Effective ways to capture mindshare and build strong three-way partner marketing programs
Innovative doesn’t occur in isolation – most successful technology transformations involve multiple partners providing an array of solutions from software and hardware through to services such as consulting, design and implementation, and managed services.
According to Canalys research, the average customer uses seven partners along their journey. Success comes from strong partnerships that deliver comprehensive solutions to complex customer problems, facilitating a scenario where everyone wins.
In our experience working in marketing and partnership organizations with ISVs, GSIs, boutique SIs and hyperscalers is that sell-to, sell-through, and sell-with motions must be well thought out programs that bring together partner and alliance organizations with cross-department and cross-organizational buy-in of the collective goal and joint value proposition.
Many organizations that want to build a strong hyperscaler alliance to drive greater share of revenue through marketplaces and cloud seller teams are missing out on opportunities to influence or impact the partner organizations that are aligned to those hyperscalers. With over $300B in potential revenue being driven by customers, SI partners can access credits and programs that your customers will want, and hyperscalers will typically bring these partners in – on deals of all sizes – to implement your technology.
In this post, we will discuss effective ways to build strong three-way partner marketing programs that capture mindshare and build affinity for more deals and better customer outcomes.
Be top-of-mind with partners
A successful go-to-market initiative without the buy-in and interest of the partner organizations would be unlikely. You want to be top-of-mind, creating bias for your solutions and services, so that when a partner organization has a customer problem to solve, your organization’s capabilities are the first thought as the right fit for the job.
How do you do that?
By building awareness at the hyperscaler and at the partner organization, consistently and for the long term. You need to excite and educate a wide audience including sales, engineering, and leadership.
You need to answer the question: what’s in it for them?
- Money and margins – how do you help make more and meet their targets?
- Proof of capabilities – how does the product/solution/service achieve an outcome (better than alternatives)?
- Marketing and lead generation – many SI partners underinvest in marketing because they are expecting ISV and hyperscaler partners to do that for them.
- Hyperscaler influence – many hyperscalers have an insular view of the world that revolves around their own technology and sales motions. It’s important to keep your solutions top of mind by tying in with the hyperscaler’s sales motions and goals.
- Enablement – how can you make the partner look unique in a sea of similar capabilities?
Find the right message for the right audience
As part of regular discussions with colleagues and partner counterparts, qualitative research into their selling, enablement and customer onboarding process will ensure you bring the right message to the right people. This could mean asking:
- What challenges have they noted in working with your organization or understanding your value proposition?
- What are their customers looking for and saying?
- What are common or new use cases they’re seeking to solve?
- What is their current area of focus?
- What are they being measured on?
- How can you help them implement marketing programs that close gaps for them while aligning to their sales motions?
- How can you help them become stronger in business conversations and move from horizontal or pure technology conversations to line-of-business or industry solutions?
Marketing tactics to drive awareness
An effective approach requires integrated messaging with a long-term outlook that can be executed across a variety of media and measured to determine continued and future investment directions. These are a few tactics we’ve successfully deployed to garner the attention of internal and partner audiences:
- Regular creation of enablement materials for your partner audience. These assets should showcase your value proposition, what’s in it for your partner, and how it fits into their sales conversations to deliver better customer outcomes.
- Executive briefing emails to educate leadership internally and at partner organizations. These emails serve to get buy in and elicit conversation at the leadership level. The emails can include wins, advancements, and updates, tailored to what leadership cares about.
- Targeted monthly emails for sales and solution engineering teams, internally and at partner organizations. A regular touchpoint that shares updates, advancements, and wins help to keep you top of mind and connect individuals working on deals to your experts.
- Social media programs targeted at sales teams at both hyperscaler and partner organizations – usually built on LinkedIn. When it’s critical to get in front of the sales audience, this has proven to be an effective way to have them opt in to future communications, build lists, and drive awareness.
- Digital leadership social programs on LinkedIn that elevate your SMEs and leadership. Human-to-human connection is necessary for building relationships. A regular and public touchpoint with a broader audience can be a part of your long-term strategy to garner attention and build relationships. You can read more about this in our three-part digital leadership series:
- Part one: using LinkedIn effectively
- Part two: taking a team approach on LinkedIn
- Part three: the LinkedIn algorithm
Real-world hyperscaler alliance
We’ve worked closely with NetApp to build a Microsoft Alliance marketing program for Azure NetApp Files. Many of the approaches discussed here were used to attract the attention of Microsoft Sellers and execute partner-led joint campaigns. You can read all about it in this case study: Building a strong Microsoft Alliance marketing program.
Through strategic planning, collaborative execution, and continue optimization, you can implement long-term, effective programs that build partner and hyperscaler affinity to ultimately win more deals. If you want more advice, reach out.