Establishing a

CHANNEL ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

“You don't have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate

to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream.”

Michael DellFounder of Dell Computer Corp.

Quote Attribution: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/197566 Image Credit: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/corp-comm/msd-photos

Table of ContentsIntroduction

Chapter 1: Planning

Chapter 2: Enablement

Chapter 3: Communication

Chapter 4: Demand Creation

Chapter 5: Evangelism

Chapter 6: Measurement

Conclusion

IntroductionCompTIA recently published research on why channel partners choose to leave vendors. Among their many frustrations with vendors, partners cited execution issues like “constantly changing requirements”, being “difficult to do business with”, and “insufficient or ineffective support” for areas like marketing, training, and pre/post-sales support.

There are many distractions competing for your channel partner’s mindshare: their customers, their prospects, their competition, you and your needs, and your competition, to name a few. The last thing you want is to be a vendor with the type of execution issues that cause channel partners to abandon you.

So, what if your channel execution isn’t as organized as you’d like it to be? In my experience, having a simple channel framework that you can use, internally and externally, helps drive alignment and expectations with all the involved parties. In the following chapters, I’ll share a simple framework which you'll find useful, and adaptable for most situations. Enjoy!

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Mike MooreVP, Channel StrategyAveretekMikeM@Averetek.com

Chapter 1: PlanningPlanning is the essential first step in your channel framework. Establishing a common set of goals that you and your channel partner will pursue, can be as simple as some notes written on a napkin. Having your shared goals in writing will give you, and your partners, something tangible to use for sharing the goals with your teams, and to hold each other accountable.

While the plan can be on a napkin, it’s probably better to build a document with a bit more detail. Be sure not to overcomplicate the process. Time and time again, we see plans that are so long and detailed, they put off the partner from actually completing it. Even worse, when the long, complex templates are filled out, they’re often never read or reviewed again.

To make the most of your partner planning work, we recommend the following:

• Define success by agreeing to 3 or 4 measurable outcomes that will indicate if the partnership is successful or not. For example: add twenty new customers, increase cross-sell penetration to 45%, open a London sales office.

• Focus on the strategy before the tactics. Figure out WHAT you are trying to accomplish before you decide HOW to do it.

• Clearly define the roles and responsibilities from the outset, so everyone knows what’s being asked of them, and expectations are clear.

• Schedule a monthly or quarterly meeting with your partners, and refer to the plan during the meetings to note progress and drive accountability.

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Chapter 2: Enablement

In order to achieve the goals defined in the plan, your partners will likely need some support from your company. Understanding what your partners are trying to do, and how they are trying to do it (learned during the planning process), will help you create the right mix of enablement tactics for your channel.

Enablement can take many forms:

• Training – consider offering training to encourage professional growth in these areas:

• Many channel partners need help improving their business skills. Your partnership can benefit from their gains in this area. Consider partnering with an author, or local business school, to present a course for your partners.

• Technical information regarding your products will help your partners deliver a solution to customers.

• Sales and marketing training on topics like social selling, inbound marketing, are some of the top requests from partners right now!

• Sales collateral to support selling rather than leaving it up to partners to produce their own presentations, sell sheets, etc.

• Marketing materials to enable through-partner demand generation using co-branded campaign landing pages, emails, etc.

• Access to pre and post-sales experts to help with objections and issues that arise in the sales process

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Chapter 3: Communication

Communication with your channel partners is both critical and incredibly difficult. Sharing ongoing updates with your partners, and hearing from them regarding their needs, helps to build trust in the relationship. Tailoring your communication by role is the best approach (e.g. executive, sales, marketing, technical, etc.).

To make your communication efforts truly effective, you must reach your partners in the way they prefer. For example, if your partners want news once a week in a newsletter, you should offer that option. We all know, however, your channel partners will never agree on one or two options. There will always be a variety of needs. Be as flexible as you can while still maintaining quality.

You’ll likely want to offer some or all of the following:

• Monthly newsletters highlighting the partner-specific and other company information that your channel partners need to be aware of. Especially as it relates to the agreed upon goals from the planning phase.

• Monthly or quarterly live webcasts to highlight a key topic you want to emphasize for that period. This is also a good medium to use for live Q&A with your partners and your executive team.

• Alert emails for sharing time-sensitive news and announcements.

• Social media channels dedicated to your partners, which you can use for sharing information with your partners, which they can then share with their followers.

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Chapter 4: Demand Creation

Helping your partners create demand for your solutions, and their value-added products and services, is often considered the most important component of your channel framework. It’s also the piece many companies struggle with. You can offer channel partners various programs and resources to execute demand creation campaigns, but you can’t force them to execute campaigns. You might be tempted to things for them, but you must consider the resource requirements. Additionally, when partners have things done for them, they typically don’t do as good of a job on the follow-up, since they’re not invested in the activity.

In order to deliver demand creation support your partners will use, you must:

• Make your content easily consumable. Too often we see vendors provide their partners with a zip file full of Adobe files that a designer needs to customize. We recommend offering your materials through a web-based customization engine, like our platform: CampaignCore. At a minimum, provide the files in Microsoft Office formats, so an average person can use the templates.

• Offer variety. Marketing materials should be provided for all of the marketing tactics that suit the end customers of your solution. Today, buyers can be reached using direct mail, email, web, social, ads, and more. The more options you provide, the more likely your partners are to produce leads, pipeline, and sales.

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Chapter 5: Evangelism

Beyond the typical demand creation you’d like to have your partners engage in, it’s highly desirable to have your partners act as evangelists for your company and its key marketing messages. Generating awareness may not lead directly to revenue for you, or for them, but acting as an evangelist will help others become aware of your company. That awareness will lead to consideration of your solutions.

Here are a few ideas to propose to your partners:

• Social media – tweet, share, and post messages in support of key market messages and specific campaign calls-to-action.

• Industry events – pitch presentations on current industry topics and issues to industry events and other tradeshows, deliver the events, and engage participants in follow-up marketing campaigns.

• Industry websites and magazines – create blog posts and articles, and submit the content to industry websites and magazines with links back to the partner website, or to your website, to drive engagement with content and calls-to-action.

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Chapter 6: Measurement

The following metrics and target factors are recommended for each component of the engagement framework:

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Component Measures Targets Set By

Planning # of plans CompaniesProgram tierTheatre / Country

Enablement # of companies# of individuals

Companies / IndividualsProgram tierTheatre / Country

Communication # of companies# of individuals

Companies / IndividualsProgram tierTheatre / Country

Demand Creation # of companies# of campaigns# of leads# of opportunities$ of pipeline# of closed deals$ of closed revenue

CompaniesProgram tierTheatre / Country

Evangelism # of companies# of individuals # of activities

Companies / IndividualsProgram tierTheatre / Country

Click here to download a sample scorecard for the channel engagement framework that you can customize and use.

ConclusionNot long ago, I found myself in a situation that might be similar to yours. Working for a global software company with a strong partner base, I had a wide variety of activities and programs in place for my partners, but what I lacked was an easy way to report on the activity and engagement. I wasn’t able to deliver an effective update to senior management to let them know how engaged our partners were and where we had opportunity for improvement.

That situation is what led me to develop the framework in this eBook. I implemented the framework with my team and we were able to use it and the associated reporting to tell the story of our impact across the organization. This framework helped us understand the value we were driving and identify opportunities for improvement.

I hope you find this channel engagement framework useful for your needs. If you have suggestions, or other ideas to improve it, please drop me a line and let me know!

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Mike MooreVP, Channel Strategy at AveretekMike Moore serves as Averetek's Vice President of Channel Strategy. In this capacity, Mike is responsible for the Company's corporate marketing strategy and operations, as well as spearheading strategy and initiatives for Averetek’s growing consulting practice. Mike has spent twenty years in the IT channel as a channel partner and as a channel marketer for software companies.

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