Channel Manager's Playbook [Volume 2: The Master Agent Edition]

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The other component is the subject line. This is why
just forwarding the corporate email isn’t effective, where
the subject line is the same – only with a Fwd: in front. Ick!
Lazy. Why not change the subject line to something as ba-
sic as “note from your channel manager” or anything that
could stand out?
There are many services that will send out a single cus-
tom greeting card , . This
allows for “one to one” marketing. Yes, it can be time con-
suming to make a card for each partner, but you can make
one for an event or webinar or product launch and send
it to 20 or 25 partners. Or it could be a potential partner
that you really want to land.
Attention is the prize today. Partners can spend every
day, all day on webinars and live events. The inbox is full
of newsletters, webinar invites, promotions, product an-
nouncements and (lately) logo changes from both chan-
nel managers and the companies. It is too much info to
be processed by a busy agent.
Attention is not only the prize – it must be treated with
respect. That means adding value at each touch point. I
am a firm believer that not every email has to be about the
company. It can be about hiring, technology, leasing, running
a business or anything that is valuable. Partners are running
a business and face the same problems every business faces:
payroll, hiring, firing, bookkeeping, etc. Those are ways to
add value. It happens on Facebook and Twitter. People share
interesting stuff (beyond cat videos and memes).
Another story line is adjacency. Most vendors have a
large catalog of services, many of which partners are un-
aware. For example, hosted email, cloud backup, confer-
encing, managed security or any add-on services may lie
adjacent to what the partner is currently selling (typically
WAN). This is a different approach, since getting part-
ners to upsell services that they have never sold before is
so far outside the comfort zone as to be alien.
Again, a marketing campaign around upsell and
cross-sell is required. Include stories about robust solu-
tion sales beyond network services. If a quote request
comes in for a bank, send an email about the package
that banks typically buy, including security, managed ser-
vices, compliance, whatever. The complete story can give
a partner a better idea as to what is available and what
the buyer behavior is. That can earn you some gravitas
with the partner. It means higher ARPU and higher com-
missions. Win-win.
Now, some channel managers will either think they
are needlessly bugging their partners with these emails
or that this is the job of marketing only. Well, not true, if
we are looking at the success of the program, the chan-
nel manager and their partners. Everyone’s job is sales
and marketing. p
Peter Radizeski is President of RAD-INFO
INC, a telecom consulting firm in Tampa, Fla.
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THE CHANNEL MANAGER’S PLAYBOOK