Tech marketing partnering helps your company grow if done correctly.

Tech marketing partnering if done wrong can damage your brand and take away vital resources of a startup or small business. But if dome right can increase sales and resources customer acquisition costs.

So let dive into tech marketing partnering and how it can help you.

Types of Partnering Relationship to Serve Company Strategies

This post is part of a series to help B2B high technology organizations improve sales and marketing channel partnering. In part one, I discussed the key issue high-tech companies face when developing their partnering programs.

In part 2, I will talk about the different types of partnering relationship to serve company strategies. If you missed Part I, I suggest you read that first (go here).

Taking the lead from how human relationships take shape in differing circumstances and for contrasting reasons, you can define four main types of worthwhile company-to-company collaboration.

I would argue that any alliance that does not fit these criteria is unlikely to succeed over the short or long-term. Here is the list of possible combinations:

1. Casual relationships focused on sharing information or collaborating in sporadic marketing activities
2. Opportunistic relationships focused on winning business on a deal-by-deal basis
3. Committed relationships focused on achieving market share in diverse target markets
4. Close relationships focused on achieving dominance in specific target markets

In this hierarchy, the first basic option (number 1) may have no more ‘accountability’ than the periodic exchange of information and ideas, possibly (but not necessarily) leading to a ‘more advanced’ relationship, as indicated by 2, 3, and 4.

I see no reason why companies cannot develop a simple and clear protocol of activities for each of these relationship ‘modes,’ which explains the three variations outlined at the beginning of Part I (read here).

In fact, when determining the need for a partner to help accelerate market adoption and/or delivery of solutions, it is important to distinguish clearly between partner-level contributions and the simpler value-add of a ‘component supplier’, (i.e, the supplier of a commodity product or service that can be acquired simply by making a purchase order, rather than expecting any special contribution such as joint-selling, customization, or consulting).

The checklist below lays out the kind of potential contribution expected of a bonafide partner (it is not necessary to qualify on all points, as long as each partner brings at least one critical contribution to the table):

1. Thought leadership to identify the target market opportunity and design the solution
2. Action leadership to (co-)manage the coalition and (co-)drive the initiative
3. Access to target customers, such as executives or managers in the target market
4. Multiple contributions of products/services to the overall solution
5. Funding or resources for solution development, marketing, sales and/or implementation

With specific respect to go-to-market strategy, if one assumes that most enterprise software companies’ main product categories today are somewhere close to, or actually in between early market and mainstream market penetration, then partnering strategy should prioritize third parties that can aid rapid market penetration into target market segments (rather than coverage across geographies, for example).

During this stage, each partner should somehow add value in a consultative way – i.e., their value-add should always include a focus on providing effective solutions to critical problems.

This is in contrast to collaborating to produce standard product/service ‘solutions’ or bundles for many different markets, a potentially viable strategy in the rapid adoption and slowing adoption. If companies ignore these dynamics.

They are almost certain to experience disappointment in the results of their partnering and channel efforts because each side will be working toward different goals and metrics, with differing expectations.

Order of Priority of Key Engagement Activities with Each Partner

When developing your tech marketing partnering program prioritize your efforts.

One of the common features of partnering today, and one of the main inhibitors to success, is the order in which certain activities take center stage and the omission of others that should be considered critical to the success of any joint go-to-market efforts.

To clarify what I mean, below is a list of what not to do, followed by a list of what to do, in order to give each alliance a chance to succeed (for both groups, let’s assume that both sides have reached the point that they want to partner, and are attempting to do what’s necessary to get the show on the road):

How to Screw Up a Promising Partnering Relationship

• Treat the new relationship as a ‘strategic alliance’ right out of the gate
• Negotiate a detailed contract
• Produce a jubilant press release about the compelling synergy between the two-three partners
• Agree on the product/service bundle that is going to be marketed
• Make general commitments about resources that will be committed
• Enlist the sales force in each company to start selling the new bundle
• Get disappointed when not much happens as a result of so much noise
• Complain to the partner about their lack of commitment (or slink into the shadows because you haven’t followed through with your own promises)

How to Give the New Relationship a Chance to Succeed

• Treat the new relationship as a ‘serious experiment’ limited to a few people on each side
• Agree on one target customer deal to close jointly
• Assess the results of the ‘alpha’ deal as it closes and gets implemented
• Agree to partner more programmatically, and develop a joint marketing program or target market initiative (depending just how promising the collaboration has shown itself in the first deal)
• Establish a brief one-page letter of understanding (accompanied by respective NDAs, of course)
• Develop an action plan or, better, a target market strategy
• Define specific action items, resource commitments, and target milestones
• Announce the formalization of the program or initiative in a press release for limited circulation
• Select a few people on each side to work together on the early activities and deals
• Allow a field of attraction to develop, whereby more field sales/support teams join in as the program proves its success
• Review progress as you go, and make course-corrections regarding the joint strategy, as well as milestones and resources

As you can see from the number of action items in the second group, productive partnering is harder work than ‘press-release partnering’; but it also saves a tremendous amount of wasted resource (which few companies can afford these days), and it preserves the power and potential value of partnering successfully.

Taxonomy of Potential Go-to-Market Partners

To have a decent chance of executing well on resource allocation to partners and also avoiding significant waste of resources and energy on frustrating partnerships, it is vital to establish clear distinctions and rules of engagement for different ‘partners’ such as these:

Opportunistic collaborations aimed at winning specific deals, usually operated at the regional level, or in the field, without any need to be blessed at the corporate level.

Tactical go-to-market programs aimed at increasing revenues or market share (these are relatively arms-length relationships with potentially more than one of the same type of partner for each program):

• Product partners (independent software vendors, systems vendors): Provide complementary products to complete a solution or bundle
• Service partners (system integrators, value-added resellers): Provide complementary services to complete a solution or bundle
• Co-selling partners (any of the above): Augment field sales teams, helping the lead partner to close deals
• Channel partners (any of the above): Sell solutions to customer sets that the lead partner does not or cannot focus on (SME vs. Global 2000, different geographies, etc.)
• OEM partners (any of the above): Integrate products/services as a component in solutions or bundles that they take to market

Strategic target market initiative(s) aimed at achieving market dominance (these require intimate relationships with few selected partners, only one of each type per initiative/target market):

• Product partners (ISVs, systems vendors): Provide complementary products to complete a very specific Whole Product solution
• Service partners (SIs, VARs): Provide complementary services to complete a very specific Whole Product solution
• Co-selling partners (any of the above): Provide critical domain or technical expertise, or access to the target market, to complete the field sales team and thus help the initiative-driving company to close deals
• Channel partners (any of the above): Sell solutions to customer sets that the lead product partner does not or cannot focus on (SME vs. Global 2000, different geographies, etc.)
• OEM partners (any of the above): Integrate products/services as a component in strategic initiatives that they drive into specific target markets

Each of these go-to-market modes and partner types naturally implies different rules of engagement, which we should discuss at the earliest opportunity as a means of establishing feasible guidelines for resource allocation.

In turn, the great reward for thinking this through will be that disappointments will be minimal, while successes are maximized.

This wraps-up this two-part series. If you missed Part I, I recommend you read that as well (Go To Part I here).

I would love to hear your thoughts, so comment below and share this post!

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General FAQ’s for a Partner Marketing Strategy

Strategies for Go-to-Market Partnering Programs and Initiatives

I will be discussing partnering programs and how you can succeed in your go-to-market plans.

This post is part of a series to help B2B high technology organizations improve sales and marketing channel partnering. In part one, you’ll get the key issue high-tech companies to face when developing their partnering programs.

After witnessing, and, in past years being a party to, poor partnering practices by technology companies, I have developed a mental picture of the approach I would like to hear more often expressed by CEOs or BizDev executives below.

“As a promising player in our area of enterprise software, we have long harbored a desire to become the leader in our product category, but we have been hampered by a number of factors, including an unclear market strategy, and a consequent inability to execute any plan effectively.“

“Based on recent feedback from other players in the market, including potential business partners, it seems that a critical problem we face is the strong perception that we are not easy to do business with, and not able to follow through on our commitments to partners.

In a market dependent on technological ‘openness,’ the willingness to collaborate formally with other technology-focused companies is undoubtedly a key component in every company’s success, from Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP to the smallest start-up.

In our case, we have clearly failed to build any value chain around our key products, and consequently, customers have been hesitant to buy from us, preferring to wait and see which of the potential winners can actually put a complete solution together in convincing fashion.

Therefore, in order to accelerate the achievement of our corporate agenda, we have worked to define a new partnering approach that distinguishes between different types of partnership arrangements.

The aim is to enable us to rapidly extend our reach and market penetration through an ‘ecosystem’ approach, rather than a verticalized, go-it-alone approach that confuses other companies and forces them to either be neutral or even hostile to us in critical marketing and sales situations.

From now on, with respect to go-to-market partnering initiatives and programs, in particular, we are adopting an approach aimed at driving:

“In order to execute effectively on this plan, we have defined a set of templates designed to help us manage our portfolio of partnering relationships, in addition to suitable rules of engagement for each type of partner, and a suggested process for managing and legislating each relationship.

Finally, we are presenting a picture of how the organization should in our view look to reflect the commitments we shall be made to partners, and the skill sets and headcount/other resources we shall need to reallocate to manage the new strategy.”

The reason I know that the above speech is still a dream, as far as most tech companies are concerned, is that, unfortunately, what we most often see in our industry is a style of ‘partnering’ that:

It is no use just being optimistic in partnering activities, nor is it enough to publish a press release to announce that the alliance is going to dominate the world and solve world famine. In fact, this creates more harm than good, because each failed partnering experience poisons the well for all future such initiatives.

In this article, I shall describe some of the peccadilloes committed by many companies in today’s marketplace (despite the avowed recognition that no one can make it on their own), then suggest where partnering fits, the kind of objectives it should serve, followed by examples of relationship types, the order of priority in which specific joint activities should occur.

And finally, a short taxonomy of different partnering roles. Just to be clear about which forms of partnering I am addressing and which ones I am not considering in this article.

, let me remind readers that I am focusing my comments on just one of many types of alliance: go-to-market partnering, in other words, the joint marketing and selling efforts aimed squarely at achieving sales and conquering markets.

In contrast with other collaborative efforts as (formal or informal) knowledge-sharing agreements, technical alliances, or even mergers and acquisitions, this form of market-focused collaboration is undoubtedly a critical tool for increasing revenues and maximizing market power in today’s high-tech marketplace.

Equally, undeniably, it almost always fails to deliver the expected results, disappoints stances a disappointing initiative, most often resulting in recrimination between erstwhile allies regarding stated (or unstated) expectations of joint success have been completely or largely missed.

I have compiled four examples of common mistakes that either result from, or directly cause, a lack of clarity, and thus usually missed expectations, in either the strategy or the implementation of partnering initiatives.

1. Executives get together and ‘do’ lunch: This is usually where the trouble starts. In a typical scene, a key executive from company A meets with their opposite number from target partner X, and the two quickly agreed to an ambitious joint revenue objective, as in this sample dialogue: “There’s no reason why our two companies cannot do a couple of (hundred) million in business jointly, so why don’t I get my people to talk to your people and we’ll get something going.” As soon as each executive returns to their respective office, they get their biz dev or field alliance people scurrying to set up a joint program, which usually requires the use of time and resources to put a campaign in place, and before you know it, a lot of resources has been initially spent on positioning, messaging, issuing press releases, and even drawing up legal agreements.
2. ‘Press-release’ partnering: Speaking of press releases, this is the strategy in which all efforts are focused on producing a joint release quoting executives from both companies saying that, in light of the enormous synergy between their respective offerings and markets, they have agreed to a ‘strategic alliance.’ This tactic, once so prevalent during the bubble, is in most cases a criminal waste of energy and a sure way to make partnering fail – because it is almost never accompanied by a clear statement of which specific target market the alliance is going to address together, and why on earth anyone should take the resulting marketing campaign seriously.
3. Companies are not honest about their agendas: More often than not, organizations make vague statements of intent and end up making difficult-to-fulfill resource commitments to each other. If instead of basing everything on general aspirations such as ‘better serving the market,’ they stated clearly what specific market needs their partnering initiative would be serving, and if they each set out to understand the other’s agenda, the track record of company-to-company collaboration in the high-tech industry would be quite different.
4. Everyone’s a ‘partner’ and everyone’s ‘strategic’: What’s in a name (or term)? Well, in partnering, I would argue that everything depends on each side being clear with the other(s) about how important the relationship is because all relationships are most certainly not created equal. In other words, it is vital that when companies come together to help each other achieve greater success in the market, they should be crystal clear about what kind of collaboration they are prepared and able to deliver, and what kind they expect. While many business developments encourage an ambiguous situation in which virtually every partner is considered to be ‘strategic’ (whatever that means!), the near certainty is that very few of the partners will receive or contribute the attention or resources that such designations confer on the relationship.

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Where Partnering Fits in Company’s Business Priorities

So, as a matter of perspective, where does partnering fit in any technology company’s order of priorities? In the first place, there is the company’s own goals and agenda.

For example, to maximize its power (as measured by market capitalization, revenue growth, and/or profitability) by winning a dominant share in specific target markets as well as more moderate share in many markets.

Next comes the specific market penetration or dominance strategy; as a part of which, partnering can be a critical vehicle to accomplish the objective, possibly alongside M&A, outsourcing marketing services, subcontracting and straightforward purchase of products or services, all of which are means of ‘acquiring’ the necessary resources to make something good happen.

Thus, in contrast with all the hyperbole that companies indulge in about the need to partner to serve others, go-to-market partnering occurs in order to serve key objectives in each company’s corporate agenda.

In fact, it is critical not to lose sight of this guiding principle, because it is what provides the required measure of ‘enlightened self-interest’ to motivate partners to follow through on the commitments they make to each other. Below are some specific motivations that belong on the list of key reasons for go-to-market partnering initiatives and programs of all types:

Therefore, if given go-to-market partnering initiative or program does not significantly enhance your chances of achieving one of these objectives, then I suggest that both sides should ask the question “why bother to invest in it?”

In Part II, I will cover the types of partnering relationship to serve corporate strategies, the order of priority of key engagement activities with each partner, and the taxonomy of go-to-market partners.

I would love to hear your thoughts, so

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Marketing for technology companies should look over these best practices to boost leads and sales.

Marketing for technology companies requires a unique strategy. When an industry is hot, so is the competition. You must look to digital transformation within your organization to succeed today.

Your digital marketing strategy, done right, will drive more website traffic, high lead conversions, and more sales. It’s that simple.

Let’s look at this situation another way, one can argue that tough times call for tough, and even different, tactics. Disruptive tactics.

In fact, I would go so far as to argue that two key qualities in today’s sales force and management ranks count for more than any others: firstly, contrarian, inquisitive thinking, and secondly (believe it or not) solid sales discipline for the digital world.

How is your social media selling going?

In my view, both of these qualities will be rewarded significantly more than the aggressive, even brazen, marketing/sales approaches that characterized the past. Yet, many firms still seem unable to give up their hard-sell tactics, despite all the evidence that they don’t work today, even for ‘established’ product categories, such as ERP, supply chain, and CRM.

There are many reasons that it is extra important to get your marketing right in the high tech industry.

• There is a lot of noise in this field, so it’s difficult to make your message stand out.
• There is a lot of competition, and it can sometimes be hard to differentiate from others with similar products or services.
• Due to the technical nature of the industry, it can be hard to explain your products or services in a clear, engaging way.

Here are a few ways small- and medium-sized tech companies can make the most of their marketing efforts.

Marketing for Technology Businesses

If you want to grow fast and stay ahead of your competitors, you need a solid technology infrastructure in place to support your revenue architecture.

This is your MARTECH  stack. And it will do wonders for your resources and frees up tons of time. Now you can use this time to tune your marketing for high-tech products. You should be experimenting with split testing, publishing to areas where your competitors are not. Get creative here.

There are a few types of technologies that you need to make your marketing processes more efficient and scalable. And this technology foundation will generate leads and a nice return on investment for you.

But, don’t expect the technology marketing is going to cut it. You still need a clear call to action to get people interested in what you have to offer.  that’s where content marketing comes in.

We jumped on the technology bandwagon very early. We believe that today, every company must be a technology company. You may not be selling technology, but stop. Think about how you got here. What helps run your company?

Marketing Automation Tools and Marketing for Technology Firms

Let’s start with a few interesting stats:

63% of companies that are outgrowing their competitors use marketing automation. (The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups, Lead Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study)

78% of successful marketers cite marketing automation systems as most responsible for improving revenue contribution. (The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups, 2013 Lead-Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study)

Among B2B marketers, the #1 benefit of marketing automation is generating more and better leads. [Tweet this] (Pepper Global, Marketing Automation Trends Report 2014)

None of the stats above are all that surprising to me, except this one: only 10% of companies with $20M-500M in annual revenue and only 5% of companies with $5M-$20M in annual revenue have adopted a marketing automation tool. (Raab Associates, Marketing Automation 2014 Industry Overview) It’s hard for me to believe this low adoption rate among small companies.

So you will gain an immediate competitive advantage by investing in the right marketing automation tool.

Here are just some benefits you will achieve with a marketing automation tool:

• Improved lead management and nurturing
• Measurable results
• Enhanced targeting and personalization
• Seamless campaign execution and tracking
• Increased efficiency and productivity
• Marketing and sales alignment
• Better customer relationship management
• Improved user engagement
• More sales with less resources

Check out the affordable tools designed for the smaller B2B companies. We use HubSpot, but Infusionsoft, Marketo and Pardot are both great marketing automation tools as well.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

A CRM system helps your marketing and sales teams in multiple ways. It helps you record interactions, manage your contacts, and gives you visibility to patterns and trends. This is critical since it provides business owners with an all-encompassing vantage point of sales.

And while CRM is considered mainly a tool for sales, it’s important for marketers because it closes the loop on leads that turn into customers. It also helps you nurture your customers and make them promoters of your brand.

It’s worth noting that there are some marketing automation systems that include CRM, like HubSpot. At Matrix Marketing Group we use about 30+ marketing and sales technologies to run our business.

Analytics Tools for Marketing for High-tech Companies

An important part of marketing is being able to monitor your success or lack thereof. If what you are doing isn’t working, you have to quickly respond and change paths. Similarly, if what you are doing is working, then you want to see why and replicate that success.

Most marketing automation and/or CRM systems provide good analytics. While most aren’t perfect and you’ll have to build some of your own reports, I’ve found that a lot of the tools continue to get better at providing more metrics and more out-of-the-box dashboards and reports.

And the best of all analytics tools is Google Analytics. It’s free and it gives you tremendous visibility into the performance of your website. You can track the number of unique visitors, page views, bounce rates, session durations, and the list goes on and on. If you haven’t set up a (free) account for your site, I recommend you do so immediately.

Take Advantage of Content Marketing

Check this out. Per dollar spent, content marketing produces 3 times more leads than paid search.

So great content marketing will drive visitors to your site. And visitors turn into leads. And leads into customers.

So here are some tips on how to make your marketing content work for you.

• Know your audience. Know their needs, behaviors, concerns, and problems. And customize your content for them.
• Apply the right content, to the right buyer persona, at the right time. In other words, map your buyer’s journey and use the right content at each stage.
• Create a wide mix of content and categorized it into three areas. Top-of-the-funnel; middle-of-the-funnel; and bottom-of-the-funnel. Great content includes infographics, video, VR, blogs, eBooks, webinars, white papers, social media posts, podcasts, etc. Each of these types of content serves a purpose, so use them appropriately.

Content marketing should be your best friend. Invest in a good writer (if you don’t have one on staff) and have them crank out great content regularly. Then watch your web visits increase and your leads skyrocket. This typically happens in about 4-6 months. The wait is worth it.

You could spend thousands of dollars on advertising. But what will happen when you turn it off? You got it. So does the leads. However, with content marketing, your keywords and content are like an annuity and keeps paying off more and more as time goes by. Get it?

If you expect results overnight digital marketing is not for you. but if you apply the right strategy, experiment, in the dapped your website traffic will increase, your lead conversions will improve, and ultimately you get more sales.

Be human when marketing for technology businesses

But even in the B2B arena, you are still selling to people. So you have to be trusted (or at least earn trust) and be human. You are still working with businesses, so you want to be professional, but there are still several ways to be a professional human—not a faceless corporation.

• Be friendly and engaging.
• Find human problems and then show how your products or services solve them.
• Take the time to get to know your audience and their needs.

Once I had a client that did a study and had their employees try to tell the difference between their company’s content, and their competitors. Shockingly, the test showed that the company’s employees could not tell the difference.

The problem was, all the content was hard to understand and was loaded with technical jargon. It didn’t describe the products in an easy way to understand.  As a result, the company made a significant effort to understand the buyer’s journey.

They went further and wanted to know what their audience read, how they read it, and what content platforms they read the information. With that information. they simplified their content to make it appropriate in the buying stage and more engaging.

They even changed their tone of voice so they didn’t sound robotic. So the lesson to be learned takes a look at your current content. Is it human? Is it engaging? Would a real person want to read it?

Focusing on Integrated Marketing

When you are selling tech to businesses and marketing for technology, the sales cycle tends to belong. Anywhere from 9 to 18 months. So if you can reduce the sales cycle you gain a competitive advantage. According to Business.com, that cycle is only getting longer.

What this means to you is that there is now a greater focus on engagement, so you need an integrated strategy that utilizes lots of channels.

As you build your marketing plan, make sure there are many touch-points so that you remain engaged and in contact with current and potential customers from beginning to end.

While this can seem daunting, marketing automation tools will help. You can create workflows that allow you to continuously connect with your prospects. If you’re unsure of how to create automated campaigns, consult an expert.

Capitalize on Social Media

Social media is one of the single most powerful tools for engaging with your prospects. It helps you stay connected with your customers and it will bring you leads.

The important things to remember with social media are to stay targeted, be consistent, show your corporate personality, and continuously engage. LinkedIn is by far the most popular B2B social channel, but don’t underestimate the power of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Get Help for Marketing for High-tech Companies

The marketing services industry is in flux. As small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) navigate the marketing talent gap, they are seeking performance-driven agency partners that are deep into marketing technology and staffed with digital-savvy professionals.

SMBs need partners that can deliver integrated solutions and function as if they are part of their team. Large companies tend to look for niche expertise in core digital areas like content marketing, paid search, SEO, social media monitoring, and analytics to complement internal marketing teams.

Most small and medium-sized high-tech companies don’t have the budget to have a full team of marketers. You may have enough budget to maintain a solid leader, but to get above the competition, you need specific marketing skills to push past the competition.

Make sure you have a strategist, a technologist, a designer (both web and graphic), and a writer. If you don’t have all of these, consider outsourcing to a marketing services firm like Matrix Marketing Group.

Final Thoughts about Marketing for Technology Firms

Marketing in the high-tech industry is challenging, but with the tips above you can beat your competition. Be aggressive in your efforts and don’t shy away from technology to support your revenue architecture.

And when in doubt, ask an expert if you need help with marketing best practices for marketing for technology companies.

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