The Channel Marketing Dilemma

I just read this article about analytics for the channel. It makes sense. I like his opening line: “Are my people spending their time on activities that drive sales?” That is key.

But then the article goes sideways, because, for the most part, channel partners don’t do demand generation. Service providers complain to me because they have to do lead gen FOR the partners.

The author works for a marketing automation company. Everyone thinks automation means magic. It still requires the same ingredients: permission, great content, relevance and attention. Hammering more irrelevant content at your partners isn’t going to help.

In fact, the biggest issue from providers is getting any Attention from the actual partners. As it turns out, signing up VADs (like Jenne or Tech Data) and large Master Agencies isn’t the end all be all. It takes a lot of effort, time and money to get to the partners on the other side of that contract to actually get the sales coming in.

It is extremely hard for the smaller or new providers because they have no brand and no demand. In addition, in many cases no idea what impact marketing would have on their business. Automating noise without a clear, concise, relevant message to the proper audience is throwing money away (and annoying people).

Tags: analytics, channel partners, marketing
Related tags: partners, marketing, channel, providers, because