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Question

How does your marketing team usually work with your partner team to promote partners to customers?

Answer
The key underpin to successful partnerships/marketing collaboration is buy-in and support from Marketing so that the work you pitch and request gets done and that they see value in it. This is a whole other conversation I'm happy to dive into to build. Once you have that... Before I brought on a Partner Marketing Manager: We have a shared slack channel where we'd put all requests/ideas for co-marketing initiatives. We'd put project plans in place for each project, loop the partner in accordingly, and execute on that project with weekly check-ins to monitor progress. You have to be highly involved to make sure things are being handled properly and on-plan/meet expectations. This is a lot of work for a partner manager but important to the success of your partnership/ Now with a Partner Marketing Manager I am less involved in the day-to-day and our PMs give him our ideas/requests and he owns and manages the full execution with our guidance. He leans on Marketing for resources around copy/design/ads but we trust him with leading and owning the vision and overall execution and checks in with us to make sure it's going in the right direction and will help us accomplish our goals.
Question

What are some ways to increase the adoption of tech partners/integrations with your existing customer base?

Answer
1. marketing that integration to your customers via newsletters, blogs, landing pages, and other co-marketing activities. 2. training your internal teams on the details of the integration and giving them supporting assets to share with customers/prospects when specific conversations come up. 3. literally going through customer accounts and finding ones that would see value in that integration and giving CS scripts to use to share the integration information with that customer to name a few...
Question

What are some KPI's you would recommend for us to track to understand how well our partner adoption is performing?

Answer
This is a good one. Just did a presentation on it the other day: Marketing Reach & Acquisition - Partner-sourced Cost per Customer Acquisition (CAC) - Volume of partnerships content - Audience expansion - Addressable market reach & LTV potential CS Lifetime Value (LTV) - Retention of partner-sourced accounts vs. non - Retention of accounts with integrations vs. non - Integration usage vs. LTV - NPS vs. LTV Sales Net New & Expansion Revenue - Sourced net new revenue - Average Sales Price (ASP) of partner-sourced deals - Close rate of partner-sourced deals - Influenced revenue of non-sourced deals - ARR by Partner/Integration - Cross-sell expansion revenue
Question

What activities would you suggest for internal partner training to help the different teams and stakeholders in my organization learn about the partners we have in our ecosystem?

Answer
TEST EVERYTHING AND GET FEEDBACK. Everybody learns differently and has different preferences. Also, not everybody may be bought in just yet. Try videos, (good) lunch & learns, email overviews, easily accessible directories. At the end of the day, serve information to people where they work and make it as easy as possible to digest. It's a never-ending process and there is no one-size-fits-all. This is arguably the hardest part of partnerships IMO.
Question

What's the most effective way to scale partner adoption beyond the first few partner engagements that happen?

Answer
Need more context here to fully understand your question. But, my gut reaction to this is to TELL LOTS OF STORIES. If you see success, shout it from the rooftops so that people can see the impact with things that actually matter to them. Case studies with random brands are good, case studies with YOUR CLIENTS/TEAMS are WAY better. Celebrate every win and make sure everyone knows about it. The more proof in the pudding, the more interest and engagement you will get.
Question

How can partners help the sales team win more deals?

Answer
1. Lean on partners for influence. Show them what opportunities they're working are also working with a partner and find a way to get that partner to support the opportunity. It can be a simple endorsement, or it can be a backchannel conversation for more intel that will help them position their follow up and future conversations. 2. Integrations are a big selling point for SaaS and one of the most important if not the most important aspect of a buying decision. The more valuable of integrations you have to your ICP, and the more content and information your sales team has around those integrations, the more value you will provide for them to influence their close rates. Empower them with this information as best as you can.
Question

How can I get the customer success and support teams in my company to leverage service partners?

Answer
This is a bit tough to answer without more context. It depends if your CS team is designed to service accounts or not, and if that is an additional revenue stream for your company or not. Basically, you have to find an angle that a service partner either saves them time/work and improves the end product/experience for your users. Figure out what their goals are and what challenges they experience. Then try and solve for those with your service partners. Additionally, what data can you find to support how beneficial your service partners are? Do they have a higher Avg Sales Price (ASP)? Do they retain longer? Do they use more features? Give them quantitative data on top of qualitative data to build your biz case.
Question

What can I ask from my tech partners to make it easier for us to get our customers to look at and use their software?

Answer
Marketing resources, plain and simple. If they want you to sell their software, they need to put in the work and you need to create the runway for them to educate everyone. Co-marketing, internal enablement training and sessions, email copy for introductions, documentation, etc. They want revenue, they have to work for it. You have to support them, and you all win. You also have to do the hard work in figuring out what ppl need and how ppl learn so that you can create meaningful opportunities for your partners to scale this.
Question

What is the benefit of partner training and having partners get certified?