How HP Empowered their Partner Program with Automation

We all know Solution Providers have challenges with marketing.  Their website is no exception.  Empowering hundreds of partners to update their websites with your prepared marketing collateral can at times feel like herding thousands of cats from all points of the globe. However, what if there were an automated solution that could update your entire partner network at the same time? You’d certainly have more time on your hands to focus on creating reseller loyalty rather than trying to convince them to update their website or add meaningful calls to action.

Hewlett-Packard Co, technology giant, is familiar with the challenges associated with channel marketing. This is their story of how they empowered their partners to update their websites in real time.

HP’s Self Serve Portal is a Bust

According to the story posted to B2B online, HP experimented with a self-serve portal where partners could get the marketing data they needed to update their websites with prepared HP collateral. However, despite the robust quality of the content in the portal, partners were still not updating their websites often or at all.

The problem was this: while many of their partners had the technical expertise which made them valuable VARs, their websites are often lack appropriate calls-to-action and on-point marketing that sells HP products. As I mentioned in my Empowering Your Partners webinar back in July, one of the challenges partners face is that they are already spread too thin to think about keeping their websites up-to-date. Vendors need to create reseller loyalty by making the process of selling their products easy, customizable and lucrative for their partners.

HP’s Solution: Syndication & Automation

So, if your partners are struggling with the self-serve model you’re currently offering, how should you proceed in keeping their product information up to date and accurate?

One solution is to employ a syndication and marketing support infrastructure such as SharedVue (which I reviewed back in June 2009). HP partners are already using this syndication network which cuts out the manual labor of updating websites by hand. To get started, HP partners just insert a specific code into their website once and decide with HP products they want to show on their website. Whenever HP updates their copy or content, it automatically updates the partner’s website in real time.  SharedVue also provides some analytical data that tracks prospects and leads on the reseller’s website.

So, if you’re struggling with motivating your partners, here are a few tips on how to get the most out of your automation program.

• Survey your partners to better understand their challenges with your current program, determine how many would be interested in implementing an automated program and what their concerns might be with implementation.
• When promoting syndication to your partners (who may be skittish about you being able to see their leads) explain that they have the ability to turn lead visibility on or off.
• Make sure the tool you choose doesn't require you, the channel manager, to do a lot logistically.  I used a system while at EMC where the partners had to literally fax us their preferences sheet.  Can you say painful?
• Once you’ve engaged with syndication (and taken the emphasis off of trying to get your content posted on their website and accurate), you’ll have more time to nurture the relationship with your partners and make them valuable resellers. Use a survey to try to determine what some meaningful interactions with your partners might be on a week-to-week basis.

Have you thought about installing a syndication and automation service such as SharedVue? How do you think it might help your business and partner relationships?