Because Contenders show up differently than Pretenders. Their profiles are different. Their digital body language is different. And when you put the right kinds of enablement programs in front of them, the way they perform is different.
With cloud migration and softening economic growth, the channel partner landscape remains under pressure. Some partners are positioning to thrive; others are struggling to survive.
In this Webcast, we discuss channel challenges from the VAR and Integrator perspective, including best practices for channel marketing enablement and for partners adjusting to cloud disruption.
This webcast interview with Sridhar Ramanathan focuses on the disruption of cloud migration and how it’s impacting channel revenue strategy from incentives to pipeline metrics for measuring channel partner performance.
Social media is a significant opportunity for the channel, because it provides a way to attract and empower partners with a new marketing capability, the activity of social marketing can significantly amplify the company’s reach, and the inherent engagement involved in socializing the channel supports better relationships between the company and it’s channel partners.
For businesses that rely on channel partners to promote and sell their products, marketing is rapidly becoming a critical strategic risk. The more technology migrates to the cloud, the more it disrupts old partner business models. Reliable partners who generated sales yesterday may not be the partners driving sales tomorrow, putting millions of dollars in channel revenue at risk.
Read moreHow Businesses Help Channel Partners Generate Demand
Chris Becwar at Channel Management published a post last week that points to? one of the central challenges channel partner marketers face today, a challenge we discuss frequently at SocialRep: how do you enable channel partners to market most effectively?
It’s a seemingly simple question with a time-honored answer: sales incentives! If you provide the right incentives, channel partners will? move heaven and earth to close deals. What’s missing from that simple equation is the depth of disruption rocking the global IT channel, reducing the effectiveness of? traditional incentive approaches.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve heard a growing drumbeat of complaints about marketing in the IT channel. I’ve heard it from channel managers, field marketers, partner marketing and sales teams. I’ve heard it phrased a dozen different ways. I’ve heard it applied to email, digital, events and telesales. But the message is always the same: “We’re not getting the traction from marketing programs we’ve always counted on.”
Good partners—especially growing partners—don’t just want to be fed leads, they want to learn how to drive leads themselves.
The key to enabling your partners for social marketing is to provide a stream of relevant content that makes it easy for partners to select, personalize and share in a way that helps them authentically build their own voice and brand.