New Year, New Channel Marketing Predictions
It's 2015, a new year to embark on new endeavors with anticipation and reap the knowledge hindsight brings. The new year also brings Channel Marketer Report’s Channel Marketing trends and predictions, which we eagerly await. So how have the predictions changed over the last 12 months? Let's take a look.
It's 2015, a new year to embark on new endeavors with anticipation and reap the knowledge hindsight brings.
The new year also brings Channel Marketer Report’s Channel Marketing trends and predictions, which we eagerly await. So how have the predictions changed over the last 12 months? Let's take a look.
2014’s predictions included:
- An increase in social media engagement and social selling
- Vendors would create social communities and content for partners
- Vendor-provided content, content and more content, both written and visual
- Email automation and syndicated web content would be on the rise
- Significant uptick in the number of hybrid service providers
Sure enough, many of those predictions were spot on. More on-premise partners moved to the cloud or at least a cloud model and social is well past “trend” status and even some are past, “How do I do it?" status and moving into, “How do I help my partners do it?”
So what’s in store for 2015?
Read the full article here if you wish, but in a nutshell here are the overarching themes:
- An increase in automation tools and vendor-supplied partner marketing platforms
- Bigger focus on ROI
- More local-level marketing
- Integrated tactics across all marketing channels
Of course, we’re always interested in hearing other perspectives. What do you think will trend in the channel this year and why? Sound off in the comments below!
Contributing blogger Heather K. Margolis, the Channel Maven, has led channel programs for major IT companies.
Good recap Heather! I agree
Good recap Heather! I agree with what you have summarized for 2015 channel marketing predictions. One that I’m already seeing come to true in 2015 is increased focus on ROI, as alluded to in my colleague Patrick’s prediction in the original CMR post. Channel pros should be focused on brand control, lead generation, sales conversion and – most importantly – work. More specifically, how much work are you giving (or taking away) from your partners to execute sales and marketing tactics connected to your brand.
We’re also seeing big data, analytics and business intelligence across other industries as well. It’s no wonder that channel marketers are beginning to put more value on a data-driven approach. As you know, I can say it’s because they’re starting to have the tools to gather hard metrics to back up these channel marketing strategies.
Big fan,
— Rick Cedrone, Marketing Manager, North America, TIE Kinetix