Channel Engagement and Education Modern Approaches for a Modern Age
Channel Engagement & Education Modern Approaches for a Modern Age Channel partnerships can be productive relationships, with increased revenue and market share for everybody. But research by Sirius Decisions indicates that although most channels partner with six or seven suppliers, they only actively sell for one or two. What are the select few doing that s engaging their channel partners so effectively? In this brief, we ll explain what companies who nurture successful partnerships are doing right, including best practices for a modern age. Make it easy for your partners to find information New partners are often sent a link to a portal, with the expectation that they ll be able to find everything they need. However, studies show that portals average 18% engagement, with many as low as 5%. Why so low? Because portals are often cluttered and disorganized, making them difficult to navigate. These barriers don't just discourage users, they increase the odds of salespeople creating their own resources, or accidentally using outdated information. But there s hope! Consider the following: Think push and pull. Augment your static portal with content management technology that enables the push of real-time updates and automatic recommendations, as well as pull, or ondemand search. Push: Many technologies, such as Guided Selling, can now auto-suggest content based on contextually-relevant data, such as prospect information, product, transaction type and/or the stage of the buying cycle. Pull: How robust is your search function? Can your partners easily filter your content by the most popular categories? Allowing your partners to filter information cuts down on clutter so they can easily access the most relevant materials. 2014 Veelo, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 1
Create content that facilitates customer engagement. Are sales kits readily available? Do you have product messaging, playbooks and storyboards/use cases to guide your partners? Include aids that help drive valuable customer conversations, not just product features and benefits. Real-time updates. How easy is it to update your portal materials, and how fast can those changes propagate? Your content management tool should ideally allow you to update materials on the fly, with changes reflected in real-time view to ensure your channel partners have only the most up-to-date support material at all times. Are you mobile friendly? The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend in the workforce is massive and here to stay. With a whopping 60% of channel sellers using mobile as their primary means to access vendor information, the resources your partners access need to be responsive in design and compatible with all major devices. 50% of all cell phones and 54% of all tablets used for work purposes are the employees personal devices. Citrix Focus on designing user interfaces and content usable by the lowest common denominator devices, such as a smartphone with a small display, slow data transfer rate and limited interactive capability. Everything matters when creating content for effective mobile engagement, from font choices and background colors to the pixel size of a button. Keep it simple, whether it s design, message, interaction or feedback. 2014 Veelo, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2
Relevant information in the hands of informed salespeople not only helps them to stay on-message, but drives richer engagement with prospects and consistency in brand messaging. Tailor education to the stage of their engagement There are typically three critical stages to channel partner enablement: onboarding, intermediate and long-term. Support content and information should ideally be tailored to the specific part of the channel life cycle. Onboarding The onboarding stage typically takes place in the first 90 days and involves a host of introductory activities such as delivering product information, beginning-stage training, and introductions to processes and workflows. Sharing information that is directly relevant to them and their needs increases credibility and helps foster a deeper relationship. TIP: Because many channel partners lack sales and marketing skills, be sure to provide them with a menu of marketing plays, instead of leaving the construction of the marketing program up to them. Customize your assets, pre-assemble the programs, and have them ready to use. Intermediate Channel partners in the intermediate stage (between 90 days and one year) have different needs. At this point, assets and tools should be tailored to buying cycles and demand type. Training is an ongoing process, and striking the correct balance for communication is key. Avoid bombarding them with context-less product release information frequency is not effectiveness. Content should be prescriptive: include examples and explain what, how, and why the channel partner should care. It s also important to remember that when it comes to learning, less is oftentimes more. Make content easy to consume: short bits of knowledge make learning more manageable, as well as easier to integrate into long-term memory and apply. TIP: Sweeten the pot with rewards for achievements and milestones, e.g., a certain percentage of channel partner reps achieving specific levels of competency. 2014 Veelo, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 3
Long-Term Long-term channel partners that have been with you for longer than a year could be suitable for services and programs such as cross-selling and product blending. These partners may have developed specializations; if that is the case, engage them further with domain knowledge to develop them into specialists in a specific geographic area or vertical. Black belt programs are another possibility to allow partners to obtain in-depth information about products and services. TIP: Relevance for these partners is more important than ever. Communications should be helpful, supportive, and role-based. Align your resources accordingly, and don t be afraid to invite deeper collaboration from them. Actively solicit feedback Thoughtful and prompt two-way communication is necessary to maintain a healthy partnership. Your channel managers and sellers need tools to share thoughts and opinions as well as provide input. Making feedback easy Channel partners should be able to share both the good (an amazing new feature, a new use case, real customer results) and the bad (end users consistently encounter X bug, Y feature doesn t work, competitor challenges). Integrating a seamless feedback widget into your engagement materials is good, but a little prod can up your feedback rates immensely. Send e-mail reminders with a link to the content to be rated, followed by a note about how feedback helps improve content. Acting on the feedback Encouraging feedback is well and good, but channel partners need to feel that their responses make a difference. Assess whether the feedback is relevant, or whether change is possible or practical, and respond to their concerns. As for the things you did right, ask yourself: is it possible to replicate elements of that success elsewhere? 2014 Veelo, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 4
Track and Report Tracking engagement and usage is invaluable. Critical pieces of information you should find out include: Your channel partners participation rates The selling resources they committed to The quantity and types of training and reference aids they consumed The number of deals they closed this month Whether the sales tools you ve provided are a good fit for your partners needs Data like this and more can help you identify improvements needed, as well as spot leading sales indicators of success. Detecting those patterns is the first step to making any necessary course changes. Once you have created an optimal, repeatable model that is still flexible enough to accommodate different needs, you are well on your way to boosting your partners sales effectiveness. Summary: Engage Your Partners, Increase Your Mindshare When vying for channel partner mindshare is a challenge, keep one overarching principle in mind: make it easy. Make your portal easy to navigate by keeping the content organized and accessible. Make learning and assimilating easy for your partners by tailoring their education to the appropriate stage of their engagement. Make two-way communication easy by providing convenient ways to provide feedback. And last but by no means the least, make usage tracking easy for yourself so that you have current, accurate data to drive your future efforts and decisions. About Veelo Veelo helps companies improve sales effectiveness and productivity with scalable products for managing content and support, tailored to the way sellers learn, retain and use information. Veelo solutions are available as stand-alone web applications and can also be integrated with partner portals and CRM systems like Salesforce, Oracle CRM and Microsoft Dynamics, as well as Marketing Automation Systems such as Marketo and Eloqua. For more information, contact Veelo at 1-800-737-8481 or visit www.veeloinc.com. 2014 Veelo, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 5