Having a partner sell your product can be a cost-efficient way to reach new customers. Harnessing new skills and expertise from partners can enable access to new markets. So partnerships help scale up resources and open new channels to market.
In all the partnerships I have worked with – from consumer content services with media partners & affiliates, to a supplier-partner model selling mobile marketing services, to working with resellers in the IT industry – the critical success factor has been the quality of the business relationship. By which I mean sharing information, planning together and executing together. It involves people in different functional teams on each side talking and meeting each other. I think de-personalising a partnership through over-automation can be counter-productive.
Focus on the customer. Always.
Because business is no longer a simple case of customers and suppliers, I think it’s helpful to step back and analyse the different roles that different organisations play in the value chain. The starting point for everyone in the value chain must be to keep laser-focused on the customer – what do they want/need? how can we best provide it to them?
Successful partnerships are based on mutual need and benefit
Partnerships come in a variety of models with multiple parties and collaborators in the chain, or ecosystem – e.g. a channel partner or reseller, a distributor, technology provider, software developer, service provider, licensee, affiliate, media partner, sponsor, supplier.
The partnership contract will define the scope and responsibilities of each party – e.g. territory, product, pricing, branding, promotion, cost of sale, revenue-share. Defining scope is crucial – being absolutely clear about the boundaries of the applicable market. The financials will reflect each partner’s input – you get out what you put in to a partnership.
For sales and marketing teams, it’s like having another customer segment
- We market to prospective partners to attract and retain them by explaining what’s on offer – to them and their customers.
- We develop partner programmes that support and grow sales through and with partners.
- We account-manage partnerships.
Essential communications point :
Partners must be treated as an extension of the internal audience so that they receive relevant news and information before customers. In a strong partnership, the partner will not be taken by surprise by a customer.
Selling and branding
Sales and marketing to customers is actioned through and with the partner. Typically, selling through will be partner-branded and selling with will be joint-branded.
- So an IT vendor primarily sells through channel partners – e.g. Computercenter sells IBM equipment & solutions without IBM being present in the selling process.
- American Express markets with British Airways to promote the Amex card and BA Avios points.
Through can involve some light joint branding. So an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) may specify that ‘the network is provided by …’ as Tesco Mobile does about O2. An IT reseller may use a partner badge to denote capability and credibility – e.g. ‘Cisco Gold Partner’.
Contractual decisions about branding will be based on how the branding adds value for the customer and weight to the selling process. Big, valuable brands will also be selective and protective about where and how their brand may be used by partners. Detailed branding guidelines are produced to enable partners to benefit from joint-branding while also protecting brand value. (If you own something worth $billions, you’re going to want to manage it carefully.)
Partner Programmes
The IT industry is reliant on selling through and with partners of many types – e.g. resellers, distributors, technology providers, software developers. Vendors such as Cisco, HP, IBM & Microsoft invest heavily in partner programmes to attract and recruit partners – that’s the to marketing bit. These partner programmes exist to maximise sales through and with the partner and typically offer support with:
- Technical – training, accreditation, customer support
- Sales – discounts, incentives, promotions
- Marketing – data/intelligence, campaigns, funding
Partner programmes can be complex – e.g. terms & conditions may apply for entitlement to specific benefits. It is important to design programmes with simplicity in mind and to communicate to partners clearly and simply.
The marketing support for reseller partners is primarily for demand generation (DG). Whatever resources our own teams need for DG, that’s what our partners’ teams will need, e.g.:
- Data/intelligence – market analysis & customer insight to identify gaps & opportunities and enable targeting – e.g. market sizing, competitive data, technology reports, customer profiling.
- Campaigns – themes, key messages, customer pain-points, research findings, value propositions, proof points, soundbites, imagery.
- Funding – to build and run campaigns – e.g. events, telemarketing, on-line campaigns. (see MDF below)
Demand Generation (DG)
A huge amount of attention and resource has been focused on this area of marketing over the last 10 years. Marketing departments are now often judged largely on their ability to put leads in the pipeline. Budgets for other types of marketing activity, e.g. awareness, have been cut to focus on DG. And a whole industry has developed around DG – e.g. lead management tools/platforms, campaign collateral portals, automated campaign engines, agencies managing part or all of the process.
The holy grail is to have end-to-end visibility of the entire process from ££ invested in DG to ££ generated in sales & profit – the ROI – and to have that process seamlessly linked to CRM (customer relationship management) and sales-order systems. This is no mean feat. And in a partnership model, there are added challenges – e.g. data protection, commercial privacy, competition between partners, duplication of effort across systems. So it is essential to be able to work through those challenges as part of a strong partnership relationship.
Key stages and metrics for DG are MQL – marketing-qualified leads, SAL – sales-accepted leads and SQL – sales-qualified leads. By tracking the quantity and value of leads at each stage, we can monitor conversion rates and see which campaigns, activities and teams are most effective – and tailor future plans accordingly.
Lead Nurturing
Leads can often be not for an immediate need by a prospect customer. But sales teams are focused on immediate sales targets, so these leads can get left by the wayside. Bad move. With nurturing, in time these leads can become sales. So it’s a good idea to classify them differently – e.g. Responses, Contacts – and allocate them to a team (sales or marketing) to keep in touch. This could be providing product information, thought leadership articles, research findings, demos, invitations to events. Then when the contact does have a need, re-classify it as a lead – to preserve the tracking history and accurate ROI.
Achieving ROI from MDF (marketing development funds)
MDF is money paid to a partner to conduct marketing activity, predominantly DG. It is typically allocated for a specific campaign or activity for a specific product/solution for a forecast ROI. The partner will naturally be required to report results – and therein lies the challenge:
The partner may be nervous about divulging prospect customer details, may feel under pressure to show immediate pipeline and won’t want to duplicate effort in reporting to the vendor as well as tracking results in their own systems. But the vendor obviously needs to know how their investment has been used and what return has been achieved. Firstly to be able to show the ROI back into the business and secondly to inform future investment decisions in that partner.
It is only within a genuinely strong business relationship that the essential trust exists to plan successful campaigns and enable both parties to achieve true visibility of the ROI.
Maximise partnership value
- Joint sales goals & plans to achieve goals, avoiding duplication & gaps.
- Sales & marketing campaigns aligned, avoiding random campaigns which may not support business plans.
- Shared communications plans means teams on both sides can capitalise on PR and AR.
- Reduced admin burden if teams work as colleagues – avoid time-wasting, unnecessary processes.
Trust and success informs investment decisions and strategic business planning.
SALLY-ANNE BURWELL – FEBRUARY 2015
B2B MARKETING and PR 