How to Build an Outstanding Channel Partner Program
At DRYVE Consulting, we’ve seen partner programs take a business from marginally profitable to wildly successful. Done the right way, they are worth the effort!
“Managing a partner program does not need to be complex. Based on my experience, the simpler you make a partner program, the more successful you will be at scaling quickly. There are three key areas I would focus on to jump-start success: automation, ease of doing business together, and partner attribution data analytics. Automate as much as you can without taking away the human element, act as an extension of your partners through turn-key marketing and sales enablement programs, and set mutual KPIs and analyze data every day to see what’s working and what’s not.”
- Liz Anderson, Vice President of Marketing, APS Payments
This article provides a framework for creating a partner program, defining appropriate goals, recruiting the best partners, and how to enable your partners to market on your behalf. You’ll also have the opportunity to hear from more partner experts in the B2B space.
Why Have a Partner Program?
Determining Your Partner Groups
Establishing (and Exceeding) the Right Goals
How to Recruit the Best Partners
Training That Scales
Need More Reach? Enable Your Partners to Market for You
Why Have a Partner Program?
Channel partner programs in the B2B space can look very different across organizations and industries. But they all have one thing in common: They serve as an excellent strategy for expanding your brand reach and scaling your company’s revenue.
Keep in mind that channel partner programs are a long-term strategy--not a one-time tactic.
“For the past twenty-five years, I’ve worked for channel organizations in channel marketing and partner program roles. What I’ve learned about delivering world-class partner programs can be boiled down to three essential things. First, partners must be considered an integral part of the organization’s success and included in the organization’s guiding principles. Second, deliver programs that drive partners’ success and achieve mutual goals. Finally, and most importantly, focus on building lasting relationships with partners. This is a long term commitment.”
-Diana Waterman, Senior Director, Partner Experience at Avalara
If your organization is starting up or just beginning to consider implementing a partner program, you need to consider several factors:
Who will your partners be?
What is the overall goal of your program?
Will your partners be compensated? If so, how?
How will your partners be managed in the short and long terms?
Do you need to hire one or many designated partner managers?
Do you have the right technology to keep organized and share content?
What do your partner segments look like?
And the list goes on!
While this article will cover some of our high-level recommendations, the true success of your channel partner program will rest on your hard work. You’ll need to plan details, build a strategy, and invest in building trusted relationships.
Determining Your Partner Groups
A partner can be defined as an organization that brings value to your business or your customers. While all partners are going to be relevant, they’re not always considered equal.
Before establishing how you’ll measure success with each partner profile, start with brainstorming which types of partners you’ll want to include in your program and how you’ll prioritize--or segment--them.
“Identify each of your strengths so you know how your partner makes you a better team. Are you short on marketing resources? Find a partner with deep marketing resources. Are you short on selling staff? Find a partner with a large sales team. Remember, your partnership exists to help the client. Don’t let your limited in-house resources get in the way of letting a partner help you and help your client better.”
-Lizzy Guido, Partner Marketing Manager at Avalara
Here are examples of the various partner types:
Agencies: Developer, marketing, or design agencies serve as subject matter experts. They often work with a variety of businesses and manage a piece of the digital experience when it comes to website development, marketing campaigns, or e-commerce tools.
Consultant: A subject matter expert who provides strategy and direction after analyzing client goals and objectives.
Distributor: A business that acts as an intermediary between vendors and value-added resellers (VARs) or system integrators (SIs) in the distribution of software or hardware.
Independent Software Vendor (ISV): An organization specializing in making and selling software designed for mass or niche markets.
System Integrators (SIs): A company that builds computing systems for clients by combining hardware and software products from multiple vendors.
Value-Added Reseller (VAR): An organization that recommends and provides software and/or hardware, while also providing value in the form of demonstrations, tutorials, set up, etc.
We strongly recommend grouping partner types together in order to consolidate and simplify your program. For example, consultants, agencies, and value-added resellers could be considered “Marketing and Sales Partners” or “Referral Partners,” while independent software vendors could fall under the category of “Technology Partners.”
If your partner relationships are new, groupings will be based on criteria you know at the beginning of your relationship and may change over time. Here are examples of ways you can group partners to make your program more manageable:
Geographic location
Size of the organization
Partnership objectives (i.e., education, referrals, new technology, etc.)
Actively managed relationship or unmanaged
Eventually, you will refine partner segments based on how active they are, how much business they produce, and overall engagement.
It's important that both parties in every partnership have clearly identified their goals and objectives of the partnership and communicated those to each other. Often when I start a discussion on potential partnerships, I receive an energetic "great, we'll send you the affiliate link." That can be great for some but not all partnerships. It's important to have an avenue for clear communication when a partner wants to be more creative and collaborative than just shared affiliate links.
-Peter Kearns, VP of Partnerships at Buy Box Experts
Once you establish your partner groups, review your program goals and objectives to make sure your groups and goals are properly aligned. For example, if some partner segments are going to be measured against a quota in order to receive nominal incentives, make sure it’s reflected in your current partner program and organizational goals.
Establishing (and Exceeding) the Right Goals
Some partners will enter a relationship with your company solely to expand their own revenue. For example, a UX developer may recommend your software to their existing client in order to make a commission, and then add a fee for software installation or development. Other partners are motivated to generate value for their client and maintain their position as a trusted advisor. Occasionally they will take commission or revenue share, but incentives aren’t their primary focus. Many partner types fall somewhere in between those two examples.
"It's so important to focus on the overall partner experience. Treat your partner experience the same way you would your customer experience. If that channel partner ends up being a good partner for you, they will continue to work harder for you. If not, they are still going to walk away having had a positive experience and nothing, but good things to say about you."
-Vicky Sullivan, Marketing Manager at Payability
As you’re establishing goals for your partners, it’s absolutely vital that you understand what motivates them. Here are a few examples of motivators that may be mutually beneficial:
Expanding your customer base
Expanding company awareness through joint-marketing
Introducing a new feature to the market (i.e., software enhancement)
Selling additional services (cross-selling or bundled offers)
Delight existing customers with exclusive offers
A comprehensive partner program will have a variety of partners motivated by different goals. Learning what motivates your partner in your initial meetings is one of the most important things you can do. When it comes to partner recruiting or initial kick-off calls, we’ve found asking “What are you hoping to achieve through partnerships this year and what has worked well for you in the past?” is a great place to start.
"First and foremost, it's crucial to foster good rapport with your partners built on communication and honesty. Second, you want to ensure there is a mutually beneficial relationship where both partners are satisfied with their return on investment, be it time, money, and effort. The third is the cherry-on-top: generating leads and closing deals. When collaborating with partners, be sure to think thought leadership first before sales. Think of what your audience wants to learn, carefully craft a narrative, provide credible and consistent value. Just as partner relationships thrive on honesty and communication, demand generation does."
-Analicia Santaella, Partner Marketing Manager, Tinuiti
If you understand what motivates your partners, you can create effective incentive programs. Here are a few common programs:
Referral Commission: Partner receives a flat dollar amount for every lead or opportunity they refer. Additional bonuses may be awarded for scheduling a discovery call, completing a demo, or when the lead converts to a deal.
Revenue Share: Partner receives a percentage of the sale they assisted with.
Pay-to-Play: This is typically an opportunity to leverage your partner’s network for promotion purposes. For example, you may purchase space in an upcoming newsletter.
Establishing goals that both parties agree to can help grow your partnership and ensure each organization is held accountable. Make sure you have the appropriate automation in place to track partner referrals, leads, campaigns, and contacts.
“There are many automation tools available that help channel companies scale and keep partners in the loop 24x7. This can include a Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solutions, where you have a central hub for partners to engage with you for business planning, sales enablement, and deal tracking.”
- Liz Anderson, Vice President of Marketing at APS Payments
It can take months or even years to build a trusted relationship, but you can lose it quickly if you aren’t upholding your end of the bargain by properly tracking and consistently reporting partner activity.
Here are a few examples of PRM tools and points on why we like them:
Allbound: A cloud-based channel sales and marketing platform for mid-sized to enterprise businesses known for ease of use and implementation.
Tune: A SaaS partner marketing platform that is particularly helpful for small businesses managing and reporting on several programs.
ImpartnerPRM: A SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution for small to mid-sized organizations that is known for its end-to-end features and customizable views.
How to Recruit the Best Partners
(01) ESTABLISH YOUR TARGET PARTNER LIST
Your initial list of partner prospects may start small, but a narrow focus is good at the beginning. You’ll want to spend as much time as you can focusing on quality partners and relationships. Quantity will come in time.
Every conversation you have with an existing or prospect partner should do two things:
Reinforce the value of partnering with your organization
Uncover best practices and key contacts who have helped your partner organizations
As you build out your target list, it’s important to track all of your efforts -- ideally in a CRM like Salesforce.com.
Here are the details you’ll want to track (at a minimum) to organize and report on your recruiting program:
Partner business name, location, size, website, etc.
Partner contacts and titles within each business
Email, call, and meeting details
Partner type and segment
Priority ranking against other prospect partners
Your internal contact managing the account
Where they fall in your pipeline (i.e., prospect, opportunity, partner, etc.)
If you're budget conscious and just starting to launch your partner strategy, a tool like excel will work for manual reporting. However, several CRMs automate reporting (and marketing) processes and offer competitive pricing. This blog from Gene Marks gives a detailed description of your options and their strengths and weaknesses.
(02) BUILD YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION AND KNOW THE OBJECTIONS
It’s important you thread your value proposition into every aspect of your recruiting process. Your value proposition succinctly summarizes why your partner or their customers are better off working with you.
The average successful sales call lasts less than 6 minutes, and you have about 37 seconds to deliver your pitch. Boil your value proposition down to three sentences or less.
Before you pick up the phone, outline your main points, value proposition, and any known or perceived objections.
Pro Tip: Leave yourself or your manager a series of pitch voicemails. The following day, review your voicemails and refine them from there. Practice this 30 times over or until you nail it!
(03) Market YOUR PROGRAM
While you may not have a full marketing team on staff, there are three things you need to market your partner program properly:
Website coverage. Is there a place on your website that outlines the scope, benefits, and FAQs of your partner program? Use existing partner logos for credibility. If target partners are interested, they will look at your website.
A pitch deck. Whether this is a Powerpoint, Google Slide, or a PDF document, make sure it’s a polished asset that shines the light on your company brand.
Digital and print program sheets. Create a one-pager to use in emails, display as a downloadable asset on your website, and a handout for events or in-person sales calls.
Make sure your messaging is consistent! You never want a pitch deck to conflict with your website.
(04) KEEP YOUR PROGRAM SUPER SIMPLE
In order to get your partners in the door and begin scaling your program, you’ll want to reduce the number of hoops, signatures, certificates, and programs that are required to get started. Some partners won’t want to spend time on the full “experience” you have to offer. They’re in it to provide value to their clients and want to get the information they need as quickly as possible
“In my 20+ years of experience being involved with partner programs, I’ve learned that the easier you make it for your partners to work with you, the faster you can scale because it helps remove any barriers to entry. For example, if you are working with referral partners, you typically do not want to require a partner program fee or time-intensive certifications. Instead, offer a partner agreement that is free to join, and simply ask the partner to commit to 2 key activities initially: Training and Marketing. These two activities help jump-start a partner’s commitment. As the partner gets ramped up, offer increased commission incentives based on their performance.”
- Liz Anderson, Vice President of Marketing at APS Payments
(05) BUILD Training That Scales
Training creates a foundation of knowledge about your products, solutions, or services.
Once a partner has signed your partner agreement or received your affiliate link, you should assume they have little to no knowledge about what you actually do. Keep in mind some products are easier to learn than others. Rather than ensuring partners understand every feature, create training that emphasizes what problem your product addresses for which market.
Don’t schedule an hour-long training and give your partner a product demo.
Prepare a formal presentation for an entire sales team, an abbreviated presentation for just a few people, and a handout or download that can be used self-study.
Here’s an outline of what you’ll want to include in your presentation:
Who are you
Business details (location, when you were founded, who works there)
Your partner value proposition
What problem your business solves
How big is this problem/market?
Prospect profile
Questions partners can ask their clients to introduce your solution
How it works (Again, don’t into the weeds unless you’re training a partner who might install your solution)
Any timely announcements or news (i.e., quarterly marketing or referral programs)
Training is often restricted by how much bandwidth your organization has. Before you invest in content, think about delivery and automation. Here are a few ideas to streamline your training:
Virtual webinars for several partners at once
On-site training at your partner’s office or location
One-on-one training over the phone
Pre-recorded or on-demand video training or a catalog of several videos
Downloadable guide/assets for self-training
Certification programs can be very involved and are only recommended for partners who focus on creating technology, implementation, or installation.
You should always initiate training with a new partner and find ways to make it fun, provide incentives, or gamify the process. A popular and free tool we use for in-person or group training is Kahoot! This tool allows you to create learning games, quizzes, and interactive presentations.
Need More Reach? Enable Your Partners to Market for You
This is what it’s all about, right?
Whether or not you excel at marketing, it’s critical to provide basic marketing materials for your partners. This will help you gain brand recognition, credibility, and potentially even leads!
Automating your marketing and having it readily available for your partners can help you scale, but anticipate that some partners will want customized content. When we asked Liz about partner marketing, she stressed the importance of balancing automation with personalization:
“Marketing Automation platforms also allow partner-centric organizations to co-brand demand generation marketing campaigns with partners, including landing pages, social media posts, and more. The one caveat is that you cannot automate everything. Successful partnerships are built on meaningful relationships, so only automate where the human element can be replaced.”
- Liz Anderson, Vice President of Marketing at APS Payments
WHAT’S IN A PARTNER MARKETING PACKAGE?
A partner marketing package can be as robust or low touch as you see fit. Certain partners, like technology or integration partners, will likely be more interested in heavily promoting your solution through campaigns. Marketing or referral partners may see promoting your solution as a necessity because their clients will need it, but they’ll be wary of inundating their audience.
The most successful programs we’ve seen provided partners with different levels of assistance. For example:
Bronze: Provide an affiliate link, logo file, company description, and basic email or newsletter copy announcing the partnership.
Silver: Provide an affiliate link, logo file, company description, and basic email or newsletter copy announcing the partnership. Co-host a webinar and publish a blog post that drives traffic to a co-branded landing page.
Gold: Provide an affiliate link, logo file, company description, and basic email or newsletter copy announcing the partnership. Co-host a webinar and publish a blog post that drives traffic to a co-branded landing page. Create a PR campaign. Agree to an annual marketing plan with seasonal blog posts, social media posts, and whitepapers or guides published 2-3x a year. Host an on-site event.
By curating multiple options, you make it easy for partners to amplify your brand.
Pro tip: Don’t forget to market to your partners! They need to stay in the loop about company updates, seasonal campaigns, or new certifications. Building a trusted and friendly relationship is key. Reach out to partners often, but keep the cadence respectable. Even if you do provide referral revenue, you’re likely not their main source of income! Use email automation for partner outreach, but always review email metrics to ensure you’re getting high engagement, opens, and clicks rather than bounces and unsubscribes.
THROUGH-PARTNER MARKETING DELIVERY
There are a number of platforms that facilitate through-partner marketing and campaigns, including the above-mentioned PRMs. While some campaigns can be purely automated (like a co-branded landing page and whitepaper to host on your website), there will be some activities that require hands-on coordination (such as webinars).
If you haven’t already done so, evaluate marketing operations in your organization. If you don’t have someone in marketing operations on staff, reach out to an expert ASAP.
“You can’t expect to scale quickly if you cannot track what is working and what is not working, as you won’t know where to put more focus. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to set up partner attribution tracking metrics for your channel that you can report on, whether it be via your CRM, email automation platform, or some other tool. I’ve had great success relying on campaign management within CRM platforms to track every activity with a partner that drives leads, and then ensuring campaign data flows from the lead all the way through to the opportunity and deal for full-funnel reporting and partner attribution.”
- Liz Anderson, Vice President of Marketing at APS Payments