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

Relationship building is key to scaling partner adoption. You want to ensure you are maintaining the relationship as well as continuously enabling your partners. You want to share all successes and all ways to improve with each other and your respective teams. It is also crucial to share what your expectations of your partners are and vice versa. This way you can support each others goals and initiatives, deepening your relationship and showcasing results to your leadership teams.

From my experience, there are two types of partner activation activities: Ad-hoc: Flash in the pan type activations. Email blasts, launches, SPIFFS etc. They can be a great spark to start the fire, but by itself they're meaningless. Embedded processes: customers receive recommendations for different partners as they use the product. These require more investment and long-term commitment to a partner, but yield the best results over time. One example here is our live streaming product StreamYard. We work with massive social media companies, and many of them have featured us in posts or emails. Yet the best lever for sustained partner-led growth are the onboarding flows for new creators when sign up to live stream on a platform. Embedding yourself in workflows of the partner tool works because customers self-select (e.g. by trying to live stream) and are therefore receptive to your pitch.

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.

My top three are; 1. Mutual case studies with tangible results. 2. Comprehensive documentation and access to marketing resources. 3. Stakeholder mapping. Accountability across all functions to build relationships with their counterparts at the partners organtion. Joint slack channels are hugely beneficial to support this.

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.