Partner and alliance marketing stands out as a powerful lever for business growth. Engaging partners in Go-To-Market initiatives creates more qualified leads, quicker sales processes, improved conversion rates, larger transactions, and, most importantly, trust.
But today, Partner Marketers are facing an increasingly complex ecosystem with more and more pressure to create pipeline and demonstrate ROI in the face of lean teams, budget cuts, and shifting priorities.
Our recent “State of B2B Pipeline Growth” study found that the #1 challenge in marketing today is budget constraints (50%) followed by economic slowdown (40%) and impossible targets (32%). What’s more, 80% of B2B marketers report getting new qualified leads is mission critical or an urgent priority, yet 53% of B2B marketers report not being able to meet their pipeline goals.
These findings underscore the core challenges B2B marketers – including Partner Marketers – are facing today: The impossible task of reaching higher targets with fewer resources.
At Pipeline360, we’re here to support and partner with B2B marketers to drive demand. Here are three ways Partner Marketers can accelerate their pipeline:
1. Take a strategic approach
Partner marketing is complex, marked by intricate interdependencies among partners, a multitude of collaborators, and often a lack of marketing resources and mis-aligned priorities. Talk to most partner marketers and they’ll agree that aligning their goals with their partner’s goals and the ever-evolving B2B buyers’ journeys, makes their jobs increasingly difficult and resource-consuming.
Partnerships should be a multiplier that generates warmer leads, faster sales cycles, better close rates, and bigger deals, and most importantly trust. Take a strategic look at the value for both sides. Ask yourself, what unique value does each partner bring to the table? What is your “better together” story? How can you leverage the partnership strengths to drive demand for your products or services? What opportunities are there for co-creation and access to new markets? By taking a strategic approach, you can prioritize and focus to make sure you are creating the greatest impact on your pipeline.
2. Ensure 100% compliant, marketable demand at scale
Tap into new audiences that may not have been accessible before. Look at what channels you and your partners are leveraging and look for ways to expand reach and engagement. How can you access new channels to drive awareness, consideration and action? Leverage your joint marketing campaigns, to include cross-promotion on social media, co-creation of content for content syndication and display advertising that drives to a shared asset, or co-hosted events. By expanding your channels, you can generate demand at scale and achieve a greater return on investment.
It’s also important to ensure that your lead data – and your partners’ lead data – is 100% marketable and compliant with burgeoning data privacy laws. This means obtaining explicit consent from individuals to use their personal data for marketing and sales purposes, maintaining accurate and up-to-date records, and providing an easy opt-out option for those who no longer wish to receive communications. Keeping your lead data clean and compliant not only protects your organization from potential legal repercussions, but it also helps build trust with your partners and your audience.
3. Show ROI with actionable analytics
Partner Marketers are under increased pressure quarterly to drive growth and demonstrate ROI in an increasingly complex ecosystem.
Look for solutions that can support a detailed analysis of your partner marketing campaigns. Focus on performance and ROI, such as tracking lead generation, engagement rates, conversion rates, and revenue generated. This type of actionable analytics helps you optimize your partner programs for maximum effectiveness.
B2B partner marketing resources
At Pipeline360, we understand the importance of effective B2B partner marketing in driving business growth. That’s why we have a team of B2B experts who can act as an extension of your team to support in setting up programs quickly to meet your desired targets, deliver compliant, validated leads that drive pipeline goals, and actionable analytics to optimize your campaigns and achieve revenue goals.
Through our marketplace model, we offer access to over 144 million global B2B users, allowing you to run integrated media, ABM, content syndication and intent campaigns to your desired audiences; all with data validation so leads are 100% marketable.
Our team will work with you to understand your unique business needs and develop a customized B2B partner marketing strategy that aligns with your goals. With our extensive global reach, we can help you expand into new markets and target specific industries or personas. Our data-driven approach ensures that your campaigns are reaching the right audience at the right time, resulting in higher quality leads and improved ROI.