A key benefit for organizations that develop a network of channel partners and affiliates is that they have more means to extend brand messaging and drive product/service awareness to new markets.

However, to truly succeed at reaching specific audiences in particular geographic areas, vendors must empower partners to go-to-market, both via traditional means such as print advertising, as well as digital methods like SEO, SEM, and social media. 

But multiple industry studies point out that national brands and vendors are missing out on the localization opportunity: A Borrell Associates study showed that out of $1.7 billion in online co-op marketing dollars available for local affiliates, an estimated $450 million goes unused, Shane Vaughan, CMO of Balihoo, shared in a recent Channel Marketer Report article.

“Localization is most essential for brands that have a service or consulting element tied to the product,” Vaughan said. “For example, verticals such as insurance, financial services, healthcare, and high-end home products (cabinets, hot tubs, etc). When purchasing these types of products, consumers want to have a relationship with the company and the service provider.”

With more B2B and B2C buyers tapping digital channels to research local content and information, businesses must rethink the solutions they’re leveraging to empower their partners. If they don’t they may face a series of challenges and obstacles.

Jared Shusterman, CEO and Managing Partner of SproutLoud, uncovered a variety of problems brands can suffer from if they don’t optimize local marketing:

• Branding inconsistency when local marketers advertise on their own;
•  Incongruous local messaging that contradicts national ads;
•  Improper offers and promotions;
• National vs. local product misalignment in marketing: The wrong product mix for a local community because the national marketing isn’t localized;
• Brand switching: Brands spend money driving customers in to local affiliates that push competitor products/services at the point of sale; and
• Inefficient and costly local execution due to local versioning and unique requirements.

“Brands have focused so long on the national branding strategy only to be undermined by its affiliates, resellers and channel partners at the local level,” Shusterman told Channel Marketer Report. “Brands are realizing that the two must go hand-in-hand so local sales and marketing are in alignment.”

3 Steps To Optimizing Local Marketing Strategies
As brands, vendors and manufacturers look more to their partners to extend brand and product awareness, there are three key best practices they can focus on.

1. Revamp co-op marketing programs: Buyers’ continued shift to online information gathering and researching processes has led to a gaping hold in co-op marketing programs: a lack of digital focus. Research from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Local Search Association (LSA) revealed a similar trend in missed opportunities, with fewer than 33% of manufacturers considering digital channels when mapping out a co-op ad strategy.

“That’s less than 10%, which is surprisingly low when you consider that most studies recommend a spend of about 30% in digital,” Vaughan reported in a recent blog post.

Moreover, organizations must strive to make co-op programs measurable, Vaughan added: “Implementing the procedures and technology that allow this tracking give national brands the visibility to understand what and who is working at the local level and increase their investment in these categories.”

2. Automate the process: Best-in-class organizations are investing in automated marketing technologies to ensuring branding is consistent but tailored to unique trends in specific geographies. The Localize To Optimize study from the CMO council reported that 30% of brands have embraced local marketing automation technologies and platforms and another 27% are investigating them.

“It is imperative to choose not only a technology, but also a supporting service system that is comprehensive, turnkey, and automated,” Shusterman advised. “The less time needed from the local partner, the better. Software and technology is a must-have to automate localization of marketing programs and content, but the end-user of this system is not a self-service user. They need stronger hand holding, more automation that does it for them, more programs that are turn-key with the strategy and tactical aligned from the beginning.”

3. Focus on education and enablement: Providing seamless access to marketing resources and collateral is important, but it is pointless if partners aren’t empowered to use them effectively. Live and web-based training programs and ongoing education help ensure partners and affiliates are up-to-date on marketing trends and best practices across channels, as well as the resources and tools made available to them.

“The best providers of distributed local marketing technology solutions will offer a strong service and support organization to help with training and education at launch and ongoing,” said Lori Alba, Marketing Director for brandmuscle. “E-blasts, how-to-guides and direct mail are all great ways to keep local affiliates informed and engaged. “In addition to these services, some local affiliates also need to know where to go for help in terms of creating local media plans, purchasing and buying media.”

Social media in particular should be a top priority for one-to-one training, Vaughan added, largely because optimal sharing and communication tactics through these channels are owned and developed by specific partners and affiliates. “These activities are fundamentally local,” he said. “Therefore, they can’t and shouldn’t be automated or owned by the national brand.”

Channel Affiliates And Partners Make Moves To Digital Marketing
More buyers are turning to we-based tools to research products and services. Research released by Google indicates that a majority (73%) of online search activity now is related to local content.

Organizations are ensuring they are found at a more local level by investing more in digital marketing channels, such as search, social media and email, to establish market presence, and better connect with buyers in a more personalized and intimate manner.

“Companies are shifting dollars to local digital tactics because these tactics reach the consumer when and where the consumer is investigating products,” Vaughan said. “Plus, from an aggregated perspective, digital program, when designed from the beginning for measurement, are easier to track and measure. This means PPC, SEO, email, local web sites and display all are going to grow rapidly in 2013.”

However, organizations must focus on leveraging marketing strategies that their target customers will reply more strongly to based on their unique wants and needs.

“Yes, digital marketing tactics may deliver outstanding ROI for one client or even industry vertical,” Alba said. “But it may not be the most effective way of spending for another. An effective mix is often the best answer and we evaluate and make recommendations to our clients and their local affiliates on a case-by-case basis.”

Many organizations rely on standard marketing resource management systems to ensure collateral is co-brandable and available on demand. Yet a lack of partner adoption is a key challenge and pain point, preventing these solutions from being effective across the channel.

“National brands are spending millions on technology – and making hundreds of million more available via co-op programs – yet their local resellers are not adopting their platforms,” Vaughan said. “This typically stems from a fundamental lack of understanding of the reseller. National brands need to better understand how and why their local resellers execute marketing tactics — or why not — and ensure their programs hit the key hot buttons with these local marketers: easy, affordable and effective.”

Due to the proven inefficiency of co-op programs and some MRM systems, many organizations are steering in a new direction, according to Shusterman: distributed marketing systems that are built with the technology and supporting services in mind to handle and support local affiliates. 

“Of course as local marketing spend is moving digitally, our brand clients are offering opportunities to move beyond traditional into social media and digital mediums like local search,” Shusterman added. “As distributed systems become fundamental in executing local marketing strategy, you’ll see a concerted effort by brands to merge traditional, social and digital into one plan that can be executed simultaneously by the local marketer.”  

More executives are working remotely and traveling to attend industry conferences and one-to-one meetings, making mobile-optimized content collateral a new imperative for vendors and their partners. In fact, mobile traffic has nearly quadrupled since January 2011 and accounted for about one in four web site visits in December 2012, according to research from Walker Sands.

To make the case for mobile-optimized content even stronger, Nielsen research indicates that as of December 2012, 45% of Americans own smartphones, while 25% use tablets. With these staggering results, it is evident that mobile marketing is the new must-have for organizations across the channel.

The official arrival of the mobile B2B buyer is making it imperative for vendors and their partners to offer seamless access to email campaigns, white papers, E-books and even videos via smartphones and tablets. If they don’t, channel marketers and sales teams can be faced with poor lead generation results, which will have an extreme impact on the bottom line.

Findings from the 2012 Content Preferences Survey, released by Demand Gen Report, confirmed the new need for mobile-friendly assets: 38% of buyers said they access business-related content on mobile devices more frequently than ever before. Regarding how their content consumption habits have changed, 34% of respondents said they prefer mobile-optimized content for access on a tablet or mobile device.

Because more decision-makers are demanding instant access to optimized content, “it is becoming more critical for organizations to make sure prospects receive effective messaging via mobile devices,” according to Ken Romley, CEO of Zift Solutions. While most partners currently don’t have the experience or resources to deliver mobile optimized lead generation campaigns, Romley added that vendors can improve results by providing this mobile optimization to their partner networks.

The Mobile-Email Connection
When it comes to consumer behavior and business marketing on mobile devices, the growth statistics are always staggering. Some recent research from Pew Internet, for example, show that a vast majority (87%) of smartphone owners check the Internet or email on their phones, including 68% who do so every day. As many as 25% of respondents said they “mostly go online using their phone, rather than with a computer.”

That last number is an important one. “Rather than with a computer” shows that mobile is on a fast track to be the dominant, rather than secondary, content-consumption screen.

This also is clearly a case where consumer behavior will have a direct impact on B2B buyer behavior. With 70 million people now accessing email by phone in the U.S., for example, considering mobile platforms for lead generation and other marketing tactics has gone from nice to necessary.

“Like it or not we are all already marketing on mobile devices,” said Giles House, VP at Callidus Cloud, which operates the Lead Formix platform. “There are some obvious differences between reading on a mobile and a laptop/desktop such as size and formatting, and a ‘call to action’ can be exactly that — a call now.”

House also pointed out the challenges involved in reaching mobile users. “One of the other big differences is people’s attention spans when flicking through emails on a mobile; we are almost always doing something else while trying to skim and digest a sales pitch we probably didn’t ask for,” he explained. “We have to hold the attention of our audience whatever the medium, but marketers must pay more attention when trying to reach a mobile audience.”

Grabbing The Attention Of Mobile Buyers
For B2B and channel marketers, an obvious key to “paying attention” to mobile users is the relationship between content and design. Mobile platforms play by a different set of rules for creating and presenting content, and experts agree that B2B marketers ignore these at their peril.

“Many companies are still behind and are not optimizing the web experience for mobile, which is incredibly damaging for their brands,” said Steve Woods, CTO of Eloqua. “There have been countless studies that show a consumer will abandon a web site in less than five seconds if the experience is unsatisfactory. Now that we know potential buyers are reading our emails and visiting our web sites from their mobile devices, marketers need to make the appropriate adjustments.”

“Remember that viewable real estate on mobile devices is limited – even for those that render HTML emails,” Woods said. “So, while colorful displays and large images are what we may gravitate toward to help promote our messages, keeping it simple for the sake of mobile will be beneficial in the end.”

3 Best Practices For Mobile Lead Nurturing
For marketing and sales organizations considering tools with mobile-ready features, House recommended looking at three areas where best practices have emerged.

Readability: It is important to get the readability aspect correct for the mobile environment to ensure campaign success and stickiness. All content, links, destination pages should be mobile-optimized and presented in a consistent manner.

Testing: Marketers increasingly demand the ability to test/preview content on multiple email clients and devices. Verifying cross-platform delivery should be a mandatory step in executing any new campaign.

Analysis: Marketers need to understand which prospects/customers are coming in on mobile devices; which devices they are using; and how engagement, abandonment and behavioral patterns vary across these devices. All of this data can play an important role in a marketing organization’s overall campaign analytics.

The Problem: With local searches constituting 24% of all Google queries, and 45% of all Yelp searches happening on a mobile app, the interdependence of brands and local businesses is more evident than ever before. Businesses rely on brands for marketing resources and assets promoting the products and services that bring customers through the door. Brands rely on businesses to push those campaigns out to a pool of targeted, local clientele. So why is it so hard to bring these two together?

The Solution: It is not just about asset management and ad builders anymore; brands and businesses alike require intelligent solutions that simplify the marketing process, making it faster and easier to execute on local marketing plans. That’s where SproutLoud delivers. Whether it’s email or direct mail, PPC advertising, social media management, or local search optimization with online review monitoring, SproutLoud was designed to enable brands to provide their local marketers with high-quality branded assets and messaging.

More importantly, the SproutLoud platform helps local merchants take full advantage of process automation, triggered events and even dedicated Local Marketing Consultants. As a result, organizations can spend less time worrying about their marketing, and more time running their businesses. Full-feature analytics, tracking and reporting give brands the tools they need to pinpoint which partners and end users are participating in programs, identify trends in real time and take advantage of new market opportunities.

 The Perks: By focusing on streamlining the marketing process and offering dedicated support services, SproutLoud is helping companies improve marketing efforts by enabling brands and businesses to market to local consumers more effectively and efficiently.

Email is still a top touch point for all B2B marketing strategies — especially among channel players. Yet even the most subtle nuances can impact whether an email gets opened, or whether it is simply “dead on arrival.”

According to new research from Kentico, a web content and customer experience management solution provider, consumers’ engagement with email marketing is somewhat lagging. More than three fourths (77%) of people said they were unlikely to read unsolicited email messages, even if they aligned with personal interests. Moreover, respondents said that of the email programs they subscribe to, they only read a quarter (36%) or half (26%) of the messages.

More than 300 U.S. residents 18 years and older participated in the Kentico Email Marketing Survey, which was conducted during August 2013. The report is the third installment of the Kentico Digital Experience Research series, which launched earlier this year.

Poor response to email marketing may be due to the overall quality of the campaigns, according to the Kentico survey. Only 32% of people say email marketing has improved over the last five years. Meaning the products, services and content, overall, appeal to their interests. Nearly the same percentage of respondents (31%), however, said email efforts have actually gotten worse over time.

But email relevancy and frequency also have an impact on email engagement and click-through rates: 38% of respondents said they mark email as spam if companies email them too much, while 26% said they do so when the messages don’t contain anything of interest.

As marketers struggle to send the right message to the right customer at the right time, email campaigns are having less of an impact on accelerating the buying cycle. Nearly half (45%) of respondents said they perform an “action,” such as learning more about a product or redeeming a coupon, only once or twice a month. Others said they participate in email marketing calls-to-action three or four times per month (21%), and five or six times per month (8%). However, 18% of respondents said they will never respond to a call-to-action.

“Our research shows even as marketers become better at catering to the interests of email recipients, they still face an uphill battle in reaching customers in ways that resonate,” said Petr Palas, Founder and CEO of Kentico. “This means while generating leads via email is still important, new customers must be discovered via other channels, such as social media, search, and more. It also underscores the need to keep customers engaged on a variety of fronts, as even willful subscribers of marketing email tend to ignore much of these messages in their inbox.”

WebbMason, an integrated marketing solutions and services company, has launched MarketingBench 2.0, an SaaS marketing automation application for the creation, sourcing, deployment and measurement of integrated marketing programs. The solution is designed to help marketers manage print collateral, promotional items and event promotions, as well as digital marketing, in a central location. 

“The central principle of cross-channel marketing is engaging the customer through the right channel at the right time. First generation marketing automation solutions focus on digital channels — mainly email and social,” said Doug Traxler, Chief Development Officer and EVP of Sales and Marketing for WebbMason, in a statement. “MarketingBench 2.0 is truly multichannel and cross-channel. MarketingBench 2.0 automates the integration of physical marketing programs and assets such as direct mail, brochures and point-of-purchase displays, and digital marketing into a unified campaign.”

Along with centralized marketing resources, MarketingBench 2.0 also will offer cross-channel reporting, channel profiles, the ability to outline marketing materials and programs for event-driven and seasonal promotions, and automate the acknowledgement, tracking and fulfillment of requests from internal and external components.

By Jared Shusterman, Managing Partner and CEO, SproutLoud

Triggered marketing — the practice of basing a marketing communication’s content, timing, and delivery medium on measureable events relevant to the consumer — has been around for some time.  Despite that, “less than 20% of marketing organizations today,” are doing it correctly, according to Adam Sarner, Research VP at Gartner.  If triggered marketing were a marginally valuable tactic, then its weak embrace by channel organizations could be perceived as warranted. To the contrary, virtually every statistic I run across shows that triggered marketing’s payoff is well worth the investment.

Why is triggered marketing important for brands selling in the channel dynamic?

1. Brands that sell through channel partners are involved in the complex spider webs of VARs, retailers, franchisees or the like, where opportunities for brand-partner alignment to grow sales gets lost, Triggered Marketing is precedent setting data-focused collaboration.
2. Brand and partner get to work together to create personalized communications that foster customer loyalty and an emotional connection to both partner and brand, leading to customer retention.
3. Channel partners do not have the bandwidth to create and send personalized and precisely timed messages at scale. 
4. Because customers receive messages and touch points in the context of relevant dates and behaviors, message fatigue is less likely.

 If it is powerful, then why is it underutilized by channel organizations?

In short, it’s because triggered marketing requires integrated systems that take advantage of in-depth customer data. For traditional email or direct mail, you buy a list, develop a few templates for the communications, batch them, and blast them out. To apply triggered marketing to email and direct mail, you need a minimum of the following:

1. A customer database with data about significant dates, such as customer birthdays, when customers made certain purchases, projected contract renewals, etc.  It is even better if your database takes into account behavioral variables like increased or diminished ordering or an abandoned shopping cart.
2. A repository of all templates and content you need for communications.
3. An email marketing software or service, and a direct mail distribution system, which syncs with marketing assets in the repository and queried results of your customer database.           
4. A way to track redemption.

 The underutilization of triggered marketing is also part of a larger problem; brands that sell through channel partners have a hard time managing the communications lifecycle with customers because customer data is owned and controlled by those channel partners. Despite the fact that partners can benefit greatly from applying brand level resources to their local customer data, access to that data is often tightly held, as partners sometimes fear brands will circumvent them if given direct access to customers. The brand must extend the olive branch to get access to data, that when used in triggered communications, will increase brand and channel partner revenue.

To gain access to partner data, brands must do the following:

• Work with a vendor that will deploy marketing tactics across traditional, digital and social channels, while serving as the neutral intermediary that guards sacred data and keeps brand and partner interests at heart.
• Reiterate the intermediary’s independence from the brand.  The brand must reassure channel partners through messaging and a well-defined data policy that there is no risk of the brand monopolizing partner data and cannibalizing partner sales.
• Be loud and clear that they are taking on maintenance and fine-tuning for triggered communications. 
• Offer turnkey opt-in participation for channel partners to receive maximum adoption.    

Brands can learn a lot collaborating with their partners and the right vendor to execute triggered marketing.  Brand creative departments have to think of all events that are relevant (on which to base triggered communications) in the context of the relationship between brand and consumer, experienced vendors should also be able to consult on this.

There are four event categories businesses can tap:

1. Fixed or Transactional Events: Predicable and or reoccurring events based on fixed customer information or normal transactional behavior. Event examples are birthdays, customer onboarding, service renewal dates, etc.

2. Behavioral Events: Actions or inactions a customer takes to further engage or disengage with a business. Event examples are account activity, web form submittal or give up, shopping cart abandonment, etc. 

3. Environmental Events: Changes in external factors that can make a customer more aware of a particular offer. Event examples are weather, public health, legislation, and social inertia or consciousness changes.  

4. Behavior Shift Events: A big event that will change a customer’s relationship with a brand. Event examples include moving, pregnancy, buying a car, etc.       

Creative marketing departments for large brands will discover the events that are relevant to customers, and which of those events make most sense for brands to address in the context of their relationship with those customers. The execution of the email or direct mail campaigns to deliver that clever, relevant, and timely messaging can be done in-house or through the vendor relationship I discussed above. If a vendor is sought, they should have experience executing triggered communications within the channel dynamic. 

Local marketing automation does not equal local marketing standardization. Triggered marketing done correctly helps channel partners be even better at what they are best at: Providing that personal touch.  The task for the brand is automating personalization at scale for their channel partners; triggered email and direct mail are indispensable tools for doing just that.         

Jared Shusterman is Managing Partner and CEO at SproutLoud Media Networks. In 2005, as a recent graduate of the McIntire School at the University of Virginia, and working for investment banking practice Thomas Weisel Partners, Shusterman moved to Miami to start SproutLoud before the pressures of fatherhood and a mortgage could scare him out of entrepreneurship. Always looking for something new to learn, he’s recently started Spanish lessons and is currently an MBA-candidate with Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University. He’s an aspiring pilot with a fear of flying (weird) and likes any spicy food that makes him cry (same goes for chick-flicks). Shusterman was honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Entrepreneur in 2010 by South Florida Business Journal, and a top 50 Entrepreneur in 2012 by Business Leader Magazine.

The Problem: Email is still an important channel for marketers to engage with prospects. However, vendors and partners struggle to fully gauge whether their emails are resonating. This can be caused by the inability to track prospect engagement via email throughout their purchase decision.

The Solution: Seventh Sense is a marketing and sales software platform designed to help users understand their customers’ email behaviors in an effort to increase engagement and conversion rates. The platform aims to recognize who is engaging with particular pieces of content and their frequency across marketing campaigns and email channels.

With Seventh Sense, users are positioned to:

• Increase open, click, conversion and response rates through personalizing the delivery time of your sales and marketing emails;
• Improve deliverability with marketing campaigns;
• Reduce unsubscribe rates in marketing campaigns; and
• Streamline collaboration between marketing and sales.

Seventh Sense currently integrates with HubSpot’s marketing automation platform and CRM, as well as with Salesforce. Data sources include HubSpot, Gmail, Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange.

The Perks: The platform is also able Identify prospects’ email service provider to enhanced marketing through Google’s Customer Match. This positions users to create quality messaging in a way that will resonate with their prospects without being limited by unfamiliar formatting.

Zift Solutions, a leading provider of channel marketing and management solutions, has launched a fully integrated software platform that automates the spectrum of activities required for sales, marketing, and operational processes.

Zift Channel as a Service (CHaaS) integrates all of the multiple and traditionally disparate applications modern channel organizations require. As a result, suppliers can more easily generate revenue from their channel by simplifying planning, partner recruitment, partner enablement, demand generation, customer transactions and lifecycle management.

“We know that integration has been a major stumbling block for channel programs,” wrote Ken Romley, Zift Solutions president and CEO. “With Channel as a Service, we’re extending our best-of-breed channel marketing and management solutions.” The new service eases the burden of integration by ensuring all of the new functionality channel organizations require works seamlessly with the systems, applications and infrastructure already in place.

“Integration remains the primary reason for channel program delays and failures,” said Laz Gonzalez, chief strategy officer for Zift Solutions in a company statement. By providing an end-to-end solution that co-exists with existing applications and infrastructure, Zift Channel as a Service provides the ease of use and adoption channel leaders have requested, the company said.

Zift also announced the launch of its new, fully integrated partner relationship management solutions. Zift PRM, a core element of Zift Channel as a Service, enables channel organizations to capture partner mindshare, nurture mutually rewarding relationships and drive breakthrough performance for channel programs of all sizes.

The new PRM suite includes integrated tools for partner program management, recruitment and onboarding, and deal registration and management. A full range of self- and managed services underlie all Channel as a Service technology components, including PRM, to further ensure success.

Zift Channel as a Service will extend other Zift Solutions best-of-breed channel marketing and management  solutions. These include learning management solutions and configure price and quote (CPQ) solutions. Using Channel as a Service, channel organizations will be able to see and manage leads, incentives, data and publishing through one, easy-to-use platform – or directly within already implemented CRM and SFA systems.

Learn more about Zift Channel as a Service here.

Averetek, Perks Worldwide (Perks WW), and Birch Worldwide have fully integrated their core products to jointly sell them to businesses looking for channel incentive, channel loyalty and channel marketing solutions.

The integrated Campaign Marketplace, a sales and marketing demand generation solution, allows partners to see their available MDF/co-op balance, browse marketplace services like telemarketing, social media advertising, and original content development, and submit requests to agencies for those services.

Peter Thomas, CEO of Averetek, believes that by providing partners with this seamlessly integrated platform, funding, and best-in-class agency services, funds will be used more effectively to drive results for partners and suppliers.

“Through our collaboration with Perks and Birch, we’re able to provide brands and their channel partners with a frictionless way of spending their MDF and co-op dollars,” said Thomas. “More importantly, our combined solution allows brands to see the true ROI of their MDF, co-op and incentive programs, which helps them make smart decisions.”

Perks WW CEO and co-founded, Jeff Ford, said the integration was built on an earlier collaboration by the companies. “In 2016, we focused on integrating channel rewards, rebates, MDF/co-op, and a campaign marketplace, but a full DNA integration of these and other products has followed,” he stated.

“The market has evolved,” added Claudio Ayub, Perks WW Chief Strategy Officer. “The channel loyalty industry must stimulate loyalty and grow sales within specific segments of its distribution and reseller channels throughout the globe.”

Salesforce, a global leader in CRM, has introduced a new partner relationship management (PRM) app. Sales Cloud Partner Relationship Management, an amalgamation of new and existing Salesforce technologies, is designed to allow companies to build modern, branded partner communities, the company said.

A new guided setup wizard will enable channel managers to easily configure, customize and deploy the app. Using the interactive wizard, channel managers will be able to seamlessly configure lead distribution, deal registration, marketing development funds and AppExchange Components, such as Xactly for compensation management and NetExam for a learning management system.

Additionally, channel managers will be able to automatically assign partners into tiers and provide targeted promotions and customized content based on those tiers.

Customized Partner Experiences

Lightning CMS Connect will allow channel managers to create a customized, branded partner experience. Channel managers will be able to drag and drop existing website content, graphics and videos ensuring partner portals stay as up-to-date as a company’s website.

The company’s Einstein Content Recommendations feature will use machine learning to surface files that enable channel reps to be more productive. For example, if a partner views a new product description document, Einstein will recommend files, including logo graphics, product placement instructions and pricing documentation for that new product.

Channel Marketing Automation will extend the power of Marketing Cloud to every partner, enabling them to build, track and analyze email campaigns to deliver 1:1 customer journeys on any device. Companies will be able to ensure partners are using the right messaging and collateral as they implement their own marketing initiatives.

Mike Micucci, GM and SVP, Salesforce Products, commented that Sales Cloud PRM fills the need of many companies. It is “a turnkey app that enables them to extend the world’s best CRM to their partners,” he said.

Sales Cloud PRM is generally available now with the Partner Community Cloud License. The new Guided Setup Wizard, Einstein Content Recommendations and Channel Marketing Automation are expected to be generally available in the second half of 2017. Lightning CMS Connect will be in beta in June 2017.

Datto, Inc. a leading provider of total data protection solutions, announced the official launch of a new global marketing automation platform to support its 6,000 managed service providers (MSP).

MarketNow, which is being run on the MindMatrix platform, enables partners to utilize pre-written content to create campaigns, social media posts, web pages and branded collateral. Available free to all Datto MSPs, the platform does not require extensive training nor marketing expertise. Since the platform’s pre-launch in March, MarketNow has been used by more than 1,600 Datto partners.

The new platform will enable Datto MSPs to better market, sell, and service the company’s business continuity, networking and SaaS Protection product lines. At Datto’s DattoCon event in June, the company introduced an expansion to its flagship all-flash SIRIS 3X line, an all-new ALTO 33 device targeting smaller environments, a new architecture for Datto SaaS Protection services, updates to the new Datto Networking portfolio, and significant enhancements to the company’s partner portal.

The Datto Partner Portal allows the company’s MSPs to purchase, educate, manage and market products in one location. Several new dashboards are available in the portal including a device status compresses view, networking status page, SaaS status page, and mobile status page.

MarketNow Concierge Services

Datto is also offering its partners MaketNow Concierge Services. Available from MindMatrix for a monthly fee starting at $250, MarketNow Concierge Services include four hours of sales and marketing support per month for activities ranging from sending emails and editing landing pages to importing and organizing leads and sales assets.

Subscribers also have access to pre-packaged content including emails, blog posts, social posts, e-guides, landing pages and sales playbook.

MarketNow Concierge Services allow Datto partners to leverage the MarketNow platform to its full potential, said Kevin Hospodar, director of marketing at MindMatrix. Many partners are often “working in the business, rather than on business,” he said, and lack the sales and marketing resources and skills needed to grow their business. The MindMatrix service offering is specifically designed to address the challenges these companies face.

Datto partners can learn more about MarketNow Concierge Services here.

Email fatigue is growing more common for partners as most are now working with many vendors at any given time and end up feeling bombarded by associated, incoming communications. As incoming emails pile up, yours may be completely overlooked. How do you float to the top of their inbox?

In this e-book, Channel Maven Consulting shares five important steps to improve communications with channel partners so they won’t feel bombarded. Learn how your channel partners prefer to receive communications, and how to define your audience to more effectively address their needs and give partner communications a make-over.

WinGreen Marketing Systems, Inc., a provider of content marketing, lead generation, and account based marketing services for B2B technology companies, has launched an channel advisory service practice.

Services include channel strategy, program and organization development, go-to-market support, partner recruiting and planning, and comprehensive channel marketing support that leverages WinGreen’s full-service marketing functions.

The channel advisory service practice is led by Denise N. Montgomery, a 20-year veteran of channels and alliances at enterprise software companies, including Oracle and SAP, where she managed global relationships with Accenture, Microsoft, NTT DATA and many others.

The full set of channel advisory services is available immediately.

When a partner recognizes a major opportunity for a vendor to benefit from an unexpected market opportunity, success can hinge on the ability of the brand to help the partner react quickly, efficiently, and effectively.

Challenges

When Toshiba announced that it was exiting the telecommunications business – suddenly leaving a number of dealers without a product to sell – Teleco, a reseller of voice systems, video surveillance, data solutions and similar products saw a good opportunity to grow its business.

At the time, Teleco was already an NEC partner, distributing the company’s products through a nationwide network of dealers for 16 years. If NEC could support a marketing campaign targeting the dealers that had been selling Toshiba’s telecom products, Teleco was confident it could capture a share of that business.

Solution

Working with the NEC channel marketing team, Teleco assembled a list of dealerships, including email addresses and additional contact info. NEC also helped Teleco plan an email campaign, crafting message designed to get the attention of the targeted dealers.

The campaign was executed using the ZINFI Technologies channel marketing automation platform, leveraging assets from the NEC partner portal. The ZINFI platform automated delivery of the emails and tracked campaign metrics in its reporting module.

Results

With the help of the ZINFI marketing automation platform, Teleco distributed 243 emails across four different release dates. The dealers responded to the emails positively — 93% of the emails were delivered successfully, half of them were opened, and 16% of the recipients clicked through to the Teleco site.

To date, Teleco reports that is has signed up 47 new dealers to sell NEC solutions. Gary Sarmento, Teleco’s executive VP of sales, said he expects to net more dealers in the weeks and months ahead, noting that “we’re continuing with our recruiting process.”

Sarmento gave credit for much of the success of the campaign to the ZINFI support team. “One of the things that absolutely impressed us was, when we had a little bit of difficulty or weren’t sure how to do something, the response from the support team at ZINFI was just phenomenal.”

Turnaround time on support calls was short. Answers or solutions were communicated “not in days, but hours,” Said Sarmento. “It was very, very impressive.”

Problem:  Successfully executing channel marketing initiatives can be a challenge for organizations, large or small. Not only are you relying on partners to actively market your products and generate demand, but do so in a way that represents your brand accurately. The simple truth is that most can’t, due to limited time, skills and resources. And, without the right capabilities, they are less likely to participate in channel marketing programs, making conversion of leads into sales difficult through partners.

In addition to the low levels of buy-in from partners, many organizations are lacking effective measurements and metrics into how partners are performing, which would allow for insight and improvement. All of these challenges combined are a serious threat for a company’s marketing strategy, especially for sales models that rely heavily on channel partners.

Solution: TIE Kinetix’s FLOW Partner Automation is the first self-service partner automation platform. FLOW is designed to generate demand with a single integrated sales and marketing command center for a company and its partners – making it much easier for partners to participate without requiring extra time or resources.

In addition, the platform gives organizations complete brand control by automating content, campaigns and marketing tactics across partner channels. With a self-service process that is easy to use, channel partners can subscribe themselves to content, campaigns and programs.

It also facilitates lead management and improves sales conversion. The platform provided insights and analytics into channel performance to help brands know which partners are driving sales, and what’s causing potential issues like reduced lead conversions.

There are many modules within the FLOW platform for every aspect of the channel, each hosted under one of TIE Kinetix’s four main branches: Brand Control & Demand Generation, Lead & Sales Conversion, System & Supply Chain Integration and Analytics & Optimization. A few of the main modules on the marketing side include:

• Campaign Center: These modules allow vendors to create campaigns with all types of content and tools directly through their partner’s website at a scheduled date. (e.g. banners, landing pages within showcase, email, social, partner locator, PPC)
• Showcase Syndication: This module allows vendors to syndicate a microsite to their partners’ websites. Vendors typically syndicate rich content, highlighting products and solutions with landing pages and lead capture forms that will send leads directly to the partners.
• Social Media Syndication: Allows vendors to publish social messages through partners’ social identities. It also lets the vendor direct the end user to relevant, syndicated content on the partners’ website via our unique deep-linking feature.
• Google AdWords for Channel: Enables the vendor to generate qualified traffic to their partner websites through Google Pay-Per-Click advertising. All advertisements are connected to geographically relevant partners for the end user. Traffic is always directed to relevant syndicated content on the partner’s website via the deeplinking feature. This feature was developed as a strategic partnership with Google AdWords and is also delivered as extension of the Google AdWords program. This module helps combat the issue of partners often competing with other partners or even brands selling the same products or services.

Perks: FLOW creates a seamless brand and sales experience to-and-through partners, ensuring their entire independent indirect channel is a natural extension of their brand. Businesses working with partners can accelerate and optimize the entire partner-customer journey by automating sales, marketing and fulfillment processes. Results include higher revenue, faster velocity between partner processes and higher efficiency due to reduction in complexity.

Additionally, FLOW seamlessly integrates with any existing third-party system like CMS, Marketing Automation, PRM, Sales Automation, ERP and many more to further reduce costly manual work and errors.

Channel marketers may finally have their own industry bible. Marketing Multiplied: A real-world guide to Channel Marketing for beginners, practitioners, and executives, is the very first book about the profession, say authors Mike Moore, Averetek’s VP of Strategy, and Peter Thomas, the company’s founder and CEO.

The just-published book, which explores how to engage channel partners, create programs that generate outcomes, develop content, and provide meaningful incentives to channel partners, is already earning high praise from industry experts.

Channel Marketer Report sat down with Moore and Thomas to learn more about Marketing Multiplied and why they wrote it.

CMR — Marketing Multiplied is an interesting title. On the positive side, it sounds like a comment on the exponential value that effective channel marketing programs can generate. On the other hand, it could reflect how challenging channel marketing can be. Is it a little of both?

Mike Moore — We think it’s the first, actually. The channel represents an opportunity for brands to really effectively amplify a message across a broad cross section of companies. That’s why you see a lot of people going to market with a channel – or trying to build a channel — because, quite frankly, that’s going to bring them the most amount of deals in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of cost.

If you compare the alternatives of hiring a direct sales force, paying them, and training them and doing all the things that a channel can do for you, there really is no way to do it efficiently. We think that that’s the opportunity… the power to multiply your brand and your message in the marketplace.

CMR – Do you think brands have been missing out on the opportunities that a more robust channel marketing program could create?

Mike Moore, VP of Strategy, Averetek

Mike Moore — There are many organizations who really have channel in their DNA. But there are many companies that are looking for growth and a channelized opportunity to grow. But when the rubber hits the road, there are many direct folks – both on the sales and marketing and even executive side of things – who don’t really believe in and entrust the channel.

They need some convincing and we think the book can be useful to help – because there is no resource today that people can hand to an executive and say, “If you really want to understand channel marketing and what the potential is, as well as how best-in- class companies do it, read this.”

That’s where we see Marketing Multiplied being that kind of resource to those people. If they are unconvinced, if they’re skeptical about the channel, if they don’t understand the potential, and how to really grow their voice in the market, we believe that the book will answer that and give them a framework for how best to do that.

CMR — What do you think surprises most people about channel marketing – those new to it and even experienced marketers?

Peter Thomas — We think it’s how hard it is to get and maintain a partner’s attention and to get them to do something “meaningful.” Partners are hearing from a lot of different people, a lot of different brands. You’ve got 20 lines you are carrying all wanting you to spend a couple of minutes of your time doing something.

Peter Thomas, founder and CEO, Averetek

I think that brands really underestimate how difficult it is to get partners to pay attention to them. To keep that attention in a truly meaningful way, we lay out a series of tactics that we think are just disruptive enough to keep and maintain a partner’s attention for a brand.

When you think about really competitive spaces like a flash storage, for example, you’ve got so many vendors in there, all vying for the same partner’s attention in mindshare. The one that is going to get the most is the one that cuts through the noise.

Mike Moore — Yes, I agree with that. It’s such an attention economy that we all operate in and there are so many other resources that people have access to.

This is really a point of view we take in the book. As channel marketers, what we’re telling people is to treat your channel partners like a marketing audience. That you need to reach out with a message that will educate them, that will inspire them, that will cause them to take action.

Don’t take things for granted. Take that partner audience and treat them like you would your customers and lay a good foundation of information that makes sense to them. Then offer them opportunities to take advantage of whatever benefits you’re laying out.

CMR — As you were writing this book, were there any revelations about channel marketing that surprised you?

Mike Moore — I think the big piece for us was recognizing the significance of making the connection between the modern buyer’s journey and the way we all go to market with to-, with through-, and for-partner marketing, and that those worlds are really disconnected in many ways.

What we believe is the most important discovery is making the connection on how you bring those pieces together and leverage the way you need to participate in this attention economy — working together with the brand to bring out more learning content, more messaging that is going to help people, and then eventually lay out the product and solution messaging that will cause them to buy.

We feel like that was a gap in the market; that there was an opportunity to fill with a framework that gave very specific guidance about how to accomplish that. Everything else comes together underneath that framework but to us that was the most important piece that we felt was missing.

CMR — Real-world guides can get out of date pretty quickly. What are some of the things you’re going to need to address in Marketing Multiplied – Second Edition?

Mike Moore — There are some new things that we’re working on at Averetek that we think will influence the channel. Some of those ideas are around the channel data management side of things and how partners can care and cultivate their own channel marketing data.

I think it’s going to be an important initiative. We’re taking that on as part of our product family and introducing a new set of artificial intelligence-based services to help with improvements around contact data when it comes to reaching out and connecting with customers and also how we work with partner data.

I think that as those ideas prove out, I could see that coming into the next edition of the book. We’re working on an Alexa skill for Averetek that is going to offer daily channel marketing ideas and advice. Again, that’s another idea and concept that we’re piloting that we think could be interesting for channel-based companies as well.

Peter Thomas — As Amazon makes a bigger push into the corporate side, we’re predicting that you’re going to see brands and channel marketers specifically embrace devices like Alexa that can create teaching moments for people. We don’t expect anybody’s going to buy something necessarily through their Alexa device but it’s more about how can you create a learning opportunity for a prospect. Either through a newsflash or a flash briefing or something like that, it gets them to engage with you in just a different way. Perhaps those come into play in the second edition of the book.

Mike Moore — We’ve been really encouraged. It’s kind of funny when you write a book, especially first time authors like Peter and me, and you release it to the market and you get feedback from people. We had some generous folks who helped us as we were working through the drafts, read it and gave feedback.

Now releasing the book, I’m sure that we’re going to get more feedback from people and that’ll certainly shape if there are questions that people felt weren’t answered or they want to share their take on things. I think now that the project is out in the open, we’re going to benefit from hearing from others as well. We’ll welcome that, of course, and we look forward to hearing people’s thoughts and suggestions.

—

More information about Marketing Multiplied is available here. The book is currently available from Amazon.

LogicBay Corporation, a company that helps clients build, scale and optimize their sales channels, announced the release of its ChannelStack technology solution. Built on the solid foundation of LogicBay’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, ChannelStack is designed to help companies achieve revenue growth by providing solutions needed in the sales channel such as partner onboarding, lead flow management, partner training and enablement, and monitoring key metrics.

“Our ChannelStack offering combines the strength of our core product with the power of tightly integrated best-of-breed applications to address the business requirements and workflows of companies managing and selling through the indirect channel,” said Dave Goulet, Chief Technology Officer at LogicBay.

The new solution enables companies to easily manage connections to additional off-the-shelf or in-house applications that cater to their unique requirements and infrastructure. “Everything comes together in our core PRM module to offer a very flexible solution for managing partner hierarchies, managerial relationships, content access, lead flow, certification, and more,” said Goulet.

Among the technologies that are integrated into ChannelStack are those from solution providers including SproutLoud, Brainshark, Sisense, Videonitch, DocuSign, Hawk Incentives, and Slack. “Companies can choose to add as many or as few of these solutions to their ChannelStack,” said Seth Jacobsen, LogicBay’s VP,Sales & Marketing. “Licensing agreements for selected solutions are automatically included in ChannelStack pricing,” he explained, “which helps to streamline the process of building out a comprehensive channel management solution.”

If companies are already running any of these technologies, integrating existing implementations into their ChannelStack is frictionless. Likewise, other channel management and marketing solutions can be easily integrated into the technology.

For companies that want to scale an indirect channel from scratch, ChannelStack has the entire package of functionality needed by a channel manager in one integrated, software stack.  “We don’t buy a car one major component at a time and then try to put it together ourselves and expect it to work. In the software space we seem to have that mentality,” said Jacobsen.

The ease with which best-of-breed or in-house applications can be added to ChannelStack enables it to scale to the needs of a wide range of channel-focused companies. Jacobsen said that ChannelStack can be configured to align with partner programs at emerging growth companies, established vendors that are scaling programs to meet new requirements, as well as large, global companies that are focused on continuous improvement.

Problem:  At AuDeo, a Barco, Inc. partner specializing in meeting room technology, getting the attention of IT decision makers was becoming increasingly difficult. Product-specific messaging was attracting less interest from potential customers. So AuDeo, a UK-based company, determined that it needed to develop email marketing campaigns highlighting customer stories that focused on solving IT problems with better meeting room technology. “IT challenges are our ‘sweet spot,” said AuDeo marketing manager, Sarah Roberts.

Solution:  AuDeo was continuously trying new and different approaches, utilizing partner resources and branding when and where it could. When Roberts took a closer look at the partner support offered by Barco, a visualization and collaboration solutions provider, she was intrigued.

Utilizing ZINFI channel marketing automation solutions, Barco’s Barco Connect! partner program offers turnkey, customer-story-focused email campaigns. In addition to powering the Barco Connect! partner portal, ZINFI also provided concierge services that trained Roberts to quickly set up and launch a pilot email marketing campaign with customizable assets.

Roberts discovered it was simple to upload prospect lists and set up campaigns and microsites on her own using the portal’s email templates. “We were able to launch the campaigns quite easily,” she said. “It takes you step-by-step through the elements you need to do, so it’s very quick to set up the email and launch it.”

All components of the campaigns were aligned with Barco branding guidelines. And ZINFI concierge support provided during the end-user follow-up process helped AuDeo generate and nurture the maximum number of leads through conversion to opportunity.

Results: Initial results were promising. AuDeo immediately generated a number of qualified leads from the campaign, one of which culminated in the sale of six Barco ClickShare wireless presentation systems valued at around $10,000. “We were hoping the partner portal would add an extra element to our email marketing, which it has done,” said Roberts. “We really like the microsite that works with the emails and the campaigns we’re able to send out.”

Roberts says she would “definitely” recommend the partner portal to other Barco partners. “Having experience dealing with lots of different vendors, I would say it is one of the best marketing opportunity platforms that we’ve been able to utilize from a partner. It’s been very easy to use and very easy to set up the campaigns. It’s exceeded any expectations that we had initially.”

Star2Star, a provider of full spectrum communications solutions, is enabling its increasingly marketing-aware partners with a comprehensive set of user-friendly channel marketing and management tools.

In addition to providing partners with the capability to optimize their own marketing activities, the new solutions also enable the Star2Star marketing team to expand the level of channel support it offers.

As the market for communications technology becomes more saturated, said Star2Star CMO David Portnowitz, “partners are looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the competition through marketing. We needed a solution that could scale to gives our partners an avenue to do some marketing on their own because our partners are getting more and more marketing savvy.”

But the company also needed a solution that could enable its own marketing team to provide more support for other partners. For many partners, “social media, SEM, SEO, and PPC are still overwhelming,” he added. “So, we’re trying to take that off their plate and provide those services whenever we can.”

In May, Star2Star announced its implementation of channel marketing and management technology by Zift Solutions. Its partners now have access to Zift’s through-partner marketing automation solution, campaign marketplace, and expert services program.

David Portnowitz, CMO, Star2Star

“It’s a pretty significant investment,” said Portnowitz. “It’s something we feel very strongly that our partner community wanted and is taking advantage of. They’re able to view all their MDF and co-op funds. And they’re able to co-brand documents themselves and build multi-touch campaigns,” he added.

The new solutions are enabling the Star2Star marketing team to provide the company’s 400-plus channel partners with more support as well.  “Our partners use us like an agency, which we see as a huge differentiator for Star2Star,” said Portnowitz. “We offer everything from web content, to event planning, to analysts, to video creation, basically social media creation, content creation, and graphic designs. We also help partners develop multi-touch campaigns and customize marketing plans.

“So it really made sense for us to find a back-end system that would give us the flexibility and the tools needed to support a business of our size. The Zift solution gave us the ability to scale our marketing services in a way that we couldn’t do before,” he added.

Partner adoption has exceeded expectation, said Portnowitz. With Zift, the company hosted educational webinars and training sessions to introduce partners to the platform and staff members were assigned to contact partners and on-board them. “It’s been exciting for us to see partners in there and using the platform,” he said.

Portnowitz will monitor a variety of data points to measure Star2Star’s return on investment in the Zift implementation. “Are the partners that are using the platform generating more revenue? Are they getting more eyeballs? More brand awareness? Are they generating more leads that are turning into eventual customers? These are the things that we’ll be looking at specifically,” he said.

ESET, an IT security company, is empowering its partners and resellers in North America by providing access to a complete end-to-end marketing partner automation platform. The ESET Marketing Center, which is built on the Mindmatrix platform, allows partners to brand content and resources, deploy email campaigns and manage their prospect database.

Hope McCluskey, Director of Partner Marketing and Events, ESET

After announcing a record 40% year-over-year increase in channel partner growth, in 2017, the company launched a new Partner Council, an advisory group of 10 active partners initially who would participate in quarterly calls and get a first-look at new products and technologies. ESET said it would use the feedback to refine product roadmaps, help shape the supporting content and ultimately better enable its partners’ sales teams.

Hope McCluskey, director of partner marketing and events, ESET North America, said input from the council informed the development of the ESET Marketing Center. “With the partner council, we’re always talking about better ways for our partners to market their business, and they were always looking for different tools. They had input on the Market Center, for sure, and were some of the first partners that were on the tool.”

The ESET Marketing Center, which is free for all US, Canadian and Caribbean partners purchasing directly from ESET, features an easy-to-use console, said the company in a press release. Once partners set up their profiles, all assets are automatically co-branded and tracked back to the partners allowing them to review data and manage leads. Partners retain full control and privacy of their customer and prospect database.

Since its launch in April, McCluskey described the adoption rate as “strong.” To ensure that partners continue or begin to use the ESET Marketing Center, the company is maintaining an robust onboarding effort.

“We have ongoing communication via newsletters through webinars. We’ve had a lot of customized one-on-one discussions, and in addition, we’ve put together what we’re calling ‘training bytes,’ three to four-minute tips-and-tricks videos on getting the most out of the Marketing Center.

“It’s really been about repetition,” she emphasized, “making sure that we’re talking to the partners at every event we go to, and any time we have interaction. Even our sales organization is talking to the partners about the Market Center. So, it’s not just coming from a marketing perspective.”

Partner organizations are increasingly receptive to the message, said McCluskey. ESET strives to provide a lot of education about why marketing it important, why it needs to be done consistently, and why partners need to manage their databases better.

Because more partners recognize the need to market themselves more aggressively, getting those messages across is a little easier, she acknowledged. As the business landscape changes for partners, especially managed service providers, more are taking charge of their marketing programs. “They’re a newer for breed of reseller, and rather than being reactive, they do understand the value of proactively making sure that they know how to market their business.”

The company is increasingly creating more resources for its channel partners to help them grow and succeed while enabling them to become a trusted security advisor. ESET is expanding its library of collateral, shifting away from product-centric messaging to customer-focused topics.

“That’s definitely the direction we’re heading, especially within vertical markets. So we’re talking about the pain points in healthcare, or how to tackle the challenges associated with ransomware or data privacy. We work closely with our internal researchers and make sure we have information on the latest trends and cyber threats in order to deliver timely information,” she explained

ESET is building programs to help partners promote these new assets. “Currently we’re putting together campaigns-in-a-box that will bundle activities such as drip, landing page, banners, social media et cetera.”

McCluskey noted that packaged campaigns also help ESET explain basic marketing practices to less experiences partners. With the campaigns-in-a-box, “we’re really trying to help them understand what it takes to put a marketing plan together, and to have consistency within your messaging. And then, what do you do next, how did you follow-up on leads and how do you continue the communication and the dialogue?”

McCluskey will be measuring the success of the ESET Marketing Center based on adoption rates, campaigns deployed and total number of leads. But for right now, she said, driving even more adoption is key. “When you ask ‘What do partners need to do to get the most out of the Marketing Center,’ they need to use it.