Cohen Leaves MetTel for New Channel Marketing Venture

Channel marketing veteran Corey Cohen has launched a content marketing business geared toward driving partner sales.

Cohen on Thursday announced that she has left MetTel, the network services provider, where she was vice president of marketing, to head up the Content Coast. She tells Channel Futures that she'll function as a fractional marketing executive who builds alignment between marketing and sales teams.

"My success in the 10 years in the channel has predominantly been because I focused the majority of spend, effort and resources on enabling my internal sales team and my partners to generate sales," said Cohen, who worked at MetTel for the last two years.

She's targeting a gap in the channel partner space – particularly the technology advisors (agents) she has worked with over the last decade.

The Content Coast's Corey Cohen

Channel Marketing Background

Cohen worked six years at technology services distributor TBI before moving to Intermedia and then MetTel. She was VP of partner experience at TBI.

"This new venture is an opportunity to help the channel overall in areas I feel are underserved," she said. "I see that there's whitespace; I'm hoping to fill it."

Cohen said these partners often lack the funds to pay for a marketing leader who can function as a direct enabler of sales. Marketing often gets relegated to social media, PR or events, she said.

"They might have lower-level marketing coordinators, or they might have a social media person. They might have a firm that they're working with. But they don't have that one person who's helping to coordinate or helping to put out content that's resonant with that agent," she said.

Whereas many marketing agencies focus on establishing "brand perception" in the market, Cohen said she's focusing on a motion that supports sellers in the field close deals. The sales enablement content she builds includes QBR templates and branded sales collateral that sellers can leverage.

Cohen said she historically has worked to help partners expand their pipelines beyond referrals.

"Referral business can't be your only business, and a lot of the TAs have relied on word of mouth and getting business from people they know or have been recommended to. But that is not a scalable strategy," she said.