It has been touted that Charles Darwin once said that in the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate most effectively have prevailed. While there’s doubt that he ever actually said that, it is nevertheless certainly a truism for vendors, distributors and partners looking to pursue partner marketing campaigns.
A successful marketing campaign can take your business to the next level and drive increased demand and revenue for all parties involved. But getting it right is not as simple as it initially seems, and making sure both vendor, distributor and partner are aligned and clear on what’s required – and have the time to devote to making the campaign successful – is critical.
With a wealth of options for types of campaigns and myriad considerations to take into account, careful planning upfront is required for both vendors/distributors and the partners.
The six factors to consider for success
There are six critical factors that can help ensure your through-partner campaigns are successful.
1. Make sure you have a clearly defined target audience
What’s the problem you’re solving and who is suffering from that particular problem? What roles will you need to target, in what size of business? Is it industry or geographic specific?
2. A commitment to the typical cadence of campaign timings
Maximising the time the campaign is in the market is also required. Here at Gratifii, our service is designed to minimise the time requirements for all parties involved, but that’s not always the case and you’ll need to be clear upfront about time requirements and cadence.
3. A commitment to speed to lead
Otherwise known as speedy follow-up by partners of any leads. Our recommendation? Follow up the same day you receive the lead. The odds of qualifying a lead decreases the longer you let time lag before following up.
For vendors and distributors, there are three critical additional factors to consider for through-partner campaigns, and while they’re more focused on the vendors and distributors, partners themselves should also consider these too:
4. What type of campaign do you want to run?
This could be a digital lead-gen campaign harnessing LinkedIn advertising, sponsored content, search and digital display; telemarketing campaigns for which you’ll need an up-to-date contact list or a deep understanding of the market you’re after; event campaigns; or content only, with thought leadership articles, case studies, white papers or video content.
For example, if you have a clear and unique offer that includes a useful downloadable asset such as a whitepaper, template or benchmark report, and your partner has a solid list of companies to target (and by solid list, we’re talking 100 or more companies) or a deep understanding of the target market they’re after, a LinkedIn lead generation campaign could prove fruitful. If on the other hand, your partner has very few LinkedIn followers, the offer is complex and the partner doesn’t have a clear understanding of who specifically they’re targeting, a LinkedIn lead generation campaign could be a time wasting disaster.
5. Partner selection
Ensure your partners are a good fit for the campaign type and that they understand their commitments and have the resources to effectively follow up any leads quickly – it’s that ‘speed to lead’ requirement again!
6. What is the offer you’ll use to attract people
What is the call to action? Make it strong, such as offers around trending solution areas and market opportunities including downloadable assets, online assets or cashbacks, and watch your success rate soar.
With a bit (ok, a lot!) of forethought and careful planning, partner marketing campaigns can be a lever to greater success for all parties.
But if you don’t have the time or energy to expend, have no fear! Here at Gratifii, our campaign-as-a-service offering simplifies channel funded partner marketing campaigns and helps streamline the efforts for vendors, distributors and partners alike, while driving results. With a range of services from campaign strategy to advertising opportunities, we can help partners who might not have the internal skillsets needed – or the time – to effectively execute high quality lead generation marketing campaigns.
And that’s just another example of Darwin’s (or whoever might have said it first’s) lesson on collaboration.
Want to learn more about partner marketing? Request a meeting.