Six months into the launch of a GDPR-compliant through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) tool, TBI, the privately-owned master agent of technology solutions, is describing the initiative as a resounding success. As of early April, TBI’s Partner Marketing Center (PMC) had 300-plus users who had shared 200 campaigns and more than 100,000 emails.

The roll-out of the PMC, combined with other activities, earned TBIs marketing team a Gold Stevie award as marketing department of the year. “We’re excited,” Corey Cohen, TBI’s vice president of marketing, told CMR. In addition to the PMC, the award recognized a social media program, a partner survey and report developed in collaboration with another brand, and TBI’s white label content offering.

The popularity of TBI’s white label content was one of the reasons the company decided to implement a TCMA solution. Prior to the launch of the PMC, “We had a huge white label library that was also receiving a ton of adoption, and we created a lot of customs campaigns too,” explained Rachel Bruce, senior digital marketing manager at TBI. “What led to our implementation of a through-channel marketing automation platform was the fact that a lot of those custom campaign requests were for similar efforts. We needed to find a way to scale that activity.”

TBI conducted a thorough review of though-channel marketing automations solutions to find an intuitive, GDPR-compliant platform. After a year-long process of watching demonstrations and asking other channel leaders about the solutions they implemented, TBI selected the PartnerMarketing.com platform, offered by the channel-focused solutions and services provider Twogether.

All-Hands Roll-Out

Much of the early success of the PMC can be credited to the comprehensive roll-out campaign conducted by TBI. Recognizing that launching the new platform and driving usage would be a heavy lift, “We did a bit of a soft launch, drove adoption, got a great response, and then expanded that to our entire partner base,” said Bruce.

The rollout was teased through social campaigns that included a variety of humorous marketing memes. Emails were sent to all partners advising them that the platform was coming soon. One-sheet documents were distributed to explain what the platform is and what it can do.

TBI invited partners to schedule demos of the platform and one-on-one presentations were made. When partners were in the TBI offices, or when channel managers went to see partners, demonstrations of the PMC were on the agenda. “We also presented the tool and displayed it at all of our regional events, so that our partners were able to see it first hand and understand the value that truly exists with TCMA,” said Bruce.

TBI is also getting help from the vendors whose sponsored campaigns are made available on the platform. Adoption rises “when vendors communicate to partners that they can go to market with their message in the PMC in less than 15 minutes,” said Bruce. The platform currently offers six-vendor-sponsored campaigns. Eight brand-agnostic campaigns cover topics such as  UCaaS, security and mobility.

Automated Customization

The PMC is designed to make it easy for partners to customize and then share the marketing materials and campaigns it offers. When partners sign up for the PMC, explained Bruce, they enter basic company information and marketing elements such as a boiler plate message, company logo, brand elements including color preferences and graphics, and privacy policy. They can also upload links to their LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts to automate sharing of a campaign’s social marketing elements.

That information is then automatically pulled from the system to customize the campaigns that partners select. Campaign elements can by further customized by the partners to reflect the partners specific business model or their prospects’ profiles. Partners also have the capability to select which elements of campaigns they want to use. “If partners only want to host a landing page for a campaign, they can switch off other elements,” said Bruce. “They don’t have to use the email. If social media is not part of their marketing strategy, it’s easy to remove those elements from the campaign.”

“If there is a heavy lift for partners to use the PMC,” said Cohen, it’s at the beginning when partners are first signing onto the system. “But every time they log into the system to send a campaign, or to create a campaign, it is really just a plug and play.” And with its simple, but robust customizing capabilities, partner can easily share campaigns in their own voice. “There’s a ton of editable text and elements that partners can go in and make it their own, and should.”

Many of the earliest adopters of the PMC were partners “unfamiliar with marketing,” said Cohen, “those who ask for help with campaigns or to produce content or start a blog.” The PMC, added Bruce, allow “partners to set it and forget it,” sending notifications when specific actions are required. “It has a lot of features and functionality in there that allows them — when it’s not intrusive on their business — to really make it part of their process.”

Cohen added that adoption of the PMC reflects a growing awareness among partners that they need to be better marketers. “Margins are shrinking and partners need to grow, so they have to move beyond hoping for referrals,” she said. Partner are “having to prospect, maybe the first time in their lives, and they’re coming to a point where they’re asking how to do it.”

Ingenico Group, a payment solution vendor, has launched its new partner marketing platform, Marketing EDGE. Designed to provide access to a suite of marketing tools and collateral, Marketing EDGE helps Ingenico’s partners gain marketplace visibility and drive business growth.

“Ingenico values the success of our partners and understands the importance of providing the tools necessary to connect and engage with their audiences,” said Bradford Giles, SVP of marketing and sales enablement, Ingenico Group. “Through Marketing EDGE, partners gain access to a toolkit of marketing resources to expand their reach and effectively communicate with the merchants they serve, regardless of their marketing expertise, resources or budget.”

Marketing EDGE’s content includes syndicated social media posts, supplemental marketing collateral and ready-to-deploy marketing campaigns. No previous marketing training or expertise is required and resources are easy to use as-is without the need for additional resources, the company said. Partners can also use the platform to track results and manage a full suite of analytics.

“Our goal is to support partners as they grow their business. Marketing EDGE provides world-class marketing assets without the burden or overhead of creating them,” continued Giles. “Ingenico has taken the time to develop thoughtful content that delivers on thought leadership, sales enablement strategies and demand generation assets so partners employing the platform can focus on other aspects of growing their business rather than dedicating time and resources to marketing efforts.”

Developed content is designed to keep contacts engaged and interactive with partner businesses to foster long-term relationship growth and ultimately generate demand. With the added benefit of updated and timely content, partners can rely on Ingenico to help them stay relevant with current market trends. In addition to content deployment, tools can be leveraged for marketing efforts outside of Ingenico initiatives.

xAmplify, a through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) solution provider, has announced its certified integration with Marketo Engage and addition to the LaunchPoint by Marketo ecosystem.

xAmplify’s integration into Marketo Engage is designed to extend the data capturing capabilities of Marketo Engage to channel-capable customers seeking access to both channel partner participation metrics and partner pipeline analytics, the company said.

When leveraging the TCMA tool, Marketo Engage customers will be equipped to support partner participation with xAmplify’s outbound campaign delivery, individual partner instances, and 5-click co-branded redistribution.

“We’re thrilled to enter into this new relationship,” said xAmplify CEO Sudhir Nambiar. “We’re confident that Marketo Engage customers will see amplified partner engagement, more qualified indirect leads, and rapid growth in channel sales when they use our solution.”

The xAmplify platform supports individual partners instances, automatic co-branding, deal registration, and partner on-boarding. Unlimited list segmentation and four different campaign modules enable customer targeting and personalization.

The company also offers channel marketing services helping clients develop and execute through-partner strategies. The xAmplify Sail service offers packages that include weekly campaigns, monthly nurture programs, and weekly performance reports and strategy check-ins.

Axcient, a business availability and cloud migration solutions provider, has introduced a new marketing enablement tool for its partner community. The Axcient Marketing Portal (AMP) enables managed services providers (MSPs) to build comprehensive marketing programs simply and scale their company’s marketing efforts.

Michael Elliott, Director of Product Marketing, Axcient

“Marketing is an essential function to drive more sales,” said Axcient’s Director of Product Marketing Michael Elliott “and is the biggest area of opportunity for MSPs. AMP provides a more automated approach that enables partners to scale their marketing efforts without additional headcount. The powerful marketing tool provides partners with the comprehensive resources and marketing assets so MSPs can creatively and effectively position their companies in the market and enhance their brand.”

AMP is built on a channel marketing automation platform. Partners can load both their current customers and prospects into the tool, giving them the ability to run both email and social media campaigns, track open rates, run nurture campaigns, and more.

The portal offers a wide selection of materials that ranges from generating awareness, identifying and nurturing intent, and enabling call to action. To enhance the experience, Axcient has simplified the amount of content provided in the platform. Existing content focuses on the core solutions that end clients are looking for. If there are additional marketing materials that a partner would like, they can make the request directly through the portal. The company is always evaluating the content it provides to partners, said Elliott.

AMP allows partners to co-brand existing materials within the portal with their logo, or they can take the content directly from the portal and customize to using their own marketing efforts.

Axcient has prioritized driving partner success. Last year, the company announced the formation of a team dedicated to ensuring its partners receive the highest level of service. The Axcient Partner Success Team provides onsite visits, periodic business reviews, regular check-ins and a single point of contact for partners.

The team’s charter is “partner experience first,” the company said. It serves as a main point of contact for any partner needs related to product support, partner enablement, marketing collateral, end client opportunities, and training.

The program has been a huge success with our partners, said Elliott. Partners who take advantage of the strategic business reviews that the team conducts, uncover opportunities for growing their businesses and driving greater margins by having Axcient talk candidly and strategically with them.

For any channel marketer trying to compete with Cisco’s Marketing Velocity program, the IT, networking and cybersecurity solutions provider isn’t making it easy. In addition to connecting and integrating the components of Marketing Velocity, its best-in-class channel program under one offering, the company added a new co-marketing service that supports insight-driven joint planning to enable Cisco and partners to better engage customers and drive revenue.

With approximately 85% of Cisco’s revenue going through its 62,000 partners, digital channel marketing has become a crucial component of the company’s overall success. And feedback from partners continuously reiterated that digital marketing is a key area in which they need help, said Boon Lai, Cisco’s Vice President of Global Partner Marketing.

Boon Lai, Vice President of Global Partner Marketing, Cisco

“Many of our partners realize that as we move into the digital world, the role that marketing needs to play and can play is much more elevated,” said Lai. “And particularly, if we start to look at smaller businesses, that’s where you want to move into much more efficient, lower sales touch journeys. What we see a lot of our partners doing is really embracing digital marketing, and specifically with us as a partner.”

“Our intention and our ambition are to continue to build on our marketing practice to benefit all of our partners and also influence the industry,” Lai continued. “Building up the capabilities of digital marketing can ultimately enable increasing business growth.”

 Following The Buyers’ Digital Journey

Cisco has not missed that B2B buyers are shopping differently. “We know the world is being digitized and that 61% of B2B transactions start online,” said Lai. “And before they actually speak to a sales rep, they’re already 60% through the buying process. It’s critical that partners understand the importance of starting the digital marketing journey at the top of the funnel all the way through the 60%,” he said.

Lai stressed that companies that have a strong digital marketing practice enjoy a 9.5% increase in revenue. “That means that together, between us and how we collaborate with our partners, we can get that 10% uptake if we are both invested behind our marketing practice.”

Co-marketing with Cisco can be especially rewarding for partners. According to Lai, 40% of Cisco customers say that they would pay a 35% premium to purchase products from a Cisco partner. “We need to be where our customers are, which is in the digital world.”

Cisco has been consistently adept in collaborating with its vast partner ecosystem, noted one industry analyst. So, for rivals aspiring to offer matching levels of digital marketing collaboration, “they have their work cut out in catching up with Cisco.”

“This further evolution of Cisco Marketing Velocity displays how committed Cisco is to help their partners grow their digital marketing capability and, more importantly, outcomes,” said Steve White, Program Vice President, Channels and Alliances at IDC. “Marketing Velocity was already a leading light in the partner marketing space, but these changes really do show that Cisco is the benchmark for marketing with partners.”

Cisco’s reputation as an innovator in channel marketing is well established. The company “has been at the forefront of many advances over the last 15 years, recognizing early on the correlation between partners’ marketing expertise and return on investment,” noted Canalys, a research firm.  “It was one the first to develop marketing concierge services for partners and create customizable assets via a partner marketing portal.”

Cisco’s Marketing Velocity conference, a global event created more than a dozen years ago to promote the importance of marketing to partners, continues to provide attendees with cutting-edge information. “I was stunned at the quality of the people they had presenting,” said IDC’s White, after attending his first conference.

Raising The Best-Practices Bar

The expanded Marketing Velocity program connects and integrates Cisco’s existing capabilities under one offering, bringing a comprehensive program to support its partners’ own digital transformation. The expansion will enable partners from end-to-end by helping to elevate their marketing practices, delivering marketing funds and offering enablement tools to accelerate their field activation.

“This is more than just bringing all of the partner marketing resources under one brand,” said Lai, in a press release. “It’s ultimately about integrating and up-leveling our partner’s marketing practices with an end-to-end solution to attract new customers, deliver more sales and drive profits. We are deeply committed to investing and accelerating our partners’ marketing expertise though this new platform.”

The newly expanded Marketing Velocity consists of four components. Cisco Marketing Velocity Learning is an education and empowerment gateway that promotes partner marketing practices by providing real-time access to marketing education. The Marketing Velocity Hub features a new navigation that provides easier access to a curriculum of on-demand, online training tools including webinars, E-books, videos and training courses. Fully 80% of the content is new, according to Lai.

The enhancements to Marketing Velocity Learning are already earning industry accolades, including a gold Stevie award for best training site.

The Marketing Velocity conference has been expanded to include three easier-to-access regional events, reflecting partner demand for local content and greater regional access. “We are able to increase the attendees by three-fold, but more importantly, meet our audience within the regions to present localized content that is relevant for them and their customers,” Lai explained.

Cisco Funding for Marketing Velocity has been adjusted to promote usage of Cisco Joint Marketing Funds. Easier access to information about available funds is intended to encourage authorized channel partners to use them to market their companies, the Cisco products and services they sell and to drive bookings through co-marketing initiatives.

Cisco Marketing Velocity Central, formerly known as Partner Marketing Central, is a full-service portal that assists partners in performing and transforming their marketing activities. It is the partners’ go-to location for free customizable campaigns, featuring automated email journeys, both social media and website syndication and an enhanced marketing content library. It also offers advanced campaign analysis capabilities such as campaign tracking and customer contact engagement scoring.

With the agency marketplace, partners can browse and connect with specially chosen demand generation agencies and order services ranging from paid search, social media activation and digital event promotion to traditional telemarketing. Partners can seamlessly apply their funding for Marketing Velocity in this portal, as well.

Orchestrating Co-Marketing Programs

Cisco Marketing Velocity Activate, is a new co-marketing service that supports jointly orchestrated marketing programs. In limited release with a select number of partners, it combines business data and insight-driven planning between Cisco and its partners to optimize customer engagement.

“It’s essentially a consultative practice that leverages Cisco’s data to align our customer opportunity with partners,” explained Lai. In one pilot of the program, Cisco and a partner launched a co-branded program that delivered personalized messages to installed-base customers. The client-specific messages, which would be presented to customers on either Cisco’s or the partner’s website, suggested upgrades offered by the partner.

“The results we saw were fantastic,” said Lai. “We saw that there’s a 20% conversion rate on their landing page. With no other advertising support, the organic traffic visits created $10 million in pipeline.”

Marketing Velocity Activate will be piloted with about two dozen partners this year and expanded to 100 partners through 2020. Analysts at Canalys commented that Activate is an “example of how Cisco will prioritize their activities with partners with proven digital capabilities and skill sets in particular technologies. This should act as an incentive for other partners to start investing in higher levels of digital skills.”

More broadly, the overall investments that Cisco has made in channel marketing support will continue to give it a competitive advantage, Canalys noted. “Channel partners will play an ever-greater role in amplifying a vendor’s marketing voice, both in digital and physical arenas.”

And as partners strive to enhance their own brand around their solutions and services, “co-branding programs will become even more important.”

Heather K. Margolis, founder and CEO of Channel Maven, is a renowned member of the channel marketing vanguard. At companies including EMC, EqualLogic and Dell, she spearheaded initiatives that resulted in smarter channel programs. For more than a decade, Channel Maven has been a go-to provider of strategic channel marketing communications to channel and Partner demand generation services.

During a recent conversation with Channel Marketer Report (CMR), Margolis shared her thoughts on why vendors need to take a different approach to aligning their to-, through-, and with-partner marketing programs with partner-initiated activities.

CMR — Surveys indicate that more Partners are making bigger investments in marketing their own brands as well as the Vendors they represent. How common is this? And is there any segment or type of Partner taking the lead?

Heather K. Margolis, Founder and CEO, Channel Maven

Heather K. Margolis — We’re seeing Partners make great advancements in marketing and sales. Part of this can be attributed to the innovations that make sales and marketing easier in general. Now any small business can have a marketing automation tool like Constant Contact or Mailchimp. Mailchimp actually has a “freemium” version for fewer than 2,000 contacts.

CRMs are easier to navigate too. Some versions don’t require a massive implementation. HubSpot or even Salesforce.com have options so a small to midsize business can start using them immediately.

And let’s not forget social media. Communicating to your audience is as simple as posting information or content on your LinkedIn status update or Twitter feed. The key of course is content. Is it compelling and in a format your audience can consume?

The largest solution providers have had significant marketing teams and marketing automation or CRM tools for a long time. The partners we see making a big shift recently are in sub $100M in revenue category. They are realizing that marketing doesn’t have to be that difficult and that using a marketing automation tool, social aggregator, or CRM tool can make a world of difference.

MSPs are incredibly savvy in this regard. They’re used to working in the cloud so leveraging a cloud-based tool to communicate is a no-brainer. But MSPs have zero interest in co-branding so they’re depending upon their Vendors less for content unless those Vendors can focus on business outcomes. Some of our clients do really amazing content that doesn’t mention their names at all. Just the problems that their solutions solve.

CMR —  What are some of the most  significant marketing investments being made by Partners?

Heather K. Margolis — We’re seeing Partners spend on a marketing resource rather than having the office manager doing their marketing. This person may not be a VP of Marketing, but many have manager or director level titles. They can manage a social presence, put together some minimal content like sales sheets, and use a marketing automation tool to do a monthly newsletter at the very least.

We’re also seeing Partners spend on a marketing automation tool and CRM, especially since it’s no longer a $500K annual expense. There is a range of tools and Partners are putting the time in to get the most from them.

CMR — Partner engagement in Vendor programs – and usage of the technology used to support them – often falls short of expectations. If Partners are more eager to drive demand, why aren’t they taking more advantage of the tools and materials Vendors supply?

Heather Margolis — Look at this from the Partners perspective. I’ve decided to do some outreach to my audience. I login to one Vendor platform and customize one piece of content, I load my list, then send it out via the tool’s email engine. I log out. I log into the next Vendor’s tool, customize one piece of content, load my list, send with one email through the Vendor’s email engine. I log out. I login…you get the idea. I, as the Partner, have now broken every single rule of lead and demand generation, not to mention potentially compromised my data according to GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act. Unfortunately, Vendors force Partners to use email as the main vehicle when more effective demand and lead generation encompasses so much more today.

And while Vendors are striving to support more Partners by providing them with automated or “low-touch” solutions, the reality is that under-staffed second and third tier Partners and long-tail Partners aren’t engaging and most likely won’t.

CMR — What about the marketing materials that Vendors are offering to support their Partners? Why aren’t more Partner organizations – even those with sufficient marketing resources — taking advantage of it?

Heather Margolis — It depends. Is it the right kind of support or are you forcing your Partners to do something that is inherently bad for their business? If you dictate that your Partners need to use stale content like datasheets that they can only customize with their contact info, that speaks to your solutions instead of a business outcome, in a tool that you own, then usage is going to be abysmal. If they can use their own tools, with multimedia content they can make their own, that speaks to business outcomes, your Partners are going take advantage of that support.

All Vendor programs need to keep the Partners’ business in mind. Every…Single…One. Incentives need to create habits that better the Partners business. MDF needs to cover things that will get Partners the conversations they need or access to tools that will drive their business.

Having been on the Vendor side, I know first-hand that we sometimes think of our own business and actually hope to impede Partners from working with our competition. I would rather have a Partner just get better at selling and marketing overall, even if it means they get better at selling my competitor’s solutions as well. At the end of the day, they’re going to work more closely with the Vendor who understood their business and helped them in a logical way.

CMR — What can Vendors do better? 

Heather Margolis — Vendors need to educate Partners around the right way to do demand generation. How to use videos, podcasts, short webinars from their marketing leaders talking at the Partners’ level. Don’t talk about things that will certainly be out of their budget. Think like an SMB that does well already and what they might be willing to focus on.

Content MUST be business outcome focused. Please, no sell sheets focused on (announcer voice) “Solution XYZ!” Think of the business outcome your end-customer is trying to solve and give your Partners the content that will highlight them as the company that can solve them. Especially with MSPs your technology and brand are taking a back seat.

Your MDF/Co-op programs must truly help Partners advance. No more golf events. But let them spend MDF to buy an annual subscription to HubSpot or Salesforce or a marketing automation tool.

No matter what tool you give them, plan to spend budget on human intervention. Channel Maven for years has helped Partners navigate the “self-service” tools out there because if all Partners are doing is launching email grenades, they’re missing 80% of the picture.

ZINFI Technologies, a unified channel management (UCM) solutions provider, has launched the newest version of its next-generation adaptive SaaS (aSaaS) platform, version 11.

The new platform includes an advanced set of applications for its through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) solutions. Campaign canvass—an advanced multi-touch, drag-and-drop campaign creation tool — allows organizations selling through the channel to deploy fully automated, attribution-driven TCMA capabilities.

ZINFI’s TCMA applications will include tools for search, social, web syndication, email, direct mail, collateral assets, microsites and events.

The FlexiTouch campaign canvass allows channel marketing managers to create attribution-driven multi-touch logic, which partners can then deploy on their own. The enhanced platform provide channel markets with capabilities that were previously available only in high-end enterprise marketing automation platforms, said the company.

“Our goal has always been always to drive partner adoption by making it easy for partners to select and deploy campaigns,” said Sugata Sanyal, founder and CEO of ZINFI. “The introduction of these enterprise-grade capabilities to our platform will have the effect of democratizing channel marketing automation, making it accessible to partners of all sizes and capabilities. Vendors will be able to understand which campaigns are effective using marketing attribution practices, even as those campaigns are run by thousands of their partners globally.”

ZINFI offers potential customers a 30-day free trial  that provides access to its entire Unified Channel Marketing (UCM) automation platform.

Impartner, the channel management platform and partner relationship management (PRM) provider, has completed its acquisition of the through channel marketing automation (TCMA) business from TIE Kinetix.

The acquisition includes TIE Kinetix’s full suite of contemporary brand control and demand generation technologies, as well as an exclusive digital marketing transformation program developed and delivered in partnership with Google. That program, the Digital Marketing Transformation for the Channel, was specifically developed for and is limited to organizations with an indirect sales channel that markets and sells their products.

When Impartner’s deal with TIE Kinetix was announced earlier this year, Jay McBain, Forrester’s principal analyst – ecosystems, channels, partnerships and alliances, told CMR that TIE Kinetix’s “very unique deal with Google is the crown jewel of the acquisition.”

“Now, more than ever, companies need their partners to truly be an extension of their businesses and amplify their voice in markets where they can no longer be physically,” said Joe Wang, Impartner CEO. “Adding what is inarguably the most contemporary, usable and easily adoptable TCMA to help our customers market through their partners is part of our ongoing commitment to deliver the industry’s most sophisticated, future-proof channel management platform.”

Impartner will integrate TIE Kinetix solutions within its robust channel management technology platform.

The TIE Kinetix purchase is one of a string of acquisitions by Impartner in recent years to expand its channel management technology portfolio, including Tremolo, to automate vendor delivery of customized news to partners, and Amplifinity, which gives customers a way to formalize management of non-traditional ‘shadow channel’ partners, the industry’s fastest-growing segment.

Bill Curran Named CRO

In other news, the company announced the appointment of SaaS-industry sales executive Bill Curran as chief revenue officer. Curran replaces long-time CRO and former North American Channel Chief at Akamai Mark Rogers, who assumes the role as SVP of Alliances & Strategic Relationships, to further accelerate the growth of Impartner’s channel and strategic alliance ecosystem.

Curran brings an extensive history of market-making SaaS and enterprise software executive and sales leadership with companies such as Cedar, Clarus, Synthio, Izenda and ExactTarget.

Brother International Corporation has launched a new online partner portal that consolidates Brother’s comprehensive suite of partner products, tools and training into an intuitive, companywide partner relationship management (PRM) platform. The new, unified portal — officially called PATH (Partner Authorized Total Hub) — was implemented to remove complexity for thousands of Brother Authorized Partners (BAP), making it simple and easy for them to fully leverage Brother’s wide breadth of benefits and support.

“Our goal with the new portal is to maximize our amazing partners’ productivity by providing them with actionable insights and tools built for seamless access,” said Stephanie DeSanto, Senior Partner Program Development Manager, Brother International Corporation. “We live and breathe Brother’s tagline ‘At Your Side’, so ensuring a best-in-class partner experience has always been one of our highest priorities.”

Brother and its partners have remained focused on the total digital transformation of their business models even before the “new normal” made shifting to a digital-first mindset paramount. With the new partner portal, Brother Authorized Partners can now better engage customers and boost efficiencies through the contactless, completely online solution that is as simple to use as it is rich in functionality.

Among other offerings, the portal provides a content and video library, co-branded assets, detailed product and solutions information, channel rebates, and access to Brother’s online Knowledge Center, Rewards Program, Service Portal and much more.

The company will be rolling out various features and additional functionality over the next several months. “In the near future, partners will be able to view our product information such as specs, features, images, etc. and have direct access to Brother Knowledge Center, which is our LMS, Brother Rewards, which is our loyalty program, and our Service Portal for our ASCs and ASDs,” said DeSanto. In the first half of 2021, Brother will allow our partners to execute email marketing campaigns in the portal.

The company has increased its content library to target those industries that remained essential during the pandemic-related shutdown of the country, said DeSanto. “During COVID, we have seen a 20% uptick in the use of our LMS.” With the launch of the new portal, “we have centralized these assets in one location, making it easier for partners to access the resources they need.”

Since the launch of its LMS platform five years ago, more than 10 thousand pieces of content, including white papers, brochures, product guides, infographics, webinars, sell sheets, case studies, videos, and more have been consumed to support the company’s sales training and marketing efforts.

Brother has been piloting the program for months to ensure a flawless rollout to partners. Striving to have a majority of its partners utilize the platform which is built on the Zinfi platform, Brother will be providing significant education and training on the platform.

The company has also engaged with Zinfi’s Concierge Services, which will train the partners in great detail on the portal. “We expect that partners will utilize different parts of the portal depending on their own unique needs,” said DeSanto.

Lumen Technologies, an enterprise technology platform provider, is striving to boost the marketing capabilities of its channel ecosystem with the launch of a new partner portal.

Working with an industry-leading channel management platform and PRM provider, Lumen said it has developed a new, customized and easy-to-navigate partner portal that offers its channel partners the resources, sales enablement capabilities, and marketing automation tools they need to sell and grow with the company.

Providing partners with an expanded menu of marketing capabilities was “one of the main reasons we developed our new partner portal,” said Dave Young, Lumen’s Senior Vice President, Strategic Sales. “The portal provides partners with a variety of marketing automation tools and resources. They can create and download co-branded sales and marketing assets, launch white-glove email campaigns directly from the portal or using their own campaign tool, and easily share Lumen social media content to their own social networks.”

Channel partners can also reach out to a dedicated, channel-focused marketing team for additional support.

Channel partners who activate an email campaign directly through the partner portal will receive actionable metrics as part of the campaign launch experience. If partners would rather utilize their own marketing automation tool, they can upload the final HTML code into their tool and track their campaigns just as they would with any other campaign.

As Lumen’s channel partner community becomes increasingly savvy in digital marketing, the company is working to provide options to help them go to market. “We are constantly listening to our partners’ business needs and offer many partners market development funds (MDF) to help them develop digital assets in addition to those available on the partner portal,” said Young. “We are focused on providing interactive assets and video to best deliver Lumen’s powerful value proposition in market.”

Because Lumen works with channel partners with a wide variety of go-to-market strategic and vertical focuses, its MDF program is scalable to support both digital and traditional marketing tactics. The funded marketing programs span digital initiatives such as social media campaigns, digital door openers, and virtual customer experiences, to in-person hospitality events and direct mail campaigns.

Lumen will monitor all real-time usage metrics within the partner portal to identify changes to the user experience and available content that will best enable partners to sell. “Our most valuable source of feedback comes from direct interaction with our channel partners,” said Young. “We gave a limited number of partners early access to the portal prior to launch, then solicited their input and listened to their needs as we continued development. Post-launch, we have made it easy for partners to provide feedback within the portal and have a team consistently meeting to work on continued enhancements.”