Channel partners are typically small to medium sized businesses that don’t have the resources that a larger company would have. Partners wear multiple hats in their company. They sell, support, and help make sure customer satisfaction is high. Like most small business owners they are stretched thin while working hard to run and grow their business. In contrast, vendors are typically larger companies and have the resources and expertise to easily leverage their networks to market and sell their products.
All too often, vendors will hand their partners marketing content and leave them to figure out the rest. Partners don’t have the time to figure out what to do with the material with all the responsibilities they have. Partners can help you scale, but you need to make working with your business simple and easy for your partner.
Ways to keep things simple for partners
Easier Access to Training Materials
Give your partners easier access to your training materials. Did you send them a Dropbox link to all of your training documents? Did you send them an email with links to training videos on YouTube? If your training materials are in multiple places, your partners will lose them. That’s why it’s important to consolidate all of your materials in one place such as a PRM. A PRM is designed to store all of your material and resources in one place. Your partners will be able to easily find the document they need or the video they want to send a prospect instead of having to sort through their email to find an attachment or a link.
Provide Resources
It’s also important to give your partners resources that benefit them. Like you, your partners are constantly looking to improve how they do business. Give them resources on how to market on Instagram, on how to claim their business on Google. By giving them these resources, you’re showing that you’re showing them that you care about their business which leads to better relationships with your partners.
Clear Messaging
Also don’t forget to be clear and consistent with your messaging. Your partners need to know exactly what they can expect from your partner program. They need to know what happens to their leads once they hand them over to you. If you don’t give your partner this information, they won’t trust you. If your partners don’t trust that you have their best interests in mind, they’ll go to your competitor.
Your messaging about your product also needs to be consistent. You can’t give one partner completely different product messaging from another. There will be some variation in your messaging due to region, language, ect…but the key points of the message should remain consistent among your partners.
Remove Obstacles
Finally, one of the best ways to keep it simple is to remove any obstacles that could prevent your partner from selling your product. Give them sales decks, product demos, ect. This makes it incredibly easy for your partner to start selling your product right from the start.
Key Points
- Give your partners one central place where they can access all of your resources
- Give your partners resources that benefit their business
- Communicate with your partners
- Remove obstacles allowing your partners to immediately start selling
Example: Nextiva’s CoNEXtion
Nextiva an award-winning cloud-based communication company with more than 100,000 customers relies heavily on partnerships to do business. To keep it simple for their partners, they launched Nextiva CoNEXtion Partner Demand Suite for their self-service partners. This suite contained everything their partners needed to sell Nextiva’s products such as a marketing automation tool, marketing strategy tips, and more.
The suite made it easy for Nextiva’s partners to find what they needed. They were immediately able to start generating demand and deals. Partners were able to understand how they fit into Nextiva’s marketing strategy and how they would benefit.
In addition, Nextiva’s channel marketing team wasn’t overwhelmed with requests for help as they had been previously. They could focus their efforts on continuously engaging their partners and helping them follow up after their initial campaigns had been sent.
For more on how Nextiva kept it simple for their partners, check out our case study.
Conclusion
Keeping things simple for your partners lets them start selling immediately. It also improves your relationship with your partners and makes their lives much easier. You can keep things simple by communicating your terms clearly to your partners. You should also keep your product messaging consistent. Finally, giving your partners plenty of resources and keeping those resources in one place is essential.
xAmplify’s through-channel marketing automation helps keep things simple by combining all the features of a PRM with an out-of-the-box marketing automation platform. Our platform makes it easy for your partners to share your content with their prospects in just a few clicks.
Schedule a demo to learn more.