LoyaltyLion Senior Partner Marketing Executive, Beth Wellson Partner Marketing

Case studies are an obvious go-to for promoting a partner to your customer base. Whilst there’s no denying that case studies offer great promotional value, they’re not always quick wins. They can take time, patience, and you need buy-in from numerous stakeholders. Furthermore, they’re not a scalable co-marketing activity. Partner marketers aren’t able to create case studies with every partner in their ecosystem - it just wouldn’t be possible and you also need to prioritize the right stories. It doesn’t always have to be a huge campaign to drive value to partners. At LoyaltyLion, we identify or create low-lift opportunities to showcase how a partner has driven great results for a mutual customer (e.g. social media spotlights, newsletter spotlights, featuring short partner testimonials/quotes in blogs or ebooks). We have recently created a partner spotlight social tile that is a trial of “self-serve” content. Our Partnerships Managers can make a copy of the tile, add the logo of the partner they want to celebrate for achieving a particular milestone, and share it across their network. I’m really excited to see how our audience engages with it!

Finding the balance between promoting your owned content, as well as promoting external co-marketing content (e.g. promoting a partner webinar) is key when it comes to growing your partner marketing pipeline. In co-marketing, it’s common for the partner leading the activity to ask you to drive a certain number of RSVPs to unlock the full lead list. Before committing to take part in that co-marketing initiative, take a look at what else you’re promoting during that window and evaluate if you have a good chance of hitting the target. You don’t want to go back to the partner empty-handed (i.e. not drive many leads), but you also don’t want to be sending endless emails to your mailing list and making them want to unsubscribe. Another top tip is to ensure that the partner leading the co-marketing has asked sign-ups to agree (via opt-in) that all partners taking part in the webinar/ebook are able to contact them afterwards. Without this opt-in, you can’t follow up with your hard-earned leads after the co-marketing initiative has taken place. (NB This is true to be GDPR compliant - it may be different elsewhere/with other privacy rules).

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.

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.

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.

1) Relationship management Building and retaining great relationships with partners is crucial in partner marketing. Not only is important to nurture your relationships with your internal Partnerships Managers but make sure to spend time building relationships with your peers across the partner network. There’s a small but mighty network of partner marketers out there wanting to share best practices and their top tips with you :) 2) Communication Clear communication and visibility are everything in a role like this. Partner marketers have many stakeholders - both internal and external - and you need to keep everyone informed and in the loop with a lot of your decisions and thinking. 3) Organization At times, partner marketing can feel like juggling lots of mini-marketing campaigns. There are always lots of deadlines and requests to meet that span multiple co-marketing initiatives with different partners. “Good” partner marketers are incredibly organized so they are able to meet these simultaneous deadlines/requests and be selected as the go-to partner for future campaigns. “Great” partner marketers are able to take this one step further by planning their partner marketing activity three months in advance. 4) Creativity The ecommerce partner ecosystem is a friendly space, but it can also feel overcrowded at times. With many partners delivering similar co-marketing initiatives, don’t be afraid to be creative - your prospects and your partners might just thank you for it!