6 Business Benefits of Channel Marketing Automation
Based on a recent estimate, we believe about 300 or so enterprises have deployed some level of channel marketing automation, and most of these companies have quickly realized a substantial benefit from these investments. If you’re selling through an organization and do not have some level of automation in place, chances are your channel marketing processes are quite antiquated and require substantial upgrades to stay relevant to your partner base. Certainly you can address this by creating homegrown tools, but before you continue to invest further in that direction, and as you look at the year ahead you should seriously consider some of the options that are available in the marketplace for channel marketing automation. In other posts we have discussed in a great degree of detail some of the core features and functionalities of channel marketing automation, but in this article we're going to focus primarily on the business benefits that you can derive by deploying such a platform. A typical channel marketing automation platform requires an investment of about $100,000 per year. However, when you compare that figure to the total return on investment, the benefits are really quite substantial. We will discuss those ROI-related benefits in greater degree detail throughout this article. Efficiency of deployment: Speaking of business benefits, one of the most important aspects of channel marketing automation’s impact on an organization is improvement in efficiency—how fast you can get things done and how you can do more with less. When it comes to channel marketing automation, you’re primarily trying to manage a few core activities—for example, lead management and distribution, campaign asset management, co-branding and ROI tracking. It is easier for you to make that happen for hundreds and thousands of partners if you have an automation platform in place. If you don't have one today, chances are you're managing everything via e-mail and your partners have to download marketing content, and then they have to co-brand, and then they have to go educate prospects using their own individual platforms. A properly designed and configured channel marketing platform can integrate these processes, and dramatically impact your efficiency and how you enable your partners to market. Visibility of partner engagement: Today, if you are offering various types of campaign kits through your partner portal for your partners to download, co-brand offline and market using their own individual systems, you have no visibility into the impact those assets and campaigns are having within the partner base. If, however, you have a channel marketing automation platform in place, you will have complete visibility: how many emails are going out, how end customers are responding to certain assets, how your social media syndication is working, how your web content is working, how effective the events are in terms of driving leads and creating pipeline, and so on. Having that information represents a huge step forward for you in gaining control of the partner marketing process, and that level of visibility empowers you as you try to determine the right level of investment and as you continue to build new campaigns assets and distribute them to your partners. Control of brand promise: A typical channel marketing automation platform will give you substantial control of your brand image and presence through your partner network. If you allow a partner to download an asset and co-brand it offline, you have no way of controlling what will happen to it. Maybe a brand image will get distorted, or maybe something will get added that is not in alignment with your core brand values. Maybe partners will send something by mistake that doesn't truly represent your company. However, if you have a channel marketing automation platform in place, you can maintain complete control over how these assets are distributed. Speed of execution: Today,