What Is Channel Partner Marketing?
Businesses often run into the problem of not having the resources, such as time and tools necessary, to efficiently market products and/or services. When this is the case, many turn to channel partner marketing to achieve their desired sales goals. What is channel partner marketing? A marketing strategy in which a brand markets their products/services through a partner business. This partnership opens the door to many benefits such as extended marketing reach, expanded brand awareness, and an increase in leads.
Channel partners act as intermediaries that move products from suppliers to end users. This strategy is different from just promoting products through advertising and marketing channels. Channel partners are usually businesses in and of themselves so when you have multiple channel partners, essentially there are multiple separate companies selling the same product.
What Are the Benefits of Channel Partner Marketing?
Expanded Brand Awareness
Teaming up with another brand greatly expands your brand awareness. Each brand’s pre-existing customers will become aware of what the other offers. When choosing partners, it is imperative to consider a company’s goals, audience, and brand value. An endorsement from a company that aligns with your own in terms of those factors, can help you reach new markets that otherwise you may not have had access to.
Extended Reach
Channel partner programs help extend the reach of your marketing campaigns. When partnering, each company not only gains access to each other’s customers but also to other partners. This greatly expands your distribution network by now having access to clientele that without a channel partner may have been difficult to access. Channel partners can collaborate on marketing efforts such as social media promotion or email campaigns which can not only be cost effective but also entice potential customers.
Increase In Leads
To expand and grow, businesses have to focus on lead generation. Tapping into a larger pool of potential customers can go a long way. Two established companies partnering creates access to each other’s customer base that they have already cultivated. By selecting partners on the basis of: overlapping audiences and similar goals, the leads you’ll get will be highly-qualified. This not only increases the number of leads coming in, but improves the quality of your lead acquisition which puts you on track to the ultimate end goal of converting leads to sales.
Channel partner marketing is a way for partners to help each other reach the same goal—increased sales. According to Forrester’s B2B Benchmark Metrics Data, 71% of the world’s commerce can be attributed to channel sales. Channel partner programs establish credibility which provides customers with a point of reference through a business they already trust. The established trust increases the likelihood that a customer will also trust your brand, thus leading to sales.
A key selling point of having partners is the fact that they are better positioned to sell to your customers than you are. Channel partner programs create a mutually beneficial relationship that helps all businesses involved improve their marketing efforts. The benefits of network expansion and amplified reach propels leads which in turn propels channel sales. When businesses don’t have the resources to do sales and marketing outreach primarily by themselves, channel marketing with the right partners can be very beneficial.
Want a channel marketing program that helps you get more data, insights, and revenue from your channel? Contact us!
