Service partner

There could be different goals. Co-marketing and co-selling accomplish different things. If I'm understanding the question correctly, we're wondering what co-marketing activities are best for uncovering higher-intent leads for co-selling. 

Product-specific webinars that include some sort of interactive workshop that solves a specific problem your target audience could solve are a great start. For example, Aircall is a cloud-phone system. We partner with SMS/texting apps to solve that problem for businesses that need multi-channel touchpoints for sales or customer support. By co-hosting a live, interactive workshop with a texting partner which we require registrants to sign up for a free trial beforehand in order to follow along with the workflows, problems and solutions during the session uncover very high-intent leads. 

Another example is the mutual joint discount. What better way to follow up with a webinar like the one above with an exclusive discount for Aircall customers from the texting partner? This makes co-selling a natural part of the buyer journey and is expected. Aircall customers are getting this special discount, and once they show interested, will be able to speak with their Aircall CSM and/or the partner sales team to complete the sale. 

When co-selling with partners, I think the best motion is telling a story with you and the partner. You can use joint collateral such as Customer Success Stories and wins. This shows value to both the partner and your organization., 

There are a few key co-marketing motions that are best suited for co-selling. 

Firstly, partner marketing can be extremely effective in co-selling situations. This is because partner marketing generally refers to the promotion of products or services by two or more companies who have a strategic alliance or partnership. 

In other words, partner marketing helps to increase visibility and exposure for both companies involved, which can in turn lead to increased sales.

Another key co-marketing motion that can be very effective in co-selling situations is co-branding. This is where two or more brands come together to create a new product or service. This can be an extremely effective way to reach new customers and markets, as well as improve brand awareness and recognition.

Finally, cross-promotion is also an effective co-marketing motion for co-selling. This is where companies promote each other's products or services to their own customer base. This can be a very effective way to reach new customers and markets, as well as increase sales for both companies involved.

For example, Pendo has an incredible Reseller Partner Program where partners (who are also our customers) resell our key products to their end users. We split the profits, which is beneficial for co-selling. We also utilize key marketplace listings and integrations, including in Google Cloud Marketplace, Salesforce AppExchange, Coupa Marketplace, Zapier, and more. You can learn more about our Reseller Partner Program here: https://www.pendo.io/product/reseller-partner-program/ + our Google Cloud Marketplace Listing here: https://www.pendo.io/news/pendo-makes-product-experience-platform-available-on-google-cloud-marketplace/

In conclusion, partner marketing, co-branding and cross-promotion are all key co-marketing motions that can be very effective in co-selling situations. All three of these motions help to increase visibility and exposure for both companies involved, which can lead to increased sales.

So many people are selling to B2B professionals today, so if you don’t differentiate yourself, you will fail. And to me, what’s worse than 1 vendor selling to a customer? 2 vendors selling together. Thus, I always suggest leading with the voice of a successful customer. Customer examples are the best way to showcase a partnership. Successful companies like Snowflake, AWS, etc., put customers at the front and center of their marketing. 

Thus, when co-selling, it is important to show how two or more partners solve a genuine customer problem. Just declaring a partnership is not enough. It would be best if you had concrete messaging on why the partnership will solve customer pain points and preferably back that up with customer examples. 

Plus, the sales structure must be such that both partners must benefit. If sales do not see benefits in the partnership, marketing will not be successful other than creating some baseline awareness. This means better customer experience, competitive edge, and even incentives for sales (although incentives only work if their product solves a genuine problem). 

Which co-marketing motions do you think are best suited for co-selling and why?

1. Service/consulting partners
 - We host our top partners in our booth at the conferences that align with their industry. 
 - Host an "experts" directory where Sales and customers can send partners leads. 
- Offer Referral bonuses for leads coming into our sales teams. Do not require spiff or rev share on leads we send to partners. 

2. Technology Partners
 - We host an integration marketplace, and offer top partners priority listing. 
 - We call out integration partners in our product where the partner adds value for the customer. 
 - Offer rev share to partners on integrated locations. 
 - Run all of the typical co-marketing projects -webinars, blog posts, etc.  

At Aircall, check out our Aircall Partner Program: https://aircall.io/partners/ but in a nutshell:

Channel Partners: 
- Rev share
- Comarketing opportunities
- Dedicated CAM

Tech Partners:
- Integration dev support and open API
- Campaigns-in-a-box and partner marketing resources
- Custom comarketing opportunities (top performing and strategic partners)

For both social announcements on both sides, customer success stories for joint customers, co-sponsorship opportunities, blogs, and webinars. 

At LoyaltyLion, we see the great value in working closely with our partners and we’re always trying to find ways that we can thank our wonderful partner network.

In terms of marketing benefits for our technology partners, co-marketing with us is a key opportunity. In addition to the light lift activities mentioned in my answer above, we have numerous campaigns (content and event) throughout the year that we invite our technology partners to join. 

For each campaign, we execute a thorough organic and paid promotion plan to help featured partners gain exposure to new audiences. As is standard practice with lead gen partner marketing, the featured partner gets access to the full campaign lead list in exchange for promotion and participation.

We don’t currently work with consulting partners in a marketing capacity at this time. 


There are several marketing benefits that consulting and technology partners can enjoy when working with us here at Pendo.io! 

These include:

1. Access to our extensive library of marketing content
2. Partner-exclusive discounts on our services
3. Specialized partner training and support.
4. Access to our extensive partner network
5. Joint marketing opps
6. Pendo Partner Marketing Academy (in Skilljar)

In addition, we work closely with partners to create customized marketing programs that meet their specific needs and help them achieve their business goals. We believe that providing strong marketing benefits is essential to building successful partnerships, and we are committed to providing our partners with the tools they need to succeed.

I think distribution is king for any type of partner that has a joint offering for your shared customers. As long as there's tangible demand for partner offerings from your customers and prospects and you have a means to bring your message to this audience, there's very little else that trumps this benefit. It can come in a number of forms (directory placement, features in newsletters, guest blogging, etc.) and you should always deeply consider how a partner earns / qualifies for distribution benefits based on the value they've brought to your company.

Something I learned from one of the best Marketing leaders B2B SaaS in the industry, Denise Persson, CMO Snowflake: Always play on strengths! 

So, to answer the question, let’s focus on the strengths of each partner type. Consulting Partners, Services Partners, SIs, whatever name you use, are great at 3 things: 
1) Daily use of technology. These partners are users of your technology just like customers, sometimes at customer locations; thus, they can produce great technical content. Build benefits that incentivize the production of content. 
2) Developing solutions to solve vertically focused customer problems. Focus your vertical efforts, showcasing vertical solutions on your website. Evangelize these with sales, especially as you move towards a vertically aligned model. 
3) Access to customers / c-suite. As your customers and deals become bigger, the access to c-suite becomes much more important. These partners sit with the customer daily. Thus, it offers benefits to make high-level introductions. 

Technology Partners: 
1) Create products and technologies that work together seamlessly. Thus, focus benefits on showing how to demo, labs, and customer examples of integrations.
2) Driving direct consumption in accounts of your product. (Not limited to tech partners but directly measurable). Thus focus on the consumption of SaaS in accounts

What are the most valuable marketing benefits you provide to 1/ consulting partners and 2/ technology partners?

One of my favorite tactics is the BUDDY SYSTEM - where you bring a buddy from a customer or a key prospect to make an introduction, or to join a meeting with a potential partner. Just last week I was on a call with a sales leader at a key ISV partner, and he made four key GSI introductions for me, just by asking! I also loving bringing top customers and customers, or their POV to meetings to help get a door open. 

How we as an iPaaS can help the partner with their integration strategy. 

A prospective partner page and partner case studies can help here. If you can lay out exactly how your current partners are benefiting from being in your program, it is going to help a prospective partner make the business case for joining. 

Stats like 'our partner directory or integration marketplace gets X views, customers install Y integrations and reach out to Z solution partners' or 'our average partners gets A referrals a month' etc can help to show the value of your program.

Developing a strong partner brand also gets people excited to work with you even beyond the numbers. A brand comes from being a good partner, but also being active in the partner community and showcasing how you are supporting and enabling your partners. 

If you can find a common go-to-market strategy where both parties win, you can create a game plan and see if a partnership makes sense. A lot of times, I'll ask if there's something I can do to help or provide value. From there, you can start building a working relationship.

This is a great question, and I might cheat a little on the answer, so bear with me! 

The best partnerships are the ones that make sense. There are a couple of elements that you can figure out on your own/prior to outreach to set you up for success, such as identifying customer overlap and ICP alignment. If the prospective partner is already introducing your product to their customers, there's an indicator for a relationship to add value. Outreach focused on both alignment (we have overlapping customers) and discovery (is there a way that a partnership can drive value) can often lead to an initial discussion. 

When the other person doesn't respond, I recommend turning to relationships. (yes, cheating!) However, those relationships don't have to be with the prospective partner - they can be with trusted allies in the ecosystem. I often turn to friends at respective service/tech companies to see who they have a strong relationship with, and to get a better understanding of their partnership ecosystem. That often results in a better understanding of 1. what to bring to the table, and 2. if that company has the resources to support a partnership.

How do you demonstrate value and get prospective partners to the table (Outside of leveraging relationships) to kick off partnership discussions?

The best way to activate newly recruited partners is to have a pre-made 30-60-90 day plan with the partner, and to present the plan with them on the initial partner kickoff call. The beauty of having a solid 30-60-90 day plans is that it not only lays out the specific actions that are expected from both you and the partner during the first 3 months of the partnership; but it also puts DATES on these actions. When you put dates on actions, you avoid the risk of "things coming up" or "being put on the backburner" on both the partner's side and your side.

When I started to implement this with our partners, we saw partners start to bring on clients to our platform in a much shorter time than before. And, not only that, we were able to give the partner exactly what they needed in the timeframe that was best for them too.

Some things we include in our 30-60-90 day plans is putting a joint webinar on the calendar to promote Trainual to the partner's audience, creating custom content that shows affiliation of our partnership and helps to empower the partner's audience to make an easy decision about moving forward from our software, and having the partner think about the optimal way they can offer Trainual in their service offerings.

This is a fundamental question because you want to be sure that the Integrations work to getting a new partner up and running is bolstered by your commercial conversation. My advice here would be to focus on getting new partners excited about your company, the shared value your services will bring to your mutual clients, and ultimately, the commercial benefits they will receive by being and growing within your partner program. 

What we do @ Adjust is that the moment the PM qualifies the partner as worthy of an integration, simultaneously when Integrations is doing their work, we have the partner onboard onto PartnerPage (our Partner Marketplace). This provides them control over how they are presented to our client base about the brand exposure they hoped to achieve by partnering with us. Once the integration is live, we push the partner’s listing to public, and the PM managing the relationship will add them to our client-mapping tools to begin account mapping. 

For me, it's critical to provide newly recruited partners with a clear to do list, and a clear set of performance KPIs to work against. If you fail to provide clarity out of the gate on what is expected within your program, you may lose the opportunity to build any momentum causing the partnership to drop in priority for both sides.

Typically I would have categorised them into different tiers/groups. Some partners are more relevant for marketing, others for retention whereas some are all-round. Below an example for a top tier tech partner that is relevant for all departments of my organisation (not in order):

- Landing Page on Marketplace
- LinkedIn/Social Announcement
- Add into our monthly customer newsletter
- Setup an enablement session (both ways)
- Partner referral agreement (but this financial add shouldn’t be the primary driver!)
- Account mapping on both a macro level (partner manager to partner manager) but also a micro level (pairing of regions/vertical reps) when appropriate
- Mutual customer success story (this is of course dependant on if we have mutual customer at start or not - as you want months of joint value to display)
- Where possible but is prioritised.. giving introductions and intel to new tech partner :)

Once you have gone through the discovery phase and you have indicated a mutual partnership fit. The onboarding and enablement phases are extremely important. These phases will be different for all partners depending on your partnership goals. 

During the onboarding phase identify metrics to measure your success. This can be done through creating some kind of mutual success plan. Here you can share all enablement materials (one pagers, sales decks, case studies, stats) in one central hub. Include information on your ICP for them to refer back to. As well as indicate next steps to keep us on track. Setting a communication cadence as well as outlining communications methods will be critical as well. 

In a sales role, think about the attention to detail and level of dedication we provide our customers with during onboarding. We want to ensure these customers are set up for success from the beginning and a partner should be no different. 


I love working with new partners, when the excitement is high, and possibilities are endless. But you must have a plan to get partners to a predictable level of success, and that requires both plans and planning. 

I am a strong advocate of setting up joint success plans with partners, and creating a joint action plan that tracks your goals and the actions needed to achieve them. 

A joint success plan aka JSP can be part of partner software, or tracked on Box note so don't worry about the technical details, it's more important to connect and document both your partner goals, and your goals and the activities needed to achieve them. 

For example, if a partner wants to achieve 100K installs of your integrated solution, or driving $1M in revenue, document those goals and start to peel back the actions that each party will need to take to start to work towards achieving those goals. 

First, the starting point is to share information on how our product is used and what our strategic priorities are to make sure there is alignment while learning the same from the partner. The overlap is the most important part and dictates everything from the design of the technology underlying the partnership, the terms of the partnership, and the timeline. 

From there, issue instances of your product for the partner to get comfortable with our technology. In some instances at LaunchDarkly, we have had customers look to become a tech partner which helps knowing they are familiar with the product. In parallel, look at the overlapping customer base to see if you can learn about how customers are leveraging the two products together. At this stage there are a few questions worth looking into: is there a large number of overlapping customers? If not, are there significant customers that overlap or customers with sophisticated use of our product? Are customers using your products in ways that have overlapping capabilities or are the two products being used in very separate ways? 

From there, be responsive to the partner as they look to develop the technology. It's important to have humility and respect for partners - every team is resource-constrained and being responsive and easy to work with is important in moving things along even though deadlines may be missed. 

Once the partner is ready, have resources to collaborate around what a launch might look like and, depending on where the tech lies in your strategy, see what additional things you can do for more strategically important tech partners. Remember: prioritization of your ecosystem is key and not all partners are equal. 

From there, it's really up to the customers to decide the fate of the partnership and getting their feedback dictates what the next steps are. 

I like to break new activation into 3 phases: discovery, onboarding, enablement. 

During discovery your focus is gathering information needed to evaluate the partnership (and set rough targets), understand the partner’s goal, find overlaps in those goals with your own, and identify the correct point of contact/decision makers for partnerships activity. There may or may not be NDAs that need to be executed. Once initial conversations conclude, and you confirm the partner is a “good-fit”, agreements are typically signed.

Now we head into onboarding. This is when you will begin to set communication cadences, educate the partner on your platform/service/tool, and begin to share brand assets and resources. Partners are also typically provided access to portals and or slack channels (where applicable). Setting up an autoresponder can be extremely helpful in streamlining this process, but only use this method to deliver resources and walk the partner through basic onboarding steps. With anything else I would lean on making the communication more personalized — remember you are building a relationship with this partner. 

A sample sequence can look like this: 

Welcome message: Introduction to the program, share support contact information, reminder of benefits & expectations (aka goals)
Resources: How to access to access the portal, training materials, and partner resources available
Activity 1: Reminder to schedule training sessions
Activity 2: Booking a kickoff meeting
Resources: Samples of best practices (to reach agreed upon goals) and relevant resources

Most PRMs will have some functionality to help with this, but you can also always use an ESP like AWeber too.

Last, but not least, you will move the partner into the enablement phase. During this phase you will begin your normal outreach cadence. Activities typically include:  
Bi-weekly to Monthly check in calls (these should be more frequent earlier in the relationship or when a GTM activity is underway). You can also substitute calls for async emails or slack communications. I also recommend including partners on some sort of newsletter to provide feature updates, new opportunities, etc.
Announce the partnership (where appropriate)  
Plan and execute initial partner activity (this varies based on the type of partnership but blog swaps or webinars are a great place to start)
Revisiting partner goals and tracking progress against those goals (goals can range from completing training to new customer acquisition or a set number of connections to an integration.
Discuss areas for improvement, roadblocks, and any upcoming initiatives (from both your end as well as the partner’s)

I think it all starts with one mutual customer. If we can find one mutual customer and find a way to make their process more efficient using both of our technologies, and then find a way to document this in the form of a case study, we can use that story to build our mutual customer base up.

I think this depends on the partner type, but activation is a very important part of the partner journey just as it is with customers. This stage is great for aligning around technical plans, business objectives, and GTM launch plans. 

For managed partners, I would have a standard template to align on business objectives and GTM launches. This would include what the cadence of touchpoints is and KPIs for each side of the partnerships. Ensuring partner enablement content around the product and marketing side is strong also helps to kick off the partnership on the right foot.

For low touch/scaled partners, setting up automations and GTM enablement content can increase activation rates as can a well-designed partner portal.

For all partners, make sure to track inactivity or low performance of partners out of the gate, and put in place automation or direct contact that discovers and helps to fix the problem.    

When starting from scratch, target smaller partners with similar ICPs (ideal customer profile). You'll start getting a sense of what your IPP (ideal-partner-profile) then, you can rinse and repeat. 

A lot of times, referrals will be your best partners to work with or individuals that you meet in person (e.g., happy hours, dinner, conferences) 

Most people assume that a tiered partner approach works best: hold a carrot on a stick (e.g. the next tier of your partner program) and make the partner work for it. 

Assuming you done your diligence and the partner is relevant and capable to serve your customers, try to invert this approach:

Ask not what your partner can do for you. Ask what you can do for your partner.

Give first. Prove to them that your program is not all hype, but you can provide value to their business. Send them leads or make relevant intros.

It'll be much easier for your champion in the partner org to unlock resources for your partnership if they have the numbers to back up this investment.   

Getting to action and their first deal quickly will get that partner activated quickly. Depending on resources I like to have an “onboarding” guide or person to get them through the first hurdle of understanding your product. Make sure the program is spelled out simply and can be easily accessed so they know what they are getting/giving becoming a partner. Share best practices of your most successful partners. First you have to educate them and they have to commit to some education. You can make it light, in short snippets, and interesting (think video!). Once they educate, agree to help them get their first deal - perhaps give them one as a gift. You can also send them some cool swag for becoming a partner and taking the first education event. Create an incentive for that partner to sell their first deal or their first few deals. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Consistent touch points - stay in front of them with interesting industry information. Invite them to your communities. Again, give them exposure i.e. linkedin post welcoming them to the program with a little shout out to something they excel at in their space. 

The best thing a partner manager can do to activate newly recruited partners is to spend time with them.

I do my best to get on a 30-minute call with every partner I feel can have an impact on our program. Other methods we use, are making sure partners get certified so we are confident they know the product well, and making sure they have all the information. Another thing we’ve seen to be very successful is making sure they all end up in a Slack channel with our team and talking to each other. This gives them a sense of community and a place to go when they are unsure about something. 

For activating newly recruited partners: 
1. Define what "activation" is meaningful to you. 
2. Establish a checklist of how they can get there. 
3. Reward the partner at every step along the way: both completing the checklist and achieving activation. 

Let's use an example: 
1. A partner is considered activated when their integration has 10 users. 
2. To attract new users, partners should a) announce the new integration to their email list and b) make the integration discoverable in their product UI
3. Once the partner completes the email and in-product messaging, they get a lightweight co-marketing perk, a social media tweet about our partnership. Once they "activate", i.e. reach 10 users, they advance to the next tier of the partner program. 

What is your go-to playbook for activating newly recruited partners?

On board with Franz-Josef. Be selective with which AEs can and want to work with partner teams to co-sell. It isn't for everybody and it can actually negatively impact performance on deals if done incorrectly so it shouldn't be enforced widespread on all AEs. Great way is to start small with pairings, sharing intel, understanding each others business etc.. learn from those interactions before allowing other pairings to occur.

In the beginning, my biggest mistake was to preach co-selling to all Hopin AEs equally. The truth is not everybody cares... yet! 

Identify a handful of high-performing AEs who "get" partnerships. They often have prior experience co-selling and know the value of it. Chances are they were former partner manager, or want to switch into partnerships at some point.

These AEs won't need a lot of hand-holding. Intro them to the partner AE and be a facilitator, not a manager. 

Let them do what they do best: close and expand deals. 

As I’m sat in the marketing team, I’m actually not too close to the co-selling conversations between Partnerships, AEs and prospects. 

In terms of coordinating the calls, I have two recommendations:

1) Remind your partners that your AEs are happy to jump on a call and be the platform expert - some partners may not know your team would be happy to do this.

2) It’s all in the briefing. If you’re in a Partnerships role, make sure to understand what problems, concerns, questions, and features the prospects would like to hear more about before the call takes place. Ensure you pass this on to your AE in plenty of time so they can tailor their preparation for the call.

For me, when it comes to co-selling it all comes down to the storytelling. You need to be able to take a merchant on a journey that tells them why using the two platforms together will drive more value to their business. Make sure to back up this value by sharing the key results from a mutual case study if you can. Include the link to the full case study so prospects can access more detail in their own time if they wish. 

I’ve seen partners create mini-demo videos of the two platforms working together on a brand’s site. I always think this is a really powerful way to bring your co-selling message to life, and could easily be replicated on a live call.

What's the absolutely best way to coordinate those early co-selling conversations between AEs and the prospect?

I don't ever recommend signing up partners without having a plan to make them successful, and I am not a fan of signing up partners as an arbitrary goal. Why recruit 10 partners vs 100 or 1,000 at all?

What I do like are goals tied to things like # of new partners certified, or # of new partners who refer a lead or that get above a certain engagement threshold for an integration. If you start with those goals in mind, you can work backwards into the # of new partners, or new teams or divisions at a larger company as you expand and deepen existing partner relationships. 

This depends on the partner type, your strategic goals with partners and your support resources, but when getting started, I would err on the side of quality over quantity so you can understand what is working and what is not working. The goal should be to enable partners to drive real impact and then think about how to scale it out afterward. You obviously don't want to acquire more partners than you can successfully manage and support. A partner manager should be able to drive real value from 10-15 active tech, solution, service or referral partners before trying to take on more.   

I think you need to evaluate how your partner team is measured.

From there, you can determine if you need to recruit new partners. Once you have a handful of partners, start breaking them down into tiers. 

How do you recommend getting started with setting goals for how many new partners to recruit on a monthly/quarterly basis?

I 100% recommend it as partners gained from cold outreach can be your best partners. The reason why is because you can get deadly specific with the people you're reaching out to, and with that, you can gain the EXACT ideal partner type you are looking for.

However, the one thing to note is that in order for cold outreach to be successful, you need to really nail down your onboarding process for these partners.

When I first started doing cold outreach, I was getting partners to say "yes" to partnering with us. But in the months after, they weren't referring any business to us or were being active in our program.

Later on, I realized it was because I was treating these partners the same exact way I would any other new partner and put them through the same onboarding process. This is a huge mistake! Why? Because:

1. The cold outreach prospect definitely needs more education on your system than someone who is an inbound applicant
2. They'll need more time to get familiar with the product
3. Because you'll want to win them over quickly, you also need to focus more on their needs as well and how you can support them 

So, having a deeper onboarding process for these partners (more so than your inbound partners) that involves more education, training, and benchmark setting is crucial for your cold partners to be successful.

Lastly, one killer tip for cold outreach is to find partners who are currently getting clients onboard with products/services that COMPLIMENT your software. The reason why is because they probably aren't offering anything in your wheelhouse yet, and that means you have a lower barrier to entry vs. someone who may be recommending your competitor, because you'll have to do less convincing selling.

Doing these things will lead to super profitable partners for you.

Absolutely. I think inbounds, customer requests and prospect requirements are a great way to build out an ecosystem of potential partners but the long-term and strategic partners will often come from you outbounding and reaching out proactively (if you are the smaller partner).

Yes. When we started building our Partner Program here at Chili Piper, I was cold-emailing everyone who shared similar ICPs. I realized that the partners open to collaborating shared joint customers and didn't know we offered a Partner Program. 

If I would've never reached out, they might've never known. 

100%! I wrote a whole essay on why "Your first partner won't be an inbound lead": https://www.linkedin.com/posts/franz-josef-schrepf_partnerships-alliances-partnerprograms-activity-6988843687266897920-isJ0 

TL;DR: To build a successful program, you need lighthouse partners. The market leader in an industry your customers care about and use. The tool all other competitors are trying to catch up with.

If you partner with a lighthouse, it signals to both customers and partners that this is the place to be. 

The problem? Market leaders don't land in your inbound queue. 

The good news? Outbound doesn't have to be cold. If you're active in the partnerships community, you'll likely be able to score a warm intro. And if not, well-researched cold emails and persistence are key.

What's the worst that can happen? You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. 

I recommend cold outbound, but not automated cold outbound.

In the early days of our partner program, all of our partners came via personalized cold outbound. I ran searches on LinkedIn for no-code automation agencies and reached out to them with a pitch of how SmartSuite can solve pain points that they may have with existing tools they partner with. Personal Loom videos have also been very effective. Ultimately service partners care about delivering great products to their clients. If you can prove your product will solve pain points that they currently have many of them will be open to less. Don’t just tell them about the product. Try to show them in a Loom video as much as you can without making the video too long.

Do you recommend cold outbound for partner recruiting? Why/why not? What has worked for you if yes?

You have to define success first and what results you're looking for. This question is asking about specifically generating leads. So, for higher-funnel lead generation, I would recommend: 

- Virtual Industry panels or AMAs: Bring in an expert from your industry (or a few), or even an influencer if there are any in your field. You can have someone from your company and your partner company either moderate and/or be a part of the panel. This gets a lot of attention and leads if the topic is timely and relevant to your audience. Split the coordination and set-up of the webinar (landing page, emails, graphics etc) 50/50. 

- Comprehensive "State of" or Benchmark Reports: If you're able to partner with a company or two you can use your own customer data, conduct research or hire a 3rd party to compile data and create an overarching authoritative type of report. These are great for your industry or field for lead gen, will often be able to collect leads throughout the year and then be repeated again on a regular basis (quarterly, monthly, yearly etc). 

- Templates: Another content download. Partner with a company and create a template that can be used by your target audience and provide value to their everyday. Whether it's a sales plan, a sales cadence outreach,  or an end-of-the-year checklist, it can live as an evergreen lead generation asset honested on one, or both of the partners' websites. 

I think that ultimately, the partner wants to know if they can trust you with the prospects and/or customers that they are sending your way. If they feel that you are handling the lead hand-off with care, they will feel more comfortable sending more and more leads your way. The other part of that is making sure that you are able to take it further than just another sale - can you generate content from this new relationship such as creating data sheets and/or case studies, customer references etc. involving (and highlighting) the referring partners technology in that content.

Customer success stories for joint customers and webinars targeting the partner's customers 

Great comments from everyone else here. I'd add asking partners to give your customers an offer—this could be a discount, a walk through of their integration, a consultation with one of their experts. It'll help your team promote their company to have something exclusive to your customers to share in content, emails, etc.

Plan promotion effectively - as mentioned above, it’s key that you work out how and when you will promote the co-marketing initiatives that you commit to to maximize the number of sign-ups you drive. 

Make sure the content is relevant to your audience - it seems obvious, but ensure the partner marketing opportunities you take part in offer value to your customers and prospects - they’ll be much more likely to engage with the content if it resonates. 

Don’t get lazy with promotion material - some partners very kindly create sample copy to help you promote webinars and ebooks. Make sure to tweak this copy to avoid overlapping contacts getting exactly the same messaging from numerous partners. To my point above, I always try and position how the co-marketing initiative I am inviting merchants to will help them enhance their retention strategy. 
 
Highlight brands’ involvement with co-marketing -  If a partner marketing event/webinar has a brand on the lineup make sure to highlight it! Brands love hearing about what other brands are up to, or how they have achieved great results. We always see an increase in CTR and sign-ups when we do this.

I have leveraged a BDR team to call out to partner lists or internally generated lists. You could give them a chance to go after deals that were “no shows" meetings or fizzled out for some reason. Sharing specific customers for them to upsell post-sales services they provide in return for new front end opportunities. Joint events that you sponsor or co-sponsor on a local level have been good ways to economically generate leads. In any arrangement, be sure that you both get something out of it. 

When we co-market with a tech partner, we know they have a sizable marketing database and can usually help drive leads together. We'll put a minimum lead threshold and if they make that, then we share the full lead list with them. This is pretty standard practice for co-marketing amongst tech partners.

But for agency partners, it's often about giving and not just getting. They don't always have the same large database sizes as a tech partner, so we know co-marketing with them won't always drive us leads if we include them in a webinar, e-book, or even an in-person event. But including top partners in these campaigns gives us an opportunity to share the lead list with them, which is a value for top partners that have already driven a lot of value to our company with their referrals.

Generating leads for partners can be a challenge, but it's not impossible. Here are a few tactics that have worked well for me:

1. Develop a co-marketing campaign. Partner marketing can be extremely effective when done in conjunction with a co-marketing campaign. This involves developing content or offers that are mutually beneficial to both parties, and then promoting them together.

2. Host webinars or other online events. Online events are a great way to generate leads for partners, as they allow potential customers to learn more about your product or service without having to leave their homes or offices.

3. Use lead magnets. A lead magnet is an offer of something free in exchange for contact information. This can be a great way to entice potential customers to provide their contact info, which you can then use to generate leads for your partner.

It really depends on the partner type (service provider, ISV, referral partner, etc.) and their offering, but generally speaking, the more you can leverage your organization's distribution to showcase a partner's value proposition to the right audience, the better off you'll be in generating leads on their behalf. More specifically, I've seen a few tactics work really well:

Joint Webinars with the Partner: These provide an opportunity to combine both brands’ expertise and thought leadership, giving potential customers insights into how the partner’s solution integrates with or enhances your product. Webinars can generate high-quality leads because they attract attendees who are actively interested in the topics being discussed. Ensure that you align the content with mutual goals and follow up with attendees promptly to convert interest into action.

Campaign Kits: Providing partners with ready-to-use marketing kits that include email templates, social posts, landing pages, and educational content (like eBooks or white papers) allows them to run co-branded campaigns efficiently. The easier you make it for partners to execute marketing campaigns, the more likely they are to engage and drive leads. These kits help partners maintain consistent messaging while saving them time on campaign creation.

Content Syndication: Sharing co-branded content across digital channels is another powerful way to generate leads. This could include blog posts, case studies, or joint research reports that highlight the value of both companies working together. The key here is to ensure that the content is positioned to solve specific pain points for the target audience, making it a compelling reason for prospects to engage.

Partner Listings in Directories/Marketplaces: If your organization has an app marketplace or partner directory, featuring your partner prominently within these platforms can significantly increase their visibility and generate inbound leads. Customers who are already in your ecosystem are more likely to explore partner solutions that are trusted and integrated with your platform.

Joint Sales Plays: Aligning your sales teams with the partner’s sales teams can also drive lead generation. By collaborating on specific accounts, running account-based marketing (ABM) plays, and sharing target lists, both companies can maximize outreach and tailor messaging. This cross-pollination between sales teams can dramatically increase the chances of landing new business.

Exclusive Offers or Trials: Offering exclusive discounts, product trials, or bundled solutions when both products are purchased together can create urgency and appeal. This approach can be particularly effective for ISVs or service providers that rely on differentiated value propositions. The key is to ensure that both parties actively promote the offer through their respective channels.

Co-Branded Events: If budget allows, hosting in-person or virtual events with partners—such as industry conferences, workshops, or user groups—can be a great way to generate leads. These events provide a platform to showcase both solutions and their combined value to a broader audience, offering direct engagement with potential customers.

Overall, the success of any partner marketing tactic hinges on close alignment between the marketing, sales, and partner teams. Regular communication, goal-setting, and performance tracking are essential to ensuring that both parties are investing equally and benefiting from the campaigns.

What have you experienced to be successful partner marketing tactics to generate leads for partners? 

You need to give partners materials that can easily show the results that their clients/customers can get by using their product. 

That could be slide decks, demo accounts (if you are a SaaS company), case studies, ROI calculators, etc.

For example, at Trainual, we give all of our partners access to a fully built out demo account that they can use to show their clients what their Trainual account could look like when its all built out. This has been super helpful because when leads can SEE the benefit that they can get from the software, they are more likely to purchase. And you want to make sure your partners can do that on their own without having to always pass it on to your sales team.

With that said, it raises this point: give your partners the same amount of sales enablement material that your sales team gets. Why? It makes it easier for the partner to sell the software for you, saves your team a ton of time from working leads, and you have a WARMER sell by a partner on your software. You almost have to think of your service partners as an extension of your sales team. And you wouldn't leave your sales team with less collateral than they need to do their job right.

Basically your sales training + implementation training docs. 
Not an exhaustive list... but here are some good tools: 

- Product feature deep dive
- Customer Case studies with the Value of your product front and center
- Competitor Battle Cards
- Implementation SOPs 
- Incentive plans for the partner
- Point of contact list for escalations with the right purpose and department



This really depends on what you are trying to achieve with these partners. However usually it is important to highlight an overview of your product / service, but remember to speak to that “better together story”. Really think about showcasing what your value is together to customers. You should also include information on how to communicate with each partner and any relevant resources they can use. 


 An overview of your product that shows value to your partner's customers, what to do when a customer needs support, and how to communicate with one another. 



Offer creation. Design pre-built offerings that your technology is at the center of that service partners can repackage to their customers with their services included.

This can be achieved in many ways. Here are some for you:
-Co-branded assets that enables them to sell as a partner (certification badge, branded pitch decks for your product, a page that lists them as partners, etc).
-Blogs that promote WHAT your partners are doing to make your customers successful. https://www.glideapps.com/blog/no-code-experts
-Social campaigns around what your partners are doing and how it’s impactful! Successful use cases can be really powerful here.
-Build something with your partners to close the gap of customers that aren’t converting. Be creative here. Example: We are testing a way to build for our enterprise customers directly with some of our partners. At Glide, we found that some inbound traffic of businesses fall off because they don’t want to build for themselves, but they want our product. This is a perfect example of creating a motion that speeds up the delivery of what the business wants: a custom software solution. 

Hope these help :)


Chili Piper Channel Partnerships Manager, Michael Jed Lantison Partner Recruitment