Joint marketing success: How to strengthen the cooperation with your sales partners*

As a company, one of the most important goals is to generate the highest possible turnover by selling your own products or services. This project becomes a challenge when sales are not made centrally, but through sales partners*. The company must therefore be able to fully rely on the efforts of the partners*, since they are ultimately responsible for selling the products and attracting customers. Sales partners* are the people who establish direct contact with the end customers, represent the company and transmit the information about the products. Of course, sales partners* are also interested in generating the highest possible turnover and thus also profit. However, some of these partners* not only make sales for a company's product or service, they even have competing products in their range. It is particularly important for a company to place great value on the partnership with the sales partners*. In marketing, the partners* usually not only value the quality of the product, but also the simpler workflows in marketing. Read how you can work together successfully and how incentives and motivations can lead to a win-win situation for you and your sales partners*:

1. Strengthen sales partnership

Ideally, the partnership between the company and the sales partners* is such that both benefit from it. The sales partners* bring the products and services to the customers and in return receive central marketing support, discounts or special product training. In order for this cooperation to work, a constant exchange helps, in which the partners* can communicate their needs, suggestions and problems and inform the company about further information, innovations, contents of campaigns and product features. In addition, through direct contact with the customer, the sales partners* know the needs of the target group, which in turn can be relevant for future strategy and product planning. In general, it helps to look at the collaboration as a partnership rather than a dictator and to involve the sales partners* in planning the marketing. The individual campaigns and campaigns can only be carried out in a targeted and strategic manner if they know the overall marketing goals.

2. Make marketing materials available to sales

In order for these plans to ultimately work, it is particularly important to support the sales partners* in active marketing and to provide them with enough diverse marketing materials and the right content. Ideally, the head office should specify the direction and the campaign plan for local marketing in order to generate uniform brand communication to the outside world. However, the sales partners* are often responsible for the regional adaptation of the content and the individualization for the customers. In this way, stringent but individual marketing is achieved, which gives the partners* the freedom they need to find their personal marketing mix and promote sales. The choice of materials should be varied and sensible. Thanks to the close contact, the head office can orientate itself to the needs of the partners* and thus provide a suitable selection of advertising materials.

3. Create an overview of advertising measures through the marketing service portal

Marketing portals, which can be used as a platform for advertising measures, are suitable for the provision of these marketing materials. In such a system, the head office can release templates for planned marketing campaigns for local processing. The sales partners* supplement the materials with regional offers and their personal contact details in order to use this content for on-site marketing. Marketing portals also offer solutions for sharing campaign and budget plans as well as the specification of corporate design information (brand center / brand portal). Ideally, the portals have an open system structure, which means that internal CRM and DAM systems can be connected directly and the stored data can be used. In addition to the simple creation of marketing materials, this results in a platform on which information can be called up easily and in an orderly manner and the sales partner receives marketing recommendations that he can implement locally with just a few clicks.

4. Detect and fix problems

In order not only to build a good partnership with sales, but to optimize it further and further for the future, feedback is a particularly important part of the cooperation. Only through continuous consultation and feedback loops can the company recognize the difficulties and challenges in sales and provide solutions for them. Be it a specific product for which training is still required, or a new marketing channel such as social media, which should be more focused in the future - the exchange between headquarters and partners* can solve problems at an early stage. It is also important to recognize why certain advertising media are not used and accepted by the partners*. Frequent reasons are that the general materials or content are not suitable for the local target group or that they do not even reach the sales partners* due to a lack of communication. Surveys can also be used for analysis, which can be created and evaluated directly via the marketing portal.

5. Offer and motivate incentives

In addition to the right marketing materials, the organization in a marketing portal and the constant exchange between sales and headquarters, incentive systems can also motivate sales partners* to do more marketing for their own offers and thereby sell more products. Depending on the success of the partners*, certain purchases and advertising materials can be made available for the point of sale or exclusive discounts can be given for the sale. Marketing portals also offer the possibility of distributing advertising grants for certain materials or campaigns. The headquarters can thus create additional incentives, for example for new channels or measures, and give sales the opportunity to break new ground.

In general, when working with sales partners*, communication at eye level and partnership-based planning and implementation in complete marketing apply. If you would like to exchange information on the subject, you are welcome to contact us at any time. We look forward to every exchange.