How do you market your integration partners? What has worked best for you to drive integration connections?

Staying on the theme of putting customers first, integration partners are essential in showcasing how customers can use a stack of SaaS-based technologies together. Thus, integration partners must show how customers can use their product with your platform. The easiest, most beneficial activities are where you can showcase the power of the technologies working together and get customers/prospects to use them. They must also have easy paths to try the technology. If the integration partner makes it easier to do the integration and get started, it becomes easier to use and thus market the technology. Physical or online hosted labs and demos are terrific to try and buy. Another good way to get adoption is to use Solution Partners to develop solutions that solve a specific customer problem. This is where having a strong Partner SE team really helps.

In the embedded insurance space larger partnerships are generally announced via joint PR. We work in tandem with the partner's marketing team to craft an innovative press release announcing the partnership. Ideally the focus is on how this insurtech partnership makes the partner firm's costumers' lives easier or their experience on the platform better - car insurance integrated into a rental company or travel insurance included in a credit card transaction etc. One can also come up with strategies where the integration showcases a case study later: how did this integration help the partner drive revenue, if we are a new insurance partner how did our integration/partnership increase adoption or conversion? These types of case studies can also be a joint PR.

Effective marketing of integration partners involves a multi-channel approach. Begin by embedding integrations within your sales and onboarding processes. For instance, during sales conversations, partners can be a part of the discovery phase, especially if certain integrations are a requirement for potential customers. Highlighting integrations during onboarding—whether through self-serve guides, solutions partners, or in-app tours—also drives early adoption. Promote key integrations in newsletters, app stores, and on your website. At Intercom, we showcase our 450+ integrations within our app and on our site, making it easy for customers to discover and connect them. Events are another key channel: partners can participate in conferences, webinars, and co-hosted dinners. These in-person and virtual events help promote integrations by providing hands-on experiences and direct engagement. Use core marketing activities, such as email campaigns, social media posts, and collaborative content, to continually surface partners and their integrations, driving adoption.

We typically follow the following steps for GTM: Pre-launch: Set a date for a webinar on how to get started with a live Q&A. Provide early access to Affiliate partners and work with them to create content for the launch. Add a dedicated channel on the partner slack workspace and introduce the integration and partner team to all partners. Day of the launch: Announce the integration on the user communities. Announce the integration on media accounts. Announce the integration on SmartSuite and Partner’s blog. Announce the integration on the newsletter. List as “live” integration on the website. Help articles are published on product documentation sites. Co-Host a Webinar on how to get started a bit later in the week. Post-launch: Partner managers will work to educate and facilitate collaboration between both companies. Work on co-selling opportunities. Work on additional co-marketing opportunities and customer education.

PartnerPage! It provides the ability for partners to market themselves and the platform for clients to drive the integration connections without the barrier of a partnership manager. It also provides the capability for Partnership Managers to feature particular partners at their own choosing without the involvement of Marketing having to create a separate partner feature. Hit them up if you are not using them already! Beyond that - co-partner case studies work wonders. Telling the story from the client's perspective as to how they could leverage both of your services together and derive value from the integration exemplifies to others what they can expect by working with both of you. A good example can be found here: https://www.adjust.com/resources/case-studies/magic-tavern-smadex-ctv-advision/

We use in app prompts on the areas of the product where the integration partners add value. For example: Add a CTA on the payment reports page linking to the integration marketplace with accounting integrations. Consider looking at integrations as a three stage journey: Access > Utility > Value Access - is BOTH the installation process, ideally 5-10 seconds, AND the Marketplace listing. [Marketplaces are ad listings for the integrations, not the end result, if its painful to install an integration no one will use them] Utility - the data exchanged between the systems and the usage in your app for that data. [Example: Contact sync from Hubspot, automated shipping updates via your app] Utility can be prescribed by you to the customer, and should be part of the expectation set by the integration listing in your marketplace. Value - This is the best part, but don't jump to this without solving the first two. This can be assumed by you, but should be explored directly with customers using the integration. Learn the real world value from your customers using integrations and share those value props on the marketplace and other materials, use both qualitative and quantitative customer examples. [Example: App assumes shipping updates will lower support tickets asking for shipping status, and end consumers will be happier. Customer value could add: Shipping updates trigger review requests for the consumer after shipment has been delivered. Resulting in 10% less support tickets, and 20% more reviews on customer's site/google listing/etc. ] You can STOP here and market all of this without the source system [Integration Partner]. OR you can take the Value stage one step further, and create a reciprocal value prop for the source system. [Example: Your app sends the Shipping Status back into Hubspot to enrich that system and provide value for the customer stakeholders living in that system making Hubspot stickier for the support/sales teams using it daily.] If you get this piece right the blog posts, webinars, and marketing activities you ask for the partner to engage on will have content on Their value with the integration as well as yours. Then you get genuine leads from the partner's customer base.

We maintain a robust partner directory that makes it easy to find a particular service or company, and to see how their technology communicates seamlessly with Jotform. Our integration partners are consistently featured in several of our marketing channels, including blog posts, email newsletters, case studies, demo videos, webinars, social posts, PR campaigns, and brand alignment opportunities.