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b'Over the past decade or so, many companies selling to the channel have invested in some sort of marketing automation tool or platform for their channel activities. More recently, over the last five years or so, many of these vendors have come to realize that a direct marketing automation platform doesn\\u2019t work that well for a multi-tenant, channel-based marketing infrastructure. As a result of that, several large organizations\\u2014especially in the technology space\\u2014have begun to invest in channel marketing automation infrastructure. Most first-generation channel marketing automation platforms had some form of email tool, a web syndication tool and some basic event capabilities. However, buyers have moved online rapidly, and the ability to deploy a complete integrated set of tactics has become absolutely essential for any channel marketing automation platform to be successful. The next-generation platform\\u2014such as ZINFI\\u2019s partner marketing management platform\\u2014provides a core set of capabilities that not only make it possible to integrate diverse marketing tactics like email, events, search, social media and so on, but also bring in other elements to make the deployment and adoption of the channel marketing automation platform more successful.\\nIn this article, we will explore five fundamental capabilities you need in your channel marketing automation platform\\n\\n \\tPartner profiling \\u2013 You have to be able to dynamically create and manage your partner tier information. Many vendors tend to upload static partner tier information\\u2014e.g., platinum, gold or silver. But the partner base is dynamic. If you have a few hundred or perhaps even thousands of partners, managing the partner tier on a dynamic basis becomes very difficult. Therefore, you need to make sure that your channel marketing automation platform has partner profiling management capabilities. This is very important, especially as you try to provide personalized content\\u2014which we will elaborate on in the next sections below.\\n \\tCampaign library \\u2013 Another essential element to ensure partners adopt and use your channel automation marketing platform is a preloaded campaign library that provides personalized content. This is an area where you need to tap in to the capabilities of a good partner profile manager. You may have hundreds or thousands of partners, but not every partner should have access to all of the campaigns in your library. Instead, you need to have the ability to tag campaigns by partner type or partner profile. The campaign library should not only be localized (by geography) but also personalized (by partner tier or type).We know from market research that 40% of buyers today go online to perform searches before the buy. Because of that, your channel marketing automation platform needs to provide your partners with a fully integrated set of inbound and outbound tactics like search, social, email, event, syndication and collateral co-branding. These are foundational capabilities that every campaign library should offer so that partners can run campaigns that are relevant to their unique requirements, and do so easily.\\n \\tLead management and deal registration \\u2013 As partners run campaigns, they need to be able to upload a list, put it through various cycles of the process, register a deal, and inform the vendor so they can get it approved and protected. In many cases, when a partner closes on a deal they may also be eligible for rewards and rebates\\u2014an extension of the lead management and deal registration capability. But your channel marketing automation platform needs to have\\u2014at minimum\\u2014a basic lead management and distribution capability. In addition to making it easy for partners to upload lists and run campaigns, you may also want to distribute leads to your partner base. This is where granular partner profiling and list management capabilities come into play. You need to be able to group and partition partners by various types and competencies; not all leads will be d...'