Signifyd Head of Global Agency Partnerships, Megan Blissickon Partner Program Strategy

Signifyd has an incredible marketing team that works in tandem with our partnerships org. We actually nest partnerships into a greater “marketing & alliances” department so that we’re always working together when it comes to marketing initiatives. This allows us to seamlessly integrate partners into the planning and design of many of our marketing campaigns. For example, our monthly customer newsletter has a ‘partner’ section where we feature the cool and interesting projects led by our partners. We also tend to have a partner component, whether it’s a sponsor for one of our ‘Crimes & Cocktails’ webinars, a partner that’s selected as part of Signifyd’s 30 Most Influential in Ecommerce, or a speaker at Signifyd’s annual FLOW Summit, partners are part of our go-to-market strategy when it comes to marketing initiatives.

I’d like to combine my answer for this question with another question, “Which co-marketing motions do you think are best suited for co-selling and why?” When deciding on a co-marketing motion, my team answers the following questions: Who is the addressable market we’re reaching in this motion? Do we have the content necessary to engage and educate that audience? Are we positioned with the authority to speak to that audience? Do we have the means to reach this audience? The first question may seem like a bit of a no-brainer, but not clearly defining the target market for a marketing campaign will create a lot of challenges when it comes to the following two questions. I often find that if the second and third questions are not fully answered, the fourth question becomes very hard to address. I have attempted campaigns or strategies that though educational, don’t have enough of a hook, or aren’t coming from a source that stands strong enough on its own. When those pillars fall, it becomes very difficult to engage with the desired audience.

This, in my opinion, is where a partner program comes into place. A well-designed partner program bakes in recurring activities, continuously keeping you and your partner top of mind and prioritizing each other. When you invest in understanding your partner's motivations, goals, and priorities, and continuously check in to understand how those have shifted or adjusted over time, you will keep yourself in a position to grow the relationship.

I’ll answer this question with a question (annoying, I know.) What value does the customer success and support team get from service partners? This is a question that my team has been working on with our customer success team, all year. We’ve created workflows to incorporate partners into renewal and upsell conversations, or to help smooth out friction with customers experiencing challenges. But until you know how your CS/Support team perceives Partnerships, as well as what their needs are, it will be hard to drive adoption of service partners.

I'll start by answering this question with a point I've made throughout this AMA: ask your partners what they want. This is a 'smack on the forehead' moment that I've found with a lot of partner managers, but the better you understand the motivators of those around you, the better you can tailor your offerings to cater to them. Some things I've found to be very value-adding to my partners include: Marketing lift (Signifyd has an incredible marketing team that's incredibly supportive of Partnerships, so we're able to produce a lot of content/provide heavy lifting on co-sponsored events) Co-sponsorship efforts ($, lead generation) Co-selling efforts Certification (public recognition, market legitimacy) Lead generation (creating opportunities to get partners in front of customers) These elements are baked into Signifyd's partner program to ensure that any partner that engages with us is invested in our partnership!

This is an interesting question! I do believe that every sales org is different dependent on the size, maturity, and market position of the company, but when partner deals are incentivized or prioritized, the outcomes can include: 1. Increased affinity by the partner (by proving you're easy to work with and provide white-glove service) 2. Increased incentive for sales to participate in partner initiatives (ex. outreach for client-facing events) However, to be successful with a sales team, I find it most important to be able to showcase the value that a partner brings to a sales cycle. We often find that our partner-led sales cycles close faster and at a higher win rate. We're able to gain more information about how the client is feeling and get more clarity on the pain points they're experiencing.

Any strategy should have measurable, time-bound outcomes determined prior to a project. Success is achieving what you set out to achieve! When building a partner enablement strategy, first identify your goals. Do you want to publish one co-authored content piece a month? Are you interested in signing up 10 partners for a partner program? Would you like to achieve 1 lead per partner per month? Once defined, set a timeframe in which you expect to achieve results and identify the resources you'll need (marketing, sales, CS) outside of your team to accomplish what you're looking for. If you're not tracking to those goals, identify if there are resource gaps constraining your success, or if there is a different roadblock in your path.

I love this question, because I get to share what I think is one of the most valuable things I learned from being on the receiving end of many lunch and learns or partner enablement sessions: Your partner will NEVER sell you if they do not know what you do, or how it benefits their client. Think about this one, deeply - when your partner is pitching your product to one of their customers, they will likely face some questions from their customer, including but (definitely) not limited to: Why do I need this? How much does it cost? How will it benefit my business? Why is this better than what I have in place? How long will this take to implement? Will I have to shut down critical business practices to enable this? How will my team have to manage this? If your partner cannot stand up to questioning about your product, THEY WILL NOT PITCH IT. They won't stake their reputation, especially when you think about who is pitching, which is usually not your partner manager! So with all of that context... 1. Partner training trains the right people on the right questions about your product, and 2. Partner certification enhances the legitimacy of their pitch to their customers. The other benefits of certification are covered in the question "What's the most effective way to scale partner adoption beyond the first few partner engagements that happen?"

I’m going to heavily refer to my answer on “How does your marketing team usually work with your partner team to promote partners to customers?”, but I wanted to also answer this question because there was a word in here that I wanted to address. If you suspect what the problem is, you don’t know what the problem is. Ask marketing what their priorities are! I suspect (wink) that you’ll have a lot of overlapping priorities, and even find some ways that partners can take some of the heavy lifting off of your marketing team (driving event registrations, content/copy, sponsor $).

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.