Regardless of which type of partner marketing you choose, it is always possible to support your sales partner in the best possible way and work together to achieve marketing success.
What is partner marketing?
Choosing the right partner is an important step, whether in private or business life. Even as a company, you should always value and treat sales partners with respect, regardless of whether they are sales or distribution partners. They are not a means to an end — i.e. to sell — but your most loyal regular customer. In particular, it is It is important to pick up sales partners from the start and prepare them for future cooperation and partner marketing. In order for you and your sales partner to pull together, a proper partner onboarding, the introduction to the partnership, is particularly helpful and promising. During onboarding, you show your sales partner that you offer a clear point of contact for every situation and set the The basis for successful cooperation. Particularly when it comes to marketing, it is important to make it clear that advertising should be carried out together and that there is a uniform goal behind this partnership. With all these agreements, a good product and the right marketing campaigns, nothing stands in the way of a successful start in partner marketing.
How does partner marketing work?
To see once again how the marketing process should work overall, here is a small step-by-step guide:
- Step 1: Involve sales partners in the strategy right from the start and discuss joint deployment options.
- Step 2: Learn your partner's marketing strategy.
- Step 3: Bring the two strategies together and use them to develop a joint marketing plan.
- Step 4: Know your partner's goals and customers and find out how you can help them achieve them.
- step 5: Stay in touch! Regular communication is the cornerstone of successful collaboration.
- Step 6: Provide your sales partner with suitable IT systems, which they can use to carry out independent local marketing.
Types of partner marketing
With partner marketing
With partner marketing is Marketing campaigns that are carried out together. You and your sales partner develop a joint marketing campaign and everyone promotes it on their channels. However, you are always the same as the senders. This creates a win-win situation for both parties.
Through partner marketing
Does the complete publication of marketing measures on the part of the partner. You provide your sales partner with templates or marketing concepts, which he can use to market the products or the company in general. These templates simply need to be adapted or provided with the partner's contact details And then he can use them for his marketing purposes. As a result, his local customers receive their marketing materials from a trusted person or authority in their immediate environment. For you and your product in particular, this offers a very good multiplier effect. On the other hand, it gives the sales partner more leeway and options to decide which advertising material they want to use, when and where.
For partner marketing
With for partner marketing, on the other hand, it's more the other way around. Although there are also the marketing materials are created by the head office or by the manufacturer and only supplemented with the name of the partner, but the partner has little say When and to what extent you publish them. All marketing campaigns are only carried out by the manufacturer or head office. This is particularly useful for small and unknown distribution partners who can benefit from the company's reach.
How can you support your sales partners in marketing?
No matter what type of partner marketing you choose, It is always possible to support your sales partner in the best possible way and to work together on marketing success. This can be achieved from the start by using gCreate a marketing plan or develop a campaign plan after the advertising priorities for the next quarter or year have been set. In this way, your sales partner can think in advance about how the marketing campaigns can be incorporated into their own activities. However, in order to run this campaign together and successfully, it is also It is important to provide distribution partners with marketing materials. These materials can either be used directly or, after a brief individualization by the respective sales partner, be incorporated into advertising. To ensure that, despite adaptations and actions by various sales partners, a uniform image of the product and your company is still created among customers, it is also useful to talk to the sales partners about the corporate design to be followed. After comprehensive training, they can be assured that despite various distribution partners, the company remains a uniform brand. Last but not least, your sales partners can also provide financial support in marketing campaigns, for example by distributing advertising subsidies. In this way, even smaller sales partners can do enough marketing and you ensure that your sales partners do not want to skimp on marketing your products and services. IT systems, such as a communication portal, a web-to-print system or a marketing portal, can assist you in all of these support and agreements. From there, you can:
- Provide marketing materials
- Develop a campaign plan
- Distribute advertising subsidies
- Present the corporate design
Which current trends are relevant?
In partner marketing, there are trends that affect the head office, manufacturer and sales partners equally and should be addressed:
Headquarters expertise
As a result of planning, which takes place at headquarters or at the manufacturer's premises, marketing campaigns and content are characterized by a high proportion of knowledge. This makes it possible to prevent false advertising due to ignorance or lack of marketing skills among smaller sales partners.
individuality
Since in most cases marketing is mainly or largely carried out by the individual sales partners, the marketing materials are significantly more individual and better adapted to the target group as if they only came from the head office or the manufacturer (local marketing).
saving time
The uniform distribution of marketing materials and campaigns to all sales partners saves a great deal of time. In addition, the multiplier effect of partner marketing also saves time in central marketing.
Cost savings through joint marketing
When carrying out joint promotional campaigns, which only take place on the part of the sales partners, costs are also saved. The sales partner brings the advertising material and content to another target group, makes contact and thus bears part of the costs.
Digitalization: marketing trend or threat?
Digitalization is also an increasingly important topic in partner marketing. The marketing world has changed significantly in recent years. The age of pure print ads and posters is over. The majority of advertising today is mostly digital, whether as content on social media, as banners and advertisements on websites or through specially created moving image formats. But how do you make ideal use of digitization together with sales partners or can it perhaps even become a threat in partner marketing? Of course, new, digital online marketing tools cannot be dispensed with in partner marketing either. Social media, for example, offer an easy way into the end consumer's pocket. But website advertising is also becoming increasingly important due to the ever-increasing change from print to digital media. In addition, digital platforms also offer the advantage of being able to use not only text and image, but also video and audio formats to contact new customers. However, it is important to define exactly who is allowed to distribute which content. If each sales partner were to create their own ads and accounts for the same product, customers would quickly become confused and make a bad impression. Ideally, the presentation of the products or services remains largely with the manufacturer or headquarters. This means that you are on the safe side and can use digital marketing ideally for yourself. However, this does not mean that sales partners are not allowed to use these channels. Online media are also a popular tool for regional ads and customer-specific content for sales partners themselves. It's just important to make the basics clear from the start and to set certain guidelines for the use of images, materials and other media. With the right corporate design requirements and uniform template patterns for the entire company, nothing stands in the way of digitized and modern partner marketing.
Software support in partner marketing
In all these support and agreements with distribution partners, IT systems, such as a communication portal, a web-to-print system or a holistic marketing portal, can support you. With the right marketing portal Is playing complete communication and marketing processing via one system, where you can provide marketing materials, develop a campaign plan, distribute advertising subsidies and present the corporate design. All advertising materials and campaigns are published as templates (editable templates) and forwarded to sales partners. These can be adapted and ordered, booked or published directly in the system. Through template-based work, design requirements are directly maintained and applied. In order to offer distribution partners additional incentives, subsidies can be distributed or certain advertising materials can be made available free of charge. Most marketing portals are web-based applications that you and your sales partners have online access to. With this software-as-a-service solution, you always have an updated system that is constantly evolving with current marketing trends and has grown for the future.
