bottom up approach works watch this brief video:
