How A PRM Can Enhance Your Partner Marketing Strategy

Introduction

We see companies of all sizes increase their revenue, audience, and brand reach every day through partner marketing.

But, to hit the jackpot and build a robust and strategic partner ecosystem, the partner marketing strategy needs to be on point and guarantee that both partners' ambitions and visions are in sync.

To begin, a partnership is when two or more businesses collaborate to achieve win-win results. These companies team up to devise techniques that boost growth and market exposure through partner marketing.

The techniques we speak of are called the partner marketing strategy. 

While there are hundreds of partner marketing software out there, businesses often use their PRM software to boost and strengthen their partner marketing strategy, on top of their wider partnerships operations.

Here's how they make it happen.

What is a Partner Marketing Strategy?

A partner marketing strategy is a plan of action outlining all the concepts, objectives, approaches, and responsibilities negotiated amongst partners. Taking charge of this mutually agreed-upon marketing strategy will help the partnership become more visible and encourage participation from both parties.

When properly planned and implemented, the partner marketing strategy can help boost sales, increase benefits gained from each other's audiences, and enhance collaboration on content creation, all of which can help achieve great success.

Additionally, having everything decided upon and documented as a team—with your partners involved—will make it easier for partners to refer back to these tools if questions or obstacles arise.

What Makes an Effective Partner Marketing Strategy?

An effective channel partner strategy is about fostering relationships that benefit all parties. 

It's essential that the partner marketing strategy identifies ways for both parties to grow their businesses, generate income, and provide top-notch services to both parties' past, present, and future clients.

As a result, it's important to develop a solid marketing strategy, and to help you get started, here are some ideas:

Aligned Business Plans

In business plans, the word "aligned" is key to everything. It is where you can see which directions to follow and ensure that all parties are on the same page with goals and desired outcomes.

Business plans will also help you set expectations, maintain check-ins during the partnership lifetime throughout campaigns, and do everything imperative to the success of a long-term partnership.

Here are some points to keep in mind when creating your business plan:

• Establish SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timed) goals to ensure that performance is fairly and accurately assessed.
• Create a precise, effective business plan that upholds mutual accountability between the vendor and partner.
• Align and coordinate your marketing and sales operations with your partners.
• Maintain a shared focus among all parties.
• Be transparent and focus on your strengths.

Find Your Focus

Value, trust, and growth are, without a doubt, factors that contribute to a fruitful business-to-business partnership.

To increase the impact of your partnership and promote growth, it is beneficial to act as a force multiplier that inspires partners in addition to maximizing their strengths.

However, it's crucial to maximize the value you can generate for your partners without placing an undue strain on the company or taking on more than you can handle.

As Madison Perry, Head of Demand Generation and Partner Marketing at Chili Piper, explained in her Greatest Minds in Partnerships interview:

“Don’t go after partners blindly. We have this list and it’s filled with well over 100 different target accounts. I believe it’s not a game about quantity, it’s about quality. So, go after those [partners] very strategically, but always have that list in your back pocket.”

The advantages of doing so include:

• Developing your team's skills before pursuing new opportunities and expanding different facets of your business.
• Sticking to your budget.
• Recognizing distinctive qualities, weaknesses, and strengths of your business and partner and determining how best to serve their interests.
• Promoting transparency and openness to any situation and encouraging truthful feedback.

Bonus point: If your partner's business can fill a need outside the scope of your expertise, this will give the partnership new traction and open up opportunities to add to the partnership.

Have Channel Marketing Managers

Partners need a go-to person they can turn to for support and encouragement. The channel marketing manager excels in this area.

Channel marketing managers highlight the objective of your partner marketing campaign and, more importantly, help emphasize the value of partners. 

Additionally, finding new partners, cultivating and maintaining connections with them, and ensuring that partners highlight the unique value of the brand's products and services are all things that channel marketing managers can assist with.

Having a channel marketing manager has several advantages, such as:

• Establishing a B2B marketing strategy that aims to attract potential channel partners.
• Locating marketing opportunities that will benefit each channel partner.
• Identifying which distribution channel or market products and services thrive. 
• Analyzing each channel's effectiveness regularly to check for revenue and sales growth.
• Addressing and resolving all channel partners' reports.

Benefits of PRM Software in Partner Marketing Strategy

After all the effort you put into developing your partner's marketing strategy, it is only fair that you would want to see the benefits. 

However, sometimes you need something to accelerate all the processes and foster harmony among all parties, as well as avoid the risk of becoming bogged down in time-consuming manual processes.

That is where the benefits of PRM can help in your partner marketing strategy.

Brand Alignment

Every channel partner ought to be promoting your company in some way. 

This means you will need to clearly define the principles that guide your brand and company. It's essential that you provide these partners with the best marketing and sales resources available to fit your company's needs.

PRM platforms make this easier. Workflows are automated, and you can make all marketing resources accessible round-the-clock to promote learning.

Additionally, a PRM could help you tailor your partners' access to these resources to grow their marketing efforts more seamlessly and concentrate on high-value business responsibilities.

Easy Onboarding

Successful onboarding will increase your profits and result in partners who are well-versed in your brand. Additionally, you lay a solid foundation and create strong and fruitful partnerships for the long run.

With the support of a PRM, you can onboard your partners and provide partner marketing materials to train and equip them with the abilities and information they'll need to market your goods or services.

This training material may take the shape of videos, academic materials, blogs, exams, and much more.

To get you started, look at the resources and tools you want to provide and ask your team and current partners what information they would find helpful to fill in any knowledge gaps.

Partner Empowerment

Nothing is worse than receiving a ton of marketing materials to push a product rather than developing a connection that can lead to a long-lasting partnership. Yes, it is simple to onboard new partners and let them get on with their work to grow revenue and market exposure, but why do this when you can empower your partners? 

Partners need genuine assistance, not just marketing materials. They need tools, information, and support to succeed in their partnership operations. 

With a PRM, you can offer ongoing support to partners and solve issues and inquiries quicker than through emails or manual support. 

The support center can help keep tabs on areas where partners need assistance more frequently. By doing this, you'll be able to set the stage for effortless sailing through the partnership.

Make sure you have procedures in place so you can manage your partners even when there are many of them vying for your attention.

Sharing Resources

Creating resources like business plans, partner agreements, and training materials in a PRM helps outline expectations for joint marketing campaigns and align the vendor and partner.

Teams from both parties can consult the resources at any time during the co-marketing campaign without difficulty or the fear of losing them. Additional advantages include improved visibility of expectations and requirements, and therefore, greater collaboration.

Lead Management

What happens when your partner marketing strategy starts to work? 

To assess the effectiveness of your marketing strategies and to track and nurture your leads, it's crucial to measure the quantity and value of business each partner is bringing in.

In a PRM, leads may be tracked and measured more seamlessly, even in high numbers and fast cycles, allowing you to determine which partner marketing techniques are effective. You may also include suggested practices in a PRM that partners should adhere to when pursuing leads.

Best Practices for Using a PRM with Your Partner Marketing Strategy 

Set KPIs

As the old saying goes, "If you can’t measure it, then you can’t improve it”.

To accurately analyze what is working and what isn't, you must monitor and evaluate your partner's marketing strategy from different viewpoints. Simply concentrating on revenue isn't enough.

This is where KPIs come in.

Partner marketing KPIs are quantifiable metrics that you may track to assess your strategy's effectiveness, the value of your partner programs, and your chances of long-term success.

As a team, choose the most important KPIs, design your strategy around them and assign responsibilities for execution in the PRM software. 

The likelihood of success is enhanced when the goals, roles, and expectations are clear.

Establish Clear Communication Channels

The secret to every effective partner marketing campaign is clear communication.

Effective communication entails evaluating your partners' changing needs, understanding the business-related difficulties they face, and assisting them in developing success-promoting strategies.

Partner portals in a PRM can assist in managing communication to drive the channel. With the help of these integrated collaboration tools, your company can centralize conversations between you and your partners.

Additionally, you should plan regular meetings where you can share information with your partners. Ensure you exchange pertinent data, including sales, to track the partnership's performance.

Share Amazing Content

Creating content is great for improving your program and giving your partners helpful resources. And when done right, it can be a quick and valuable win.

To be successful, your content must be relevant to both parties. You need to consider the kind of value that partners will get from your material.

The good news is that there is no limit to the types of content you can create. You can choose from writing articles to hosting webinars or even bringing on knowledge from the greatest minds in your field.

Last but not least, keep your content updated at all times. Keep in mind the goal is to be educational and engaging, not dull and stagnant.

Boost Your Partner Marketing Strategy With Kiflo

With Kiflo's all-in-one tool, you can automate and manage your partner's marketing strategy. And by coordinating every aspect of your operations, from tasks and deadlines to program management, you can keep the partner management cycle running smoothly.

We can also help you:

• Automate and streamline crucial partner program duties and responsibilities.
• Monitor partner marketing metrics.
• Keep track of partner incentives.
• Exchange company resources.
• Maintain effective communication with partners.

We help programs grow faster, become more visible, enter untapped markets, and form ground-breaking partnerships. Just ask our customers.