Professional Documents
Culture Documents
How high-tech companies can get more business by pushing less, and sharing more
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Baptie ChannelFocus article from Brainshark Creating content that works for your channel http://channelfocus.baptie.com/blogs/brainshark/archive/2010/09/22/creating-content-that-works-for-your-channel.aspx Cloud computing will transform the IT industry as it will alter the financial model upon which investors look at technology providers, and it will change vertical industries, making the impact of the Internet on the music industry look like a minor blip. Peter Sondergaard, Gartner http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1470115 3 Sirius Decisions 4 Sirius Decisions 5 According to ChannelWeb, 82 percent of respondents said they are motivated by an OEM/vendors ability to supply leads. http://www.b2bmarketing.net/knowledgebank/telemarketing/best-practice/how-build-better-links-channel-partners
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The web is now the number one source of new business in the high-tech channel. Its been growing steadily, but last year it crossed a magical threshold. Here from data provided by Sirius Decisions:
hannel partners suffer under a deluge of C initiatives and messages from vendors.6 hey often lack the know-how or incentive T to implement digital marketing programs. he MDF process that theyd need to drive T it is just too cumbersome and painful. ampaign tactics arent ready-to-go. C The partner receives a pile of materials that need a last mile and theres no process or help to go that last mile. Given this clear disconnect, were in need of some principles that improve channel programs: First principle: Narrow your channel (in one study where target parters were cut from 1000 to 250, market investment ratio more than doubled)7 Second principle: Increase how much you spend marketing TO the channel (if youre not front of mind, youre nowhere) Third principle: Focus on ready-to-go or nearly-ready-to-go marketing materials. Make it easy for your messages to be used. Fourth principle: Build programs that can be tracked and measured, and link usage and performance with future rewards. It turns out that ease of use and measurement reinforce each other, and bring about more leads. How does that work? Thats the next new mode of thought in the channel
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By web, we refer to people who access a vendors or partners site and explicitly indicate interest in doing business (form fills or contact me kinds of interactions). This proportion will grow. Given that the majority of business is coming via the web, it is vital for vendors who want to use the high-tech channel to recruit partners to their online demand generation efforts. Yet, as we so often see by the poor take-up of these kinds of programs, theyre failing. Why?
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SCi Sales Group conducted a survey on LinkedIn and asked over 100 channel and account management experts what was their greatest challenge. Mindshare was top of the list. Graham Smith, Marketing Director, SCi Sales Group http://www.b2bmarketing.net/knowledgebank/telemarketing/best-practice/how-build-better-links-channel-partners 7 Sirius Decisions
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The response is twofold: Marketing automation-driven demand center models and Highly prescriptive digital marketing programs for partners. The rise of marketing automation For the past decade, investment in demand creation online has gone one way: up. Sirius Decisions John Neeson identified that best-inclass companies were 50% better than their counterparts at turning prospects into sales. The key difference: marketing automation tools that track each and every activity.8 Leading marketing community Econsultancy reports that roughly 71% of companies are either using or planning to use marketing automation tools.9
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Thus sighs the channel partner who gets an inquiry resulting from many digital marketing programs. He may not know whether its a casual query from a student who clicked on a simple PPC campaign, or a deeply engaged business buyer whos eager for technical information. Thats the danger of the random act of marketing, and it is prevalent in the digital age.
Highly prescriptive digital marketing programs for partners One leading channel marketing expert describes how many vendors give their partners a pile of ingredients and expect them to cook up a masterpiece.
At best, theyll take what you offer them and shotgun the content to the first prospect they come across, regardless of whether the content resonates at whatever stage in the cycle the buyer has entered.
az Gonzalez, Sirius Decisions10 L Thats the follow-up to measurement and marketing automation: Campaigns need to be built with loads of information and insight builtin. It answers all of the partners questions: hat kind of content gets sent to whom? W
These tools are designed to segment audiences ow do we respond to a given action H and treat them differently based on what they (someone downloads our white paper)? want, or ask for. Then track what works. ow do we find out what kinds of content H The result is higher conversion, and are most successful with prospects? a more systematic way of executing marketing campaigns. Simplifying campaigns in the partners eyes leads to more take-up, plus greater success in winning business. Marketing automation and prescriptive campaigns both cry out for one thing: Content to drive everything forward. This brings us to the third new mode of thought in the channel: Content Marketing.
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It has been on the rise for a couple of years, but many pundits see 2012 as the year when content marketing hits the sales and marketing mainstream. A January 2012 report from Content Marketing Institute surveyed 1,092 marketers, with the following conclusions11: n average, B2B marketers employ eight O different content marketing tactics to achieve their marketing goals. 0% report that they plan to increase their 6 spend on content marketing over the next 12 months. arketers, on average, spend over M a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing.
Content marketings virtues have crossed over from speculation to established fact: t addresses a world full of prospects I with whats most useful for them insight and information. t allows them to self-select based on their I own needs. nd using marketing automation it allows A vendors to support and assist prospects on their buyer journey. And, eventually, sell to them. Most technology vendors are going to be somewhere on the content marketing adoption curve. In many instances, direct marketing and sales teams will be more advanced in this respect than their counterparts supporting the channel.
Doing content marketing in the channel is a different, potentially harder, game. But the rewards are greater. ontent marketing in the channel requires C more coordination; you cant just push the publish button and call it a day. but he channel provides an immediate content T distribution path that is inherently scalable. n developing your content, you have I to influence and inspire the market via a third-party (the partners) but artners add immediacy and authority to P every piece of thought leadership, as they are that much closer to the audience. The list goes on. The rest of this eBook is about helping you to minimize the risks of content marketing in the channel, and maximize the reward. We call it Best Practice Content Marketing in the Channel.
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http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/12/2012-b2b-content-marketing-research/
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http://www.junta42.com/resources/what-is-content-marketing.aspx
Guru farming
You know that partner who has natural charisma and an easy connection with his clients? Sometimes, in these personalities, we have a real channel content marketing guru waiting to emerge. Give him or her the opportunity to speak to a wider audience. Ask him to address a topic that interests him and lift him or her and the content up. This is how you cultivate great content and new thought leaders.
Most partners have plenty of internal knowledge that would make valuable, compelling content the challenge is finding the time to create and deliver.13
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http://rcpmag.com/Blogs/Marketing-Matters/2011/02/Content-Marketing.aspx
These can also form the basis for a great little series of e-newsletters.
With the eight more in-depth blog posts, you can now make an eBook or mini white paper.
This process is known as content atomization. While it feels pointless (arent we just repeating the same thing, more or less?), it does your readers a tremendous service, by giving them a good story in different formats. They can read, review, share or respond in the way that THEY choose.
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Your audience lives in many places, literally and figuratively. They all come to your content with different backgrounds, different intents and different skill sets.
3. Other audience brackets These might include the technology true believers, the angry IT guy, the skeptical CEO, Just like a Hollywood producer thinks the eager first adopters, as well as their polar demographics with each summer blockbuster opposites. You and your channel partners (we need to nail the 16-17 year old girl bracket!), know the types worth considering. you as a content marketer in the channel need to think about your own brackets. Build a basic audience management tool The challenge of efficiently managing a For the vendor managing content marketing handful of audiences and personas in in the high-tech channel, the audience youre content marketing has been tackled before. targeting must be very broad. Some themes One way of ensuring that youre addressing will emerge however: all of your different audiences over time is via a basic content schedule. 1. Everyone is on a buyer journey Your audience will range from never heard of Build a spreadsheet with your key dimensions us or our solutions to just about to buy in a big say personas on the x-axis and stages of way. Build content that works for either, and the the purchase journey on the y-axis. Then list stages in between. up your content, and schedule it for production and distribution. 2. Decision-makers have many flavors You cant always be addressing the fanciest title in the room. Some people have a more technical bent (CIOs, IT managers, engineers, etc.).
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Business buyer
Others think only about costs (CFO, procurement). They will all benefit from content tailored to their view of the world.
Personas
Awareness Winning over new unknowns Post 1 Title Date of production and publication Post 2 Title Date of production and publication
Objection clearing bringing up fears and concerns Post 9 Title Date of production and publication Post 10 Title Date of production and publication
Consideration People who know us, and are comparing Post 5 Title Date of production and publication Post 6 Title Date of production and publication
Objection clearing bringing up fears and concerns Post 9 Title Date of production and publication Post 10 Title Date of production and publication
CIO
Tech buyer
IT director
CEO
CFO
Gating Theres a whole scientific field around when to ask web visitors to fill out a form for content, and when not to. Rule of thumb: Only ask for people In other words, theyll compete for content too. to fill out a form when you intend to use the Keywording information immediately. Dont gather info just Every piece of content should be associated to build up a file. with keywords that apply to your specific 2. Content can lead to business, business and the need your solutions meet. or hurt business Duplication If you provide channel partners with an attractive Google now punishes sites that publish content Working these keywords into titles and landing page linking to an eBook, youre liable to that is identical with content already on the web. sub-headers, landing pages and PPC ads get some forms filled out and great sales leads. Take some advice from the Juice Marketing blog: will show results. On the other hand, an army of partners pushing You better have some high the exact same content through their blogs can quality, original content on hurt everyones SEO.
There is growing channel conflict between channel partners and the vendors own professional services grouphow do vendors manage conflict between the two competing groups?15
You have to start marketing to the channel as though it is a separate target market. Build and communicate clear value propositions, and find early adopters then turn them into champions who will influence peers. Daniel Stevenson, Iron Mountain Digital16
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http://juice-marketing.com/blog/hey-sage-what-happened-to-differentiate-or-die/ Channel Champion site Whats going to keep you up at night in 2012? http://cluster3.ccionline.biz/wordpress/?p=501 16 Baptie ChannelFocus Hawkeye blog Social media and the channel http://channelfocus.baptie.com/blogs/hawkeye/archive/2011/03/08/social-media-and-the-channel.aspx
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Companies that follow their buyers intent and treat each buyer differently based on his or her intent are able to close up to twice as much business.
Use the cloud to enable partners to learn and drive demand with content they can watch and use, anytime, anywhere. [Then] measure interactions with partners and their customers in social media, email, portals and websites to understand which partners are engaged and help them prioritize leads. Jon Whitlock17
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http://channelfocus.baptie.com/blogs/brainshark/archive/2011/07/18/three-channel-communication-strategies-that-grab-attention-and-drive-revenue-a.aspx
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One of the most profound changes to marketing has been the steepness of the learning curve 2. 5% of your partners publish the white 2 brought about by digital marketing papers (through display ads and landing measurement. Gone are the days of guessing pages) on their site. what the market likes. Now you can see 3. he Delta white paper generates 90% T specifically what they read. of downloads. Alpha and Beta bring This is the initial bounty of content marketing 2 and 8%, respectively. combined with measurement better 4. ou take this insight and create a unique Y management of your resources. campaign around Delta for the remaining 75% of partners, complete with estimated ROI. 5. ou share your data with corporate Y marketing, who (hopefully) start churning out more Delta white papers, and fewer Alpha and Beta white papers. 6. s many of these new partners push Delta, A you help them share best practice around this white paper (and maybe create a webinar).
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During the last two weeks, I had the pleasure of speaking with several high-tech channel executives regarding their views on social media, and how they are applying it to their partner programs. To my surprise, only one vendor ranked social media as a top priority. John Walker18
Knowing the twitter handles, facebook fan pages, LinkedIn Groups and profiles of your channel partners isnt about controlling the message. Its about collaborating with your channel partners in a way that adds value for customers and prospects.19
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ChannelFocus by Baptie, Hawkeye post Social media and the channel http://channelfocus.baptie.com/blogs/hawkeye/archive/2011/03/08/social-media-and-the-channel.aspx http://www.b2bbloggers.com/blog/b2b-integrated-marketing-communications-marcom-the-impact-of-social-media/
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Because content and assets have a time-limited life cycle that needs to be managed, a standard set of scalable and repeatable tools must be put in place and leveraged to optimize the value of each asset as it contributes to the overall channel marketing effort. Steve Greene20
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Agencies
Content creation management Book of Record DAM
Campaign creation
Campaign creation
Regional marketers
Mass customization and distributed DAM / Cloud Asset Management (CAM)
Partners
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Contact
USA Elateral Inc. 1 Westbrook Corporate Center, Suite 352 Westchester, IL 60154 USA E.M.E.A. & Elateral HQ Elateral Ltd. Elateral House, Crosby Way, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7XX, UK
Telephone: (UK) +44 (0)1252 740740 Fax: +44 (0)1252 740741 Email: info@elateral.com
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