One-2-One Marketing: How it Can Help Partners, Vendors Alike

These days channel partners are presented with a bevy of marketing options from their vendors — co-branded materials, campaigns-in-a-box, online portals, etc. — designed to help partners become, in essence, an extension of the vendors’ sales and marketing teams. But one area of marketing many vendors haven’t offered, but one that can help its solution provider partners better target their customer base and make more sales, is one-2-one marketing.  Solution providers rarely have a dedicated marketing strategist to think about marketing targets, planning and analytics.

Here’s how one-2-one marketing support can make you both more successful together without breaking the bank:

You increase your partners’ loyalty to your suite of solutions. Effective vendor marketing programs that work closely with partners keep that vendor’s solutions top of mind for its partners. Partners are especially eager to engage in a marketing program when they see direct results in the growth of their business or feel supported by vendors in helping their customers. Vendors that do this best keep the end customer in mind when building their programs.

Your solutions reach more potential customers. By working closely with their partners to market effectively, vendors are guaranteeing better solution marketing and exposure through their channel. A powerful one-2-one solution includes both partner-specific marketing support and strategic planning. With marketing expertise on their side, partners can most effectively market a vendor’s solutions to more customers.

Your online presence is amplified. With the right marketing person on their side, partners ultimately will benefit a vendor’s business through their marketing efforts. By offering partners personalized strategic marketing support, the vendor’s solutions will be linked to more online searches and mentioned in a broader variety of online networks than it may be reaching alone. The growth of a vendor’s partners’ online presence will directly affect the presence of the vendor, its products and its overall brand online.

Your sales will grow. If a vendor’s partners are keeping the vendor top of mind, more end customers are learning about the vendor’s solutions. Additionally, as the online presence of both the vendor and the partner grows, sales should also increase as a direct result.

It is clear that vendors benefit from having partners that are better equipped to sell their solutions.  Sales — and partner loyalty — grow.

Are you already doing one-2-one marketing with your partners?  If not, what are your reasons behind not investing in a partner-focused channel program? Let us know in the comments below.

Contributing blogger Heather K. Margolis, the Channel Maven, has led channel programs for major IT companies.