January is my favorite time of year because of the sense of change in the air. People setting personal goals (mine is to send a piece of snail-mail once a week) and organizations preparing for what they want the new year to look like is refreshing and inspirational.
In the spirit of new year planning, I've spent the past few months digging into how the market is changing and what that means for our client’s programs and ITA Group’s channel solutions. Here are few trends I’ve earmarked to focus on that may help you.
Many channel leaders expect to increase channel sales by over 10% in 2023, but most are not reporting an increase in headcount or budgets. 2023 will be a year of proving investments and shifting dollars around inside channel programs to the things bringing the highest return.
Incentive programs continue to be the easiest choice for funding because of their flexibility and ease of measurement. There is opportunity to explore a broader range of incentive types to achieve your goals.
Partner experience has become a competitive differentiator across partner ecosystems and often leads to higher engagement inside programs. Technology will be a crucial area of investment to achieve this.
A way to tackle this trend is by personalizing the experience, motivation and rewards based on factors like industry, route-to-market and role. Based on our research, doing so will increase the amount of products and services partners sell or influence from a vendor.
As more and more industries focus on servicerelated revenue, improving the customer experience is more important than ever. This has led organizations to focus on the hallmarks of outstanding customer experiences: retaining clients, creating growth in existing accounts and providing exceptional service levels. This area of focus for channel programs shifts the need for strategy towards support roles (technicians, repair, account managers, etc.) inside the partner organization and non-sales related activities (e.g., training, performance metrics, growth and cross-sell).
Enablement is a key investment area to support the role partners play in early buying stages like build, influence, sell (i.e., pipeline, revenue, renewal) and later buying stages like service and support (i.e., customer satisfaction score, customer retention).
Ellen Linkenhoker ITA Group Solution Line Leader, Channel Partner Solutions
By: Ellen Linkenhoker, Channel Partner Solutions Leader
Is tiering still relevant? Is it the best approach for a partner program or are there better options to consider? These questions float around in the minds of many channel leaders. The answers depend on how the partners use the program, focus the program on specific areas, strategically structure the tiers and utilize program tools to make effective changes. Let’s go through the basics of tiers and some
Tiering (program levels inside a vendor channel program) dictates the requirements, awards and benefits partners earn based on their performance. Historically program creators label tiers by types of metals (i.e., Bronze, Silver and Gold).
Tiers and levels are a tool to productively scale things like rebates, margins, service and support levels, marketing tools, training, enablement and vendor resources. The higher levels are often unlocked by meeting a threshold for transactional revenue and training criteria.
If you’re dealing only with product resellers, tiers are great. These partner types represent the brand, put products in the hands of customers and help reach new markets. Program tiers are an easy way to manage straightforward investment levels based on reseller revenue and profit.
Most tiering levels haven’t evolved with the world and the way people buy and sell products now. Consider, for example:
1. Industries are adding recurring and service-based revenue. These recurring revenue streams take many forms, including XaaS, SaaS, MROs, consumption or premiums.
2. There’s been a decline in relationship-driven sales. Companies now need to market themselves as a brand, have a strong digital presence and sell on quality or price.
3. Solutions are getting more complicated. Technology is changing how people do business, adding complexity and new roles to channels. Buyers want niche expertise. With so many ways to buy products, competition is fierce.
Because of the changes in how people buy and sell, traditional tiering can seem outdated instead of rewarding. Channel leaders don’t want partner programs that feel irrelevant or only significant to a small fraction of partners.
Tiering is also ill-equipped for adding new partner types. Because new partner types have different needs, you may be prompted to add additional programs with new tiers inside of them. Unique programs mean additional tracking, numerous log ins and extra rule structures to navigate for partners. They also increase workload for the internal teams who must maintain the systems.
In our white paper on evolving program tiers, we share in-depth research from the partners’ point of view on how tiers in vendor programs can be ill-equipped for their needs.
Let’s say partners provide feedback that your program tiers feel inflexible, complicated or built for a different partner type. The next question would be, “How do we fix it?” The trick is to focus on segmentation instead of tiers. Start with these three steps.
You need a solid grasp of where you are before planning for the future. In the white paper, we include a thorough list of questions to ask, including:
> How many programs do you have in place?
> Who is eligible?
> What are the requirements to participate?
> What benefits are available?
> How are benefits earned?
> What benefits are being used and by whom?
> How many partners does the program reach?
> What roles inside the partner channels are you focused on (e.g., partner owners, sales reps, marketing, technicians, etc.)?
Compare the answers and see where they overlap. Then add in partner and internal feedback. Use this data as a foundation for what’s worth keeping and cutting.
With your foundation in hand, layer in business goals.
> Where are you trying to go as a company?
> What specific channel goals do you have?
> How do you hope to grow revenue? (e.g., in new product areas, specific high-margin products, services, different payment types, etc.)
> How can you grow partner capabilities and competencies?
Knowing where to take your business will help determine how to re-structure your channel program successfully. It’s useful for identifying partner types, coverage gaps and alternative roles to focus on inside your program.
The process might create the impression that you need even more programs to meet your needs, but that will increase administrative headaches. Tiers alone can’t solve the problem. The good news is that it’s possible to encompass multiple goals and partner roles inside a single program with technology already in the market.
The third step takes all the information and ideas gathered in the first steps and moves toward segmentation instead of tiers and levels. The key is to account for all the variation in a single program by using advanced segmentation. In a consolidated partner program, segmentation is like flipping the complexity on its head. It makes the program simpler for partners to use and internalizes the rest of the details.
Collecting partner information can help deliver relevant benefits, enablement and promotions by allowing for personalization. With more personalized channel programs, partners are more inclined to increase sales and influence the purchase of your brand’s products and services.
“How would personalized marketing and incentives based on the factors below impact the amount our organization influences/sells that vendor’s products and services?”
Increase/Significantly Increase
83% 77% 78%
My company's industry The services, products and solutions my company sells Routes to market (e.g., direct, e-commerce, subagents)
Base: 208 US channel partner owners and channel partner sales reps who are responsible for or have insights into channel partner relationships and/or incentives. Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of ITA Group, November 2020
As partners grow their business to add new products, services and capabilities, segmentation lets you grow with them without needing a new program. Learn more about tier levels, take a self-assessment on their effectiveness for your partner ecosystem and discover if your channel should move toward segmentation. Download the white paper today.
info.itagroup.com/tiers
By: Brian Steele, Strategy Advisor
Ongoing engagement is important to successful partner performance and placing emphasis on the onboarding part of that journey is one of the key elements.
To set the stage, our framework for partner engagement centers around an intentional approach to addressing distinct phases aligned to the partner journey in your channel program—think “purposeful design” or what we refer to as the three As: Attract, Activate and Accelerate.
Let’s dive in. On the next page, find six ways you can maximize channel partner engagement.
You’ve successfully recruited partners into the program (which is a topic all on its own!). Now what?
Attract their attention then earn their time. This holds true for joining a partner program and even when launching national incentives, promotions, new products and campaigns.
You can pique partner interest through crossmedia communications, creative branding and theming and using a message tailored just for their role. You'll have to explain the core fundamentals of the program so they know what’s in it for them. In return, you get the right action or behavior.
Like with any amount of learning, you don't want to overwhelm partners with information. Trickle it out to them in smaller chunks. Don’t overload them with all the things they need to get started. Onboard them deliberately and with care for their role, customer interactions and solutions.
To sustain program attraction (those first few steps in the right direction) repeatedly communicating with partners will drive that message home.
Each partner will be on their own distinct path and reach different parts of their individual journeys at different times. Some will onboard early and move quickly through activation. Others will join the party later. But all will still need to be nurtured through their individual steps in the journey.
Make sure onboarding for partners doesn’t have a physical date tied to it. Strive for an automated effort that flows with partners whether they join at program launch or six months later. You may also need to use your onboarding with partners who are dormant or signed on years ago.
Successful onboarding gets partners attracted with the right message and gives them enough information to help take that first action you’re looking for (register a deal, make a sale, build a proposal, execute a marketing campaign, use the email tool, onboard a client, etc.).
When planning and figuring out which partners to draw the attention of, keep asking: What will help them simultaneously act quickly and continue to engage throughout the program?
The more you know about your partners and program participants, the better you can tailor and personalize program elements. And with greater personalization, comes greater partner investments of time and revenue. We’re actively helping clients grow their collection of data points about their partners to better improve the program experience.
> Send pulse surveys throughout the journey. If one participant is hitting all the goals and milestones, that becomes the optimal point of sending out a survey to get feedback on the program or help fill in a little bit about who you are.
> Complete smaller profile prompts. Instead of having partners fill out an entire profile of all the attributes, we sent smaller prompts to them over a longer period of time. This has resulted in a higher profile completion rate, which gives us more data to individualize the program.
> Drive individual activity. If the participant already worked through the self-paced onboarding, but hasn’t taken the ideal action, serve them an offer that attracts their attention, like an extra fast-start incentive to make their first claim or sale.
Focus on speed of action, generating attention, providing feedback or reinforcement and continually getting to know your partners.
There's going to be natural high points and then natural lows of disengagement. To maintain engagement after onboarding, be intentional about predicting and anticipating the low points and how to address in program designs.
> Incorporate acceleration tactics like fast-start or sprint initiatives.
> Employ incentive initiatives over a limited period of time, maybe quarterly or over a few weeks that focus on different types of sales efforts, training offers or engagement components.
The goal is to get all participants back into the portal, encouraging them to take action to support goals and stay motivated by your brand. The key is designing and communicating this differently for those highly engaged and those disengaged. Make sure the right communications go to the right people at the right time.
Think about the individual and what kind of measures to put in place (particularly in the onboarding and disengagement phases) to make sure you’re attentive to partner needs as they're starting and working their way through the journey.
> Early milestones that trigger a dimensional recognition item act as a reminder of the program.
> A simple recognition from a CAM thanks them for their actions.
> A personalized email shows the progress to goal for that timeframe and compares against peers.
For the disengaged or those often away from their desk, trigger text to encourage behavior if they haven't reached a milestone within a certain time, ideally measured by a mapped journey.
There are many different triggers, but putting a plan in place to activate them at purposeful points of time within the partner journey can help. Make it match the individuals versus everybody getting the same message on the same day. A mixture is better than generic, and personalized is the best of it all.
Also, care for those who enrolled late and want to break out of dormancy. Consider designing catch-up mechanics into promotions (similar to fast starts) to help them catch up in program earnings and help you increase sales and goals.
Using every piece of partner data can be overwhelming. Don’t boil the ocean—having something is better than nothing!
The best recommendation is to identify your core participant roles or types in your program (e.g., sales rep, owner, admin, marketing, support, technician, etc.), and let them work through their journey at their own pace. Each person may come into the program on their own time, take the desired action on different date, and accelerate into ongoing success at their own tempo. Build the partner journey to react to them as an individual vs. a bulk time-stamped single message.
When you can incorporate personalization, it's going to make partner engagement last much longer and create a better partner experience. And if you're not doing it, then somebody else is going to start and attract their attention.
As we look to the future of distributor incentive programs, we should factor in not only what we know to be best practices, but also adjust and adapt to the ever-changing landscape in which they operate.
We want to be sure we’re focused on modifying those desired behaviors that yield positive bottom-line outcomes in a manner that is easily understood and executed by the audience we’re engaging. I like to think about these programs as being designed in layers. All the layers are needed to achieve sales goals, close deals and provide an optimal customer experience. Those layers include:
> People
> Behaviors
> Operations (Communications, Program Design, Awards and Analytics)
Distributors are one of the most challenging relationships to maintain. It’s difficult to have the same amount of control or engagement with distributors as you might with your own internal teams, and they’re also the voice that reaches the reseller and end customers. Communicating with distributors to drive downstream actions poses its own challenges. But it’s absolutely something worth figuring out and, we’ve got some ideas to help.
Find a way to get participant attention early—and keep it. Use a combination of strategies to engage the audience, help them achieve their goals and reward them accordingly.
> Use motivating, straightforward messaging to engage participants and promote earning potential.
> Use congratulatory communications to highlight program achievements and encourage participants to keep moving through the program.
> Engage participants throughout the year with ongoing and consistent communications to keep program top of mind.
Understand that you need to communicate to everyone. Not just the executives and store owners but also the staff at the counter and the customers, themselves.
Each audience also has a preferred method of receiving the information. So be sure to offer communications in personalized ways.
> The executives want high-level information— not too much detail; be succinct.
> The counter staff needs to be knowledgeable about the product and motivated/incented to sell to the customer, which comes from training and guides.
> The customer needs to understand the benefits of the product along with the loyalty program they might be in as part of your distributor program.
One of our wholesale distributor clients needed to increase the amount of products dealer principals and reps were selling. They invested in a full communication strategy to promote their training and incentive opportunities to those in the field, while also showing what’s in it for the principal owner.
These communications created fantastic lift for the company, but also achieved a 46% average email open rate—22% above the industry average—because of the motivating and action-focused communication campaign ITA Group put together.
Program design is key to helping the award recipient feel good about their efforts and want to repeat them.
> Keep it simple, design an earning structure that makes it clear what people need to do to earn.
> Communicate the behaviors to demonstrate and repeat yourself clearly and often.
> Consider including a multiplier once you achieve the baseline goal.
> Actively drive desired behaviors (such as training) that impact long-term behavior modification that increase sales.
> Segment your audience as you gain more data (more layers).
Sometimes described as a push-pull strategy, a best practice is motivating both the owner/ manager and the counter sales reps in the store. This means having a full suite of incentives from top to bottom. For example, a sales rep would receive incentives and communications that push them to act, while you’d pull them into that action by incenting their leadership to support the goals—usually through a participation goal, or a bonus payout for an X goal being met by their company. If you incent the dealer principal on the participation or goal achievement of the reps, they’re more likely to encourage reps to meet the goals.
Your awards should be scalable to different levels of performance and what you’re asking them to do. While your top dealer principals and part-time dealer counter reps both deserve meaningful recognition for the work they do, it’s important to remember they likely have different perceived value and impact to your programs’ results. Ensure the awards are commiserate with the behavior you’re asking to be performed. This might differ from one activity to the next or one role to another.
Bottom line: You want to offer a flexible, relevant award experience.
> Remember every participant is an individual and wants to be rewarded with something meaningful to them.
> Ensure you understand each audience you’re rewarding—and ask them for feedback!
> Offer choice in your award selection, and communicate these choices early and often. (A wish list within an online catalog is a great tool to support this as it allows each person to connect their goals to awards that they find desirable.)
One of our clients, a leading automotive aftermarket parts distributor, needed to increase sales, drive engagement and gain mindshare with local sellers and customers. A combination of incentive and event drives a push-pull strategy through a buy-back opportunity where purchases help pay for a trip. Communication kits are sent to store managers, owners, reps as well as customers to explain how they can buy into a trip and on-site sales event through the purchases they make. See how it came to life: info.itagroup.com/distributor-expo
Debit-card based SPIFs and rebates are more suitable for short-term promotions, whereas merchandise awards or incentive travel would make sense for long-term, loyalty-based promotions. Having a mix of merchandise, travel and experiences will ensure you’re appealing to all audiences.
> Travel continues to be one of the most sought-after award options. You might also consider pairing a weekend getaway with new luggage or sunglasses.
> A combination of merchandise and experiences can create a memorable award. For example, a chef comes to your home to prepare a meal; or perhaps a monthly meal delivery service arrives with a new set of cookware.
Measure, monitor and optimize data in each of your audience layers inside a distributor program. This is the best way to measure ROI and determine future program enhancements.
First, ensure you have a complete picture of your audience by asking them questions regarding demographics, firmographics, contact information and any additional information you need. Collect this from both your dealer principals, store-level partner employees and, if you’re able, the end customers.
When getting started, test a few things with a small group or pilot program and measure the results. This data can drive decisions for the larger program. And don’t get discouraged trying different ideas. It often takes deep data mining in surprising places and innovative statistical techniques to deliver insights that improve the bottom line.
Now is a great time to freshen things up and give your incentive a new look. Caring for each layer lets you optimize results from top to bottom.
A lagging housing market and sluggish home construction market had our client looking for innovative growth opportunities. A premier wholesaler of plumbing, electric, HVAC, industrial and waterworks products turned to ITA Group to help address their business challenges head on and look ahead to growing their bottom line.
The incentive strategy included promotion of specific brands and items among program participants which boosted brand loyalty for sponsoring manufacturers, increased sales for wholesale locations and product manufacturers, and built rapport between manufacturers and our client.
It all came to life through two unique award avenues:
1. Redeemable Award Points: Online Awards Catalog – Points accumulate with each purchase and display via the program website and printed statements, demonstrating progress to goal and award potential.
2. Group Travel Award: DestinationBased Trip Experience – Group travel for high-volume contractors cultivates an unmatched business networking opportunity and motivating award to achieve set goals.
Is your partner portal experience as good as it could be? Revitalize your partner portals, and partners will thank you with increased engagement and business with the brand.
There’s no shortage of partner portals in the world of channel programs. It often seems like every core channel framework piece has its own dedicated portal, whether it’s for Channel Management (PRM), Channel Marketing (TCMA, Asset Management), Learning & Training (LMS) or Incentives (CIM).
And yet, two-thirds of partners report they are disappointed with the portals they use most often, especially with the lack of personalization.
Are your partner portals personalized to make them easy to use and relevant to specific roles?
If your portals are one-size-fits-most solutions, chances are the partners they’re supposed to be helping find the portals to be pain points instead of solutions.
If your portals are already personalized, you can still improve them to capture and maintain partner mindshare. And an improved experience will make for happier partners who want to work with you. Digging into both industry research and our findings from client work, we’ve identified some best practices for partner portals that promote a positive partner experience.
We recommend shifting from basic partner portals to customizable partner engagement hubs, which focus on partners’ needs. The best practices for any partner portal can be grouped into three key categories:
1. Integration and SSO
2. Communication and Progress Tracking
3. Support and Recognition
Here’s how the three categories work together in an effective partner engagement hub.
One of the best first actions to create customizable partner engagement hubs is to pull together elements of various portals for a better user experience. Start by thinking about hierarchy and where you want partners to connect to the brand and partner program. Decide where they should enter the portal and make that the homepage (or the main portal access point).
Consider segmenting by role because each partner type might not need (or even want) the same info on the homepage. Decide if it works best to give different types of roles special access to their most used tools. Here’s an example you could follow with your own role types or personas:
> Revenue
> Sales Goals
Sales Reps
> Personal Income
> Customer Impact
Marketing Roles
Service & Support
> Brand
> Marketing
> Implementation
> Support
> Service
The hard part about strictly segmenting portals by role is that sometimes a partner needs to access elements from other areas. You can make connecting simpler through a single sign-on (SSO) and widgets on the homepage. Then partners can quickly move between landing pages and get where they need to go.
Adding widgets to homepages and creating an SSO can only go so far though. Multiple widgets, for example, can become difficult to use (especially in SaaS implementations, which are good at bringing forward particular functions but not so good at sharing space when channel tech elements stack together). This is where a specialized partner portal, such as a partner engagement hub or partner experience platform (PXP), comes in handy.
A partner experience platform (PXP) is a portal that aggregates all the technology and resources channel partners need to be successful.
> Agreements
> Planning
> Rebates
> Incentives (SPIFs, Promotions, Contests)
> Support Materials
> Training
> MDF
> Marketing Assets TCMA Portal
> Product & Service Information
> Training
> Certification
Learning & Readiness Portal
It is often personalized to specific audiences and designed to empower them in their roles through elements like SSO and user-friendly interfaces. A partner engagement hub is similar to a PXP, but it also focuses on building a better partner experience.
By focusing on the partner experience, a partner engagement hub allows you to take the best pieces from every portal and pull them together (with true SSO) to make customizable homepages that are relevant and useful for all partners, even the roles inside those organizations that support your joint go-to-market (GTM) strategies.
We helped one of our Fortune 100 insurance clients consolidate their disparate channel technologies into one portal with SSO.
This engagement hub was used across three distinct audiences (and could even be scaled for more). With all information in one place, the agents and internal support teams gained the ability to have an overall view of program progress, to track ongoing certification and education efforts, and to redeem earned points and marketing credits.
As you make changes, conduct user testing in the hub to ensure the right elements are front and center for each role, partner type and region (global preferences matter a lot when improving the partner experience).
Using a partner engagement hub lets you add in elements as your program progresses and to communicate those changes across all your roles. Some of these communication and progress-tracking elements include:
Add widgets to share relevant data points and highlight progress toward goals.
> Program Status
> Dollars Spent
Partner Owners
Sales Reps
> Rebates Earned
> COOP Earned
> Progress to Goal
> SPIF Eligibility
> Requirements to Earn
> Claim Status
> Leads Earned
Marketing Roles
> MDF Spent
> MDF Available Service & Support
> Satisfaction Rates
> Certification Level
> Velocity
> Retention
Offer a suggested next step toward the goals you want partners to take. Even provide a behavior-based incentive for taking the step, if desired. Possible next-best action options include executing a new product campaign, submitting an invoice for rebate payment, registering a deal or adopting a new implementation checklist.
Ask for feedback on just about anything that’s important. All the better to ask in short pulse surveys (think 1–3 questions) instead of annual or semi-annual partner surveys that likely only get sent to partner owners. Use the partner engagement hub to ask the right questions at the right times to boost partner survey participation rate and gather valuable insights.
Continue engaging partners through the hub to create more frequent users, higher satisfaction and larger releases of serotonin (the brain chemical that helps connect positive feelings to a program). Add fun gamification elements, such as earning badges for things like a log-in streak, viewing a set number of assets or a training course, or claiming a personal-best large deal! The personalized gamification all add up and reinforce the care you have for your partners, which is especially important in an era where partner mindshare and motivation are low.
Support and recognize your partners by bringing internal resources together in one place—the partner engagement hub. These support functions help build channel partner relationships between different roles. These resources include, but aren’t limited to, field team access and support role access.
Incorporate field teams in the hub to connect them with partners. Doing so helps both partners and reps. It puts the field team contact information in plain sight of partners who need it and it gives field teams increased visibility into the performance and adoption of channel incentives (e.g., marketing campaigns, goals, etc.)
A secondary benefit of field team access (and a fantastic channel partner relationshipbuilding tool) is the ability to offer peer-to-peer recognition and ad hoc awards in the hub. Because partners and reps are in the same platform, they can connect in new ways like writing recognitions for jobs well done or milestones met (with or without a monetary award attached).
Consider giving field teams a slush fund of points to reward for on-site trainings, call-a-thon contests and other elements they might use while visiting partners. Clearly tracking everything in the partner engagement hub (versus a separate giveaway that pulls their attention in multiple directions) helps reinforce the value of your portal and technology investment.
Similar to field teams, the hub can connect support roles like sales engineers, customer service reps and technician resources to partners. The connection provides additional tracking of requests and promotes your commitment to providing partners with the resources they need to do their jobs.
There’s a better way to use portals to enable partners. If you focus on a portal that’s more of an engagement hub—one that puts the partner’s needs first while improving motivation, adoption and reporting—the portal can be very effective at fostering relationships between partners and reps, and putting what they need front and center. Ultimately, even if transitioning to a partner engagement hub is only a future goal, work toward making partner portals as relevant and easy to use as possible so partners can get the most of the portals’ benefits, without the drawbacks.
By: Ellen Linkenhoker, Channel Partner Solutions Leader
To know if your data is accurate—and to sleep a little better at night—test the validity of transactional channel data by starting slowly. Take incremental steps by putting a small amount of data into play, confirming its usefulness and gradually repeating the process across all channels.
Think about where you can make the biggest impact in your current program and start using data there.
In addition to making an impact on your performance, using data in your partner program will differentiate you with your partners. Giving them a more tailored and focused partner experience will deliver on the promise of partnership and inspire loyalty.
“Smart channel professionals are looking at data across the partner journey as a way to differentiate themselves from the competition and accelerate faster in the market.” —Jay
McBainWhen it comes to making data-driven decisions for channel marketing success, here are five ways you can start small and still make a huge impact on your channel program.
The world of channel partnerships has historically been forced to make decisions based on relationships, hunches and outdated best practices often due to the lack of available (and good!) data. Savvy channel professionals are looking to the future and the power of data to bring their partner strategy of the past into the ecosystem of the future.
Marketers have long known the value of a segmented market. That theory holds true for partner strategies as well. The value of using data to achieve these segments versus using a legacy framework is a resulting strategy that will motivate the right behavior. Updated partner segments and personas will also help you answer questions like:
> “Will spending money on this group of people generate better results than money spent elsewhere?”
> “We have a new product to launch, where should we pilot our new marketing initiatives?”
> “What do I need to create to support my partners?”
> “How do I best reach and communicate with this group of partners?”
> “How should I expect this type of partner to perform?”
While partner segmentation could be as simple as geographic location, other demographic information should be considered like partner type, partner size, product sophistication, who the end-customer is by size or vertical, and how much partners sell of your brand (more on this later in the article).
Once you have the demographic segmentation, personas give a look at how partners do business. Consider reaching out to partners with a survey, picking up the phone, or purchasing a research study to get a first-person view of their ‘personality’. This should bring to light how they like to receive information, what support they need when interacting with clients, and what they find most valuable about your partnership.
To sum it up, the data you’ll want to start with segmentation and personas is:
> Partner demographic information (location, size, type, etc.)
> Partner customer types (who do they sell to?)
> Partner selling style (how do they sell?)
> Partner sales data (more details later, we can help)
> Partner personality (how do they like information, what support do they need, etc.)
> Partner perceived value (what do they like most about how you work today)
The best thing about partner segmentation and personas is using them to enhance virtually everything else in your partner strategy—from recruitment through enablement to sales.
Already doing this? Take a step back and evaluate if your current segmentation is truly aligned with differences in needs and sales behavior. If you’ve been using the same geographic or partner size segmentation we commonly find—it may be time to see if that framework truly fits.
This may seem like the opposite of “starting small,” but in reality, start where you are and begin collecting more pieces of transactional information as you go. Ideally, you’ll track different types of sales data.
For product-based companies, you’ll want partner sales data like:
> Units sold (when, how many, what price)
> Sales cycle (how long it took to close the sale)
> Who was the buyer (depending on partners, this could be general information like size or industry, or the client-specific details like name and location)
> What else the client bought
For services or value-added companies, you’ll want partner sales data like:
> Services sold (when, how long, what price)
> Implementation fees or add-ons
> Sales cycle
> Buyer information
> What else the end-client purchased
Ideally, you’ll track purchases through your partners to the end-client. This can become difficult because many partners want to protect their buyer relationship. There are ways to incent sharing (rebates, claims, etc.) and build trust (through deal registration and protection) that can help collect this information.
Being able to collect, track and analyze this data—either yourself or through a partner collecting this information—will yield answers to questions like:
> “Where do I have the greatest cross-sell opportunity?”
> “Which types of end-clients are purchasing specific products/services?”
> “Which partners are selling the most?”
> “Which partners are selling the products with the most profit?”
> “Where are we seeing buying cycles?”
The key to making this type of data analysis possible (and less painful!) is automation.
Automation helps create custom analytics, increase marketing and sales efficiencies, and prevent information and tasks from slipping through the cracks. Automation should make a channel marketer’s job easier and improve the quality of data by eliminating the potential of manual mistakes.
Figure out where you can make integrations, create incentives to collect where you can’t, and develop process and trust for the rest. These steps will go a long way to help collect the data you need to answer the million-dollar questions. (Literally.)
Already collecting all this sales data? Consider opening up your insights to partners. You probably have a bigger picture than they do into how clients are buying. Share with them new strategies and watch you both succeed.
Every channel manager I’ve ever met has a partner portal: the place they house all the information a partner could ever need to know about their products and tell their clients about their brand. And that is the problem. It houses everything.
Imagine you’re a reseller and are prepping for a client meeting to pitch them a combination of products that best fits their needs. You’re looking for the exact sell sheet with specs you remember seeing, but all you keep finding are the implementation guides and pricing sheets. Gah! What now? You need to be able to share this with your client…
This story plays out one of two ways. They either:
1. Eventually find the document or end up emailing their partner point of contact.
2. Decide to swap out the product for one they know will work and they have information on. Either way, the partner isn’t moving forward with a great perception of your brand and may choose to select a different vendor in the future. This is where the usefulness of data can solve our problems. You can use the partner segmentation and personas to provide only relevant content, add in a level of data on the end-user in your partner ecosystem, and you’ve got hyper-relevance and a great partner experience.
This level of data will help you do things like:
> Provide relevant content for sales reps (sell-sheets, presentations, prospecting tools, etc.)
> Support sales engineer and services teams (implementation guides, FAQs, process docs, etc.)
> Align marketing teams (co-branded materials, stock videos, re-usable content, etc.)
> Tailor training to partner types and participants (certification, prospecting, implementation, etc.)
> Enhance sales success by providing industry content to partners working in verticals
> Simplify incentive views (only eligible participants see corresponding promotions)
> Send announcements to relevant groups of people
This list could go on. What it comes down to is providing each person in your partner ecosystem the most relevant pieces of content, training and information. The beauty of data in this scenario is you can finally reach the person. Not the "partner."
The data you need to do this (if you don’t yet have partner segmentation and personas) is:
> Partner demographic information (location, size, type, etc.)
> Partner customer types (who do they sell to?)
> Partner selling style (how do they sell?)
> Partner personality (how do they like information, what support do they need, etc.)
> Partner staff and roles (if they won’t provide it, still split the information and use rolegeneric logins)
Already doing this? That’s fantastic! We recommend seeing what else you can consolidate and update. Are your incentive/promotion details and progress viewable? Can they see how much they have sold or helped implement in the last quarter? Do you have a view for the executives? When was the last time you updated your materials?
Let’s circle back to the business driver of having a partner program in the first place—to reach more people and sell more products/services. At the core of its existence, your partner program should be making you money. If you don’t have the data to know if it’s working or not—we need to fix this*!
*If you don’t have partner sales data (clean, usable and accurate), go back to #2.
To know what’s working, see which activities are generating the most sales. Look at the buckets of general motivation tactics given to partners for desired behaviors, including:
> Sales incentives and SPIFs (travel, cash, gift cards, merchandise, etc.)
> Market development funds (MDF: funds dedicated to driving marketing/sales activities)
> Co-op funds (funds given after sales activity has occurred)
> Discounts/rebates (discounts given on bulk purchases or money back for selling products)
The vital piece to using this data appropriately is attribution—tying back the opportunities and won/lost sales to these activities.
This can become difficult when investments made at the organization level, like MDF and Co-op are used to create leads that are then counted against sales incentives, SPIFs, and discounts and rebates.
I recommend measuring MDF and Co-op on higher level sales metrics like lead generation, pipeline expansion, cross-sell opportunities, deal sizes and new market entrances.
Use the hard sales metrics to measure the success of sales incentives, SPIFs, discounts and rebates because these are the things the sales, service and sales support employees are being motivated by (and are ultimately the people making the sale).
Being able to use data to measure the performance of your incentives and promotions will help you answer questions like:
> “Are my incentives increasing sales?”
> “Are my incentives increasing sales with everyone or just some people?”
> “Are my partners motivated by different things?”
> “Are my MDF and Co-op investments working?”
These questions can be sliced and diced a hundred different ways to measure effectiveness— but it all requires data.
We can’t leave this section without talking about incentives and promotions for non-sales related activity. This can still play a critical role in your partner strategy.
Let’s do a bonus round and cover some data opportunities for this …
Most channel managers are already encouraging and incenting their partners to participate in non-sales activities by offering something of value.
This could be offering:
> Fast-start bonuses to recruit new partners
> Badges, points or directory listings to reward certifications
> Awards to support staff and sales teams for improving customer satisfaction ratings
> Prizes to spur the adoption of new processes
The list could go on, but the point is it’s just as important as the sales incentives to achieving the goals set forth for your partner program. The only difference is the type of data you need to collect to measure success.
Depending on what you’re trying to achieve, the KPIs to measure could include things like:
> Customer survey scores
> Number of new partners recruited
> Performance of new partners after 1 year
> Engagement with certification programs
> Sales increases from certified partners
> Adoption/use rates of new processes or technologies
The big takeaway here is to think about formalizing some of your non-sales incentives and promotions to capture a bigger return on investment and see a faster implementation. Already doing both of these data optimizations? Consider consolidation. Do these all live separately? Try and get them in one place so people participating in more than one initiative have a better experience. Also think about pooling the awards earned for participation.
Every single one of these data optimization ideas will benefit from creating a centralized place to capture the trends, metrics and insights that are made available to you through these initiatives.
Having a dashboard will help you identify trends to:
> React to market pressures
> Address slipping sales by rolling out a SPIFF
> Evaluate the performance of incentives and promotions
> Measure portfolio changes
> Evaluate engagement and certification
> Answer your questions!
This list could go on for days, but what really counts in a dashboard is what you and your organization find valuable. Make sure there is data to answer the questions you have, your boss has, the executives have and your partners have. Definitely don’t forget about your partners, when they can see their progress and dashboard, they can also make even better investments (which could be pushing their teams to sell more of your products/services!).
Getting the dashboard right gives you a pulse on data, period. This can quickly become the most valuable resource when it comes to making a future investment or changing course on an investment you’ve made.
The most important thing to remember with this data is that the insights you pull from it are what matters.
