Recently, TechTarget connected with Partner Marketing executives Angela Motiani (Head of Partner Demand Generation at Klaviyo), Kristina Onyon (Director of Partner Marketing at Cloudflare) and Rachna Gupta (VP of Marketing at HashiCorp) to discuss Building Partner Pipeline: How to Drive Demand With & Through Partners .
This discussion uncovered a treasure trove of tactics that partner marketers can leverage to set their partners up for success in driving demand and building pipeline. Here are ten key best practices that partner marketers should consider in their demand generation strategies with partners.
1. Treat partners as an extension of your marketing and sales teams.
It’s no secret that close rates are frequently higher when customers have the option to buy a multi-partner solution. Empowering partners to succeed is a no brainer – when your partners succeed, you succeed.
Partners are an essential part of the sales and marketing arms at any organization. Kristina speaks to this specifically: “Pull partners in to create a more holistic solution. Meet partners where they’re at and understand how they go to market … organize programs in such a way that partners aren’t just doing a one-and-done but help them nurture prospects long-term.”
2. Leverage intent data to inform marketing strategies.
If partners are willing to share intent data, it can be a useful tool for marketing strategies. Angela says, “Leverage intent data to find ICPs and to understand audiences.” She argues that intent data can be used to discover customer challenges, preferences, competitor searches and more – all of which can be used to personalize experiences.
Rachna further connects the dots between intent data and personalized marketing strategies: “A cookie-cutter model won’t work. Intent signals with non-personalized messaging cascaded into thousands of content pieces won’t give you a lot of ROI.” Furthermore, she asserts that successful content that is personalized, combined with the right tools, will help partners evolve long term.
3. Ensure value propositions are clear and tailored to a unique customer base.
“You can’t market what you don’t understand,” Rachna notes. “Have a very clear value proposition – that’s the biggest challenge.” Effective value propositions are only effective when they are customer-focused – aligning to a customer’s specific challenges and experiences – and not just a list of what a solution can do for customers.
4. Translate value propositions into powerful joint messaging and positioning.
Value propositions aren’t useful if they don’t make their way into messaging and positioning across partner teams. “Make sure the content you’re developing is in collaboration with your own product marketing team. You don’t need a silo. Use the same thing that you’re using with your sales team and extend it to partners. Make sure they understand the solution and where they can create the most value,” Rachna suggests.
5. Amplify messaging through a multi-partner approach.
“Customers are always looking to solve problems, and typically, one solution might not do that. Working with an ecosystem and building a joint story is something that’s worth looking into,” Rachna states. Essentially, customers look for solutions that solve specific problems, and they may not have the patience to find multiple products that “fix” everything.
Rachna further acknowledges that a “trifecta” approach is key: “Work together with multiple partners. Bring customers into the mix. Co-host events and bring a customer who can speak about the experience.”
6. Utilize tools that will help partners be successful.
Angela, Rachna and Kristina all agree that a standard marketing technology stack is critical to success. This most likely looks like three central platforms: marketing automation platform, CRM and PRM.
“Tools should empower you, you don’t empower tools,” Rachna points out. Simple infrastructure will help partners and partner marketers alike measure performance effectively.
7. Co-create meaningful connections and generate leads through peer-to-peer experiences.
Kristina believes that reaching senior executives requires a personalized approach. She suggests, “Develop thought leadership content that positions a brand. Make sure that this content matters to executives.”
This can be done through executive briefings, roundtables and peer-to-peer programs, which helps set partners apart. If partners don’t have power or tools in place to connect this way, Rachna suggests leaning on a third party like TechTarget.
8. Leverage campaign-in-a-box tactics intelligently and efficiently.
“Partner marketing is complex,” Angela says. “However, we need to make it easy for partners. Offer prepackaged campaigns that are easy to plug and play. And don’t forget about campaign adoption! Look at this from a holistic perspective: awareness, engagement and demand generation all in one space.”
Just like a value proposition and messaging, co-branded solutions should be customer-focused and unique to specific partner solutions. Many large enterprise companies offer partners pre-packaged campaigns, but the real value can be produced when they are customizable and specific to partner solutions. Partner marketers are in a unique position to help enable partners and support them on how to best execute. Kristina recommends, “Pull the partner in to create a more holistic solution. Meet partners where they’re at and understand how they go to market. Be flexible and personalize.”
Furthermore, Angela argues that AI should be incorporated into these campaigns. “Packaging is a starting point for a partner. Leverage AI to work for you.”
9. Create follow-up plans that set partner teams up for success.
It can be extremely difficult to coordinate follow-up across teams. “Defining stakeholder SLAs and lead follow-ups is crucial,” Angela argues. “Be clear on where data will live, who can access it and who is responsible … Take a multi-phase approach on follow up.” Being specific and strategic about following up almost always leads to better outcomes.
10. Include partners proactively in your KPI approach.
Angela calls successful KPI approaches “tricky but crucial.” Success should be defined early and often. Only track metrics that matter. Don’t forget about enablement and engagement metrics. After tracking and monitoring data, Angela suggests, “Look at the data from all angles and optimize.”
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