What are some of the most effective partner marketing initiatives you could add to your Partner Program for partner engagement?

There’s no one-size-fits-all formula for partner marketing success. It really depends on factors like region, market maturity, and how engaged the partner already is. That said, some of the most effective initiatives I’ve seen include exclusive partner events, highly targeted enablement programs, and co-marketing campaigns tailored to a partner’s specific goals. The key is personalization, a well-crafted initiative that aligns with a partner’s unique challenges will always outperform a generic approach. Now, if I take this in a slightly different direction, what would I love to implement for partner engagement if budget wasn’t a constraint? One thing I’d focus on is ongoing, dynamic email nurtures for less engaged partner contacts. Imagine a program where content is updated almost in real-time, constantly optimized based on engagement data, and packed with compelling CTAs that guide partners at different stages to the most relevant assets... We actually do this, it's a scalable program that caters partners to engage with our content, equipping them with the knowledge to get OutSystems as top-of-mind against other vendors, yet the struggle of securing a budget for continuous updates is real. It takes technical expertise and ongoing iteration, but the impact on partner engagement with no budget constraints would be undeniable. With the right execution, it could turn passive partners into active, highly engaged ones instead.

It all really depends on the partner types, what's at your disposal in terms of distribution, etc. but a few guiding principles and examples I can share: 1) You want to build for scale. While doing the one-off webinar might drive some initial impact with your first few partners, that's not a scalable benefit. Think about how you build initiatives that can scale as your grow your program and more partners enter the mix. 2) You want to have a strong POV on how you measure success with partner engagement. It's often difficult to draw a through line between partner engagement activity and channel sales outputs. For example, it might be hard to draw a strong correlation between a partner attending a webinar and then referring a customer 60 days later. To get better at measuring impact, we're looking to build a partner engagement health score at Ramp. This health score will be built on the most likely activities that drive partner referrals (i.e. completing certification, attending a webinar per quarter, etc.) Then, our team can have targets on driving up the health of our partner ecosystem. It gives us a target we can actually influence and one that is more closely tied (through data) to bottom line business outcomes. All being said, 1:many trainings, certifications, and other educational programming that scales has proven to be super effective. Training not only enables the partner and keeps them engaged -- you can also use it as a lever for more program benefits. For example, completing a specific training or certification on a potential service offering could unlock a partner being listed in a certain directory placement as one featured for offering that service. This ties back to the distribution benefit which is a carrot for driving the desired partner behavior.