Are You Training Your Partners to Market Your Solutions?

When it comes to marketing their solutions through the channel, most vendors offer their Partners marketing materials from corporate. I've written before about Channel Programs that are investing in their Partners more strategically, moving away from just corporate generated marketing solutions into Partner centric marketing programs. These programs keep vendors' solutions top of mind for their partners and if done right, benefit both the vendor and the Partner along the way. At the heart of these programs is solid Partner training.

Why is training essential? Imagine handing over corporate marketing materials to your Partners regardless of their marketing resources or knowledge. Some will know how to build a stronger list, launch a landing page, use Google Analytics to measure visibility and leverage social media to drive more demand. Most Partners we've worked with, however, are new to strategic marketing, especially online marketing. They are eager to learn how to better market themselves and your solutions but aren't sure where to start. Integrating valuable marketing training into your Channel Program increases loyalty among the Partners you invest in and ultimately increases sales to their end customers. So, how do you do it correctly?

Here are a few things to keep in mind when training your Partners:

• Are you only sending corporate marketing materials to your Partners without guidance on how to use them? If so, think about tailoring these materials to better meet your Partners' marketing needs. Then begin strategically planning trainings on how to use them.
• Schedule monthly marketing webinars or trainings on a variety of marketing topics. Use the materials you supply that month to lay the framework for your talk.
• Keep in mind what is feasible for your Partners' to maintain. Stick to the basics instead of assuming they have a large marketing team with a lot of bandwidth to deploy new strategy.
• Be sure you're including online marketing trainings in your calendar. This includes trainings on LinkedIn, Twitter, SEO and overall web presence.
• Consider providing Partners with One-to-One Marketing support where someone works personally with a handful of your Partners to train them in marketing strategy while also amplifying both their online presence and your solutions.

Teaching your Partners how to better marketing themselves is a win-win investment: their loyalty to your solutions increases and so does their success in selling them. Everyone's online presence is also amplified and more deals get closed. So what are you waiting for? I say, go train! We're here to support you if you need it.

What other suggestions did I miss? How are you training your partners to be more successful?