Why Through-Partner Marketing Software Matters
Most companies selling through the channel want their partners to generate demand for them. However, now that the world of marketing has gone digital and marketing has evolved into a science, it is quite difficult for most partners to drive marketing activities and generate demand in a consistent fashion. This is where through-partner marketing software (TPM) becomes essential. Through-partner marketing software can significantly streamline demand generation activities by allowing a vendor to load a set of campaigns into a portal where partners can log in and easily carry out demand generation activities. Typically, most through-partner marketing software comes with a basic set of tools for specific activities like search marketing, social marketing, email marketing, event marketing and content syndication. The key for a vendor is to make sure that campaigns loaded into a through-partner marketing software platform are complete and effective. Partners generally do not like experimenting with new campaigns, because they lack resources and time. Therefore, when a vendor loads up a set of campaigns into a through-partner marketing software platform, the campaigns must work. Otherwise, partners lose interest and program adoption drops very quickly. In addition to loading up the right campaigns in the TPM software, another key requirement for vendors is to offer localized content. If a vendor is selling globally, it is very important to provide content not only in English, but also in other languages. And localization should not be limited to content alone. The entire user interface of the through-partner marketing software should be fully localized. Today, very few vendors can provide that, so when you are evaluating through-partner marketing software, you should make sure the user interface is fully localized and not just using Google Translation, which tends to introduce a lot of mistakes and errors. Here’s another capability to look for when considering through-partner marketing software: Can it integrated with other channel marketing automation applications like CRM, ERP, incentives management systems and the like? Most organizations today have a number of such systems. If you plan to implement through-partner marketing software, be certain that the platform you choose fits smoothly into your existing infrastructure, and that you can track program performance end to end. Finally, one of the most important aspects of TPM software is to provide real-time analytics. Using this capability, a vendor can quickly learn what is working and what is not, and replace or refine programs and campaigns to drive better results. When a campaign works, state-of-the-art through-partner marketing software also allows efficient scaling of that campaign, not just to multiple local markets but globally.