Partner Marketing Concierge Services: Learn Locally, Scale Globally

One of the realities of channel marketing, of which vendor organizations are all too painfully aware, is that the majority of channel partners do not have dedicated marketing resources. So, when a vendor wants their channel partners to run marketing campaigns, it is not only essential to provide a channel marketing automation platform, but also to give the partners the means to make it happen by providing partner marketing concierge services. Now the key question is, once this preliminary phase of deployment has happened, how can a vendor optimize ROI from their programs by learning locally and then scaling globally? This article looks at the key steps to be taken.

To build a state-of-the-art channel marketing platform, a vendor needs multiple core components - a channel program, partner profiling, channel marketing automation, partner marketing concierge services, proven and tested end user marketing campaigns, and marketing and sales rewards. The great news is that many of these elements can be replicated across multiple countries using a single, unified approach. While it’s important to localize the language and content for each country, the program won’t scale or provide sufficient return unless a significant portion of the program dollars can be reused in multiple countries. Engaging a global partner marketing concierge organization is critical to make this scalability and localization a reality.

Any successful channel development program requires the creation of a sequential approach to delivering various program elements, and should build upon the basic partner program framework elements, which should include partner recruitment, engagement, enablement and management strategies. Here, we will focus principally on one critical aspect of a channel initiative: how to enable partners to generate more demand by using partner marketing concierge services. The following seven core elements will help any vendor to use the same dollar to receive multiple returns.

1. Deploy Channel Marketing Automation - Ensure that you deploy a platform that can be localized, and allow country teams to access, upload content and programs without being reliant on centralized, global teams. While global content can be easily uploaded and shared via a channel platform, an effective automation platform will enable the reverse to happen – when country teams can upload local promotions or campaigns to the platform. These can be tested in one market, and if successful can then be deployed in other markets.
2. Leverage Horizontal campaigns - The best way to get return out of campaign dollars is to figure out which campaigns have horizontal potential, i.e. which campaigns will be effective in multiple countries, enabling the use of the same graphical and creative assets in multiple languages. Many vertical campaigns - finance, real estate, healthcare, etc. - tend to be highly country-specific and tied to local market dynamics. So, to build momentum faster, look for horizontal campaigns that can be used in multiple countries.
3. Globalize core campaigns, localize in-country offers – Any channel marketing automation platform should allow you to customize global content at a local level, for example, to include country-specific offers, before the country team pushes the global content out to the channel. A global partner marketing concierge agency can help with the localization process.
4. Develop menu-based campaign options - Channel partners not only lack marketing resources, but also don’t have the expertise to set up effective integrated or transaction campaigns without expending considerable time and effort. This is where menu-based offers can significantly help channel partners, providing a means to enable them to quickly select and deploy campaigns. Once you have analyzed what is working in one country, and that has the capability of being deployed in other countries, leverage your partner marketing concierge agency to roll out menu-based campaigns in other countries. For this, however you will need an outsourced partner marketing concierge to provide localized services in multiple countries.
5. Pick a partner marketing concierge vendor with truly global capabilities - Having the right partner marketing concierge agency is critical for your ability to learn locally and execute globally. You need a vendor that can leverage the learnings from one market and, through its own program management and account management structure, rapidly share these learnings in other countries. The IT industry moves on a ninety-day quarterly cycle, and time is of the essence. Therefore, the speed with which your partner marketing concierge vendor can deploy its learnings to different countries can make or break a global channel marketing program.
6. Track ROI for global and local campaigns - Assuming you have deployed a unified partner management platform that gives you comprehensive visibility of your programs, you will have ROI tracking capabilities that will help you quickly analyze the effectiveness of different programs in different countries. ROI data will help you understand which programs can be horizontally scaled so that you can rapidly deploy them in other countries via your partner marketing concierge.
7. Learn, Edit, and Do it Again - It may take you a year or eighteen months to accomplish steps one through six, but after that you will have a significantly enhanced capability to learn in one country, improve in another, and repeat in further geographies in a very short period of time. This is the true value of ‘learn locally and scale globally’.

Every company needs to focus on their core value proposition, and partner up with experts who can help them with their other contextual requirements. In some cases vendors have insourced their marketing concierge capabilities by hiring field marketing resources, but this is an expensive option. Significant cost savings and global scalability can be achieved by partnering with a reputable global partner marketing concierge agency. Further information can be found in our article - How to Provide Partner Marketing Concierge Help in Bite Sizes.

ZINFI not only provides a state-of-the-art unified partner management platform, but also brings in local presence in multiple countries around the world, enabling vendors to deploy partner marketing concierge capabilities affordably and rapidly. Over the past ten years ZINFI’s experience in multiple IT domains such as networking, security, virtualization, storage, application delivery and more has enabled us to provide a highly trained channel marketing team that can significantly augment an vendor’s channel capabilities and increase ROI.