The latest Spiceworks State of IT report found that 80% of companies will maintain or grow IT spending in 2021. With workforces going remote and IT moving workloads to the cloud almost overnight, spending on collaboration, cloud, and managed solutions have gone up significantly. The pandemic has also acted as a catalyst for business transformation – 76% of businesses plan on long-term IT changes, with investments in security and governance; improved IT ops, solutions to support remote workforces, and improved disaster recovery strategies.
So, how will IT buyers access these services and solutions? Whether it’s hardware, software, or cloud, using channel providers – VARs, MSPs, and online retailers – is a preferred way for many companies to fulfill their service and infrastructure needs. SWZD’s IT Buying Trends 2020 Research, which found that 63% of MSPs expect their revenues to grow over the next two years, explores the reasons behind the growing importance of channels for IT buyers. For example, per the study, over 60% of respondents indicated that buying from VARs and MSPs can make life easier for IT departments.
This opportunity makes a strong business case for channel marketers and tech vendors to double down on channel partner investments. However, while vendors want to create and deliver the best campaigns for their partners to succeed, they will also want to see revenue impact coming from their MDF investments. In other words, while partner satisfaction is the leading KPI of a channel partner program, lead generation is equally critical.
We have condensed our experience of over a decade of successful MDF campaign management to five proven ways to engage and delight channel partners while also proving the value of the channel marketing investments with strong business outcomes.
Five Ways to Drive Channel Partner Delight and Business Outcomes with MDF Investments
- Intelligent intent and expertise to reach the right audiences: a key element for both stakeholders – vendors and channel partners – is the quality of data that will fuel the campaigns aimed at IT decision makers (ITDMs). Campaigns powered by best-in-class, first-party intent data sets enable channel partners to utilize MDF funds for result-oriented marketing activities and find new clients in the exact niches or markets they choose. Intelligent intent data also creates higher confidence in campaign outcomes. Unfortunately with all the changes in the intent data landscape, accessing safe, relevant intent data at scale is a growing challenge. Partnering with the right intent data provider with access to the best-in-class first- and third-party data can help balance laser-focused targeting with reach, scale, and compliance.
- Tailored campaigns to maximize MDF spend ROI: as a channel marketer, you want better control of your messaging with campaigns, and yet, the reality is that different partners are at different stages of marketing maturity – they are of different sizes and serve different niches. So, while a one-size-fits-all approach may offer cost and operational efficiencies, it won’t work for the partners themselves or deliver the results you need. Developing channel programs that can handle tailored campaigns for different tiers and partner segments, including white-glove programs for the most important of them, is a great way to delight channel partners while also driving investments proportionate to each reseller’s business potential. For example, HP’s partners include firms ranging from smaller vendors with HP sales of $10-$30 million yearly, to much larger resellers (called National Strategic Partners). Working with SWZD, they were able to implement a tiered system with different offerings for different levels (from premiere to platinum), based on the distinct needs of each of the dozens of partners. At every level, each partner was empowered to deliver high-quality content to prospects across channels via SWZD’s digital demand generation program.
- Ease of execution: in these competitive and disruptive times, creating streamlined programs to ensure all the wheels align and spin smoothly is critical to your efficiency and effectiveness goals. Standardized execution of channel programs is equally valuable to channel partners, who desire a smooth experience as they are the ones expected to produce the results from them. As ITDMs often enjoy deep relations with channel partners and trust their recommendations, it helps if they have positive sentiments towards your brand, beyond the purely transactional. Minimizing friction when delivering campaigns is central to that. For channel marketers, this means running complex tailored, multi-geography, multi-niche channel campaigns in harmony, at scale, and with all the necessary checks and measures in place to ensure results stay on track. Working with a solutions provider who can run complex programs at scale lets you provide partners of all sizes the maximum benefit with minimum effort.
- Integrated campaigns: the complexity of running streamlined channel marketing and demand generation programs while also tailoring and customizing campaigns based on channel partner needs requires an integrated and turnkey approach for optimal reach, efficient execution, and easy measurement. This approach gives you more control over marketing dollars, and channel partners more impact than stand-alone efforts such as one-off customer dinners. This is why channel marketers prefer to work with service providers such as SWZD, who can deliver end-to-end campaign solutions. This includes intelligent intent data, campaign creatives, access to owned and operated community and website networks, lead follow-up and verification by email and telemarketing, and easy-to-use performance dashboards to keep it all under control.
- Enabling the digital transformation: the market today is omnichannel, with most channels being digital. Channel partners need your help to truly make the digital leap and be present on all the channels, platforms, and devices that their customers are. Their customers – your end customers – expect nothing less. But designing and executing programs that can address audiences across channels such as display, webinars, video meetups, events, landing pages, email, and outbound telemarketing is far from easy. That is why partnering with a full-service provider such as SWZD helps ensure that your channel partners can run truly omnichannel campaigns while your brand creates delightful experiences for ITDMs, irrespective of where they choose to engage.
Whether you are an enterprise tech vendor or a growing tech brand, channel partners will remain key to driving reach, customer relationships, and sales. Managing channel partner relationships is getting more complex and competitive – for channel marketers, building strategies that foster trust, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and convenience will remain central as IT spending rises across industries over the immediate and long term.