What marketing do you do in order to reach partners that are not in your program, so that you can get more partners?

We scaled our partner program from 27 members to 1000 members in the course of a year and a half. How we did it was a few different ways: 1. Paid social media advertising 2. Cold outreach to ideal partners 3. Creating an SEO optimized page that attracts our ideal partner On the paid social media front, we generally made ads that targeted our ideal partner with the message of "do you want a better solution to help document your clients' processes?". From there, we got tons of great leads who were intrigued about the platform, and applied to our program. This was great because we could get tons of partners at scale. On the cold outreach side, we got really specific on what our ideal partner archetype was. That meant their title, demographic, client size, service offerings, etc. And when we got clear on that, I would reach out to those people via email or LinkedIn to ask if they were looking for a software that could help improve their Process Documentation services for their clients. The catch here is twofold though: you HAVE to make it clear that you are not trying to "sell" them anything. And two, you will HAVE to educate these partner leads much more about your product. So, it takes a bit of an effort to get them up to speed. But when you do, they'll be PRIME partners for you. Lastly, there are probably partners who are familiar with your product and have an interest in partnering with you. So, they will likely search "[Insert Your Company Here] partnership" into Google or a search engine. If you don't have a partner page that clearly lays out your program details and gives them an easy way to get started, then they might go to another partner who does. So, we created our own partnership landing page that comes up when "Trainual Certified Consultant" is searched, and we get a consistent flow of leads from there consistently.

Since tech partnerships require a lot of cross-functional teamwork, and often quite a bit of engineering time, brand alignment opportunities with non-partners are a great way to reach new audiences (and prospective new partners) with a lighter lift. Being a service rooted in forms and surveys, Jotform offers an easy, no-code option for data collection, which comes in handy for a variety of marketing needs. For example, we're working with two non-partner companies on a webinar where Jotform will capture all registrant details for the presentation, and will participate in its joint promotions, therefore leveraging these non-partners' audiences through their social and email marketing. Highlighting an aligned, non-partner's achievements on social media is a great way to start building a relationship with a prospective partner (who doesn't love free praise?), and joining forces with a non-partner company on a bundled deal for your services can also provide a strong introduction into a new partner vertical.

Recruiting more partners is like finding a good place to catch fish - go fish where the fish are, and recruit partners where they are. One of the simplest ways to meet new partners and recruit new partners is to go where they are in person and online. Personally, I think having a good brand as a company and partner leader on social media is key to help to attract the right partners, and you should physically go in person to events where you can meet with partners and potential partners in person. In my world of enterprise sofware as a service, this is events like Dreamforce or Gartner. One other key thing to point out is that many times, the best partners are already listed in other ecosystems and just need to go find them. One example I love is Zapier, https://zapier.com/experts , powered by PartnerPage. This makes it so easy for you to find new partners in adjacent ecosystems.

Marketing to partners is a very under-developed motion so a great place to stand out in the market and take the burden of partner managers doing outbound acquisition. This motion is similar to customer marketing but instead of developing around the product, you're developing marketing motions and content around the value of being a partner. I would recommend events, a prospective partner page, and high quality content that goes beyond your program and benefits your ideal partner. Being present in communities and channels where your partners are is also important. For example, one could sponsor a partnerships conference or the conference of a system of record in your space. The latter events are great for attracting customers, but they are also great for attracting new partners by sharing the value of your program.

From my experience, your best marketing is to close lighthouse partners. During the onset of our partner programs, we only focused on a handful of very high profile partners. Once we converted the market leader into a partner, all of their competitors came knocking on our door. We also deployed this approach when we built out the different verticals of our app store: 1. Identify a target vertical based on customer requests (e.g. donations during events) 2. Integrate with the market leader (e.g. Hopin + GoFundMe) 3. Competitors track GoFundMe, see the announcement, and then become inbound leads for our partner program.