With the growing need of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and technology companies that sell their services through channel partners to distribute and deploy assets, policies, procedures, information and marketing assets across their partner networks, the prevalence of partner relationship management (PRM) software systems continues to increase.

From a Forrester report, “The PRM market is growing because more executive teams, as well as channel, marketing, and sales professionals, are recognizing the impact of third-party influencers in getting to new buyers. They are placing trust in PRM providers to act as strategic partners, allowing them to broaden their reach and influence the partner journey in new ways.”¹

From the OEM perspective, offering partner portals to channel, SaaS and alliance partners provides the opportunity to streamline communications while offering ready access to web-based, self-service tools, information and resources such as:

• Market development funds request programs
• Training, certification and accreditation automation
• Deal registration programs
• Indirect sales pipeline reporting
• Joint business planning
• Reward and loyalty programs
• Content library
• Marketing campaign assets

While PRM systems clearly offer a diverse suite of tools across partner management, enablement, marketing and sales support to aid partners in their relationship journey, PRM providers soon find that there are many challenges as well.

As the need to manage many aspects of channel reseller activities expands, many vendors have created multiple portals over time as new requirements and new programs have emerged that earlier portals are not able to address or are too cumbersome to change. Having to deal with multiple portals creates partner confusion and frustration. Partners may waste time navigating through a portal only to find they are unable to effectively find what they need. In the end, they give up and avoid using the platforms going forward – hampering return on investment (ROI) and performance tracking of the PRM platform.

OEMs must realize that partners (often with very minimal or stretched marketing resources) have a multitude of technology vendors that are also providing their own unique portals. This can mean growing portal fatigue for partners. The sheer number of ways each portal requires prior approval and submittals for MDF claims, as well as organizes their marketing assets and content, can soon become overwhelming for partner marketers.

For OEM marketing teams looking to expand and increase the use of partner marketing assets and campaigns for “do-it-yourself” marketing activities, there are several ways to help partners accomplish this.

Making the most of PRM content marketing and campaign assets (for OEMs)

• Keep content and marketing assets fresh, up to date and easy to find, organizing your PRM content intuitively for partners.
• Provide excerpted content from assets so partners can leverage content within their brand aesthetic.
• Break outside the portal experience and provide easy-access, quick-view guides or 2-minute tutorials on how to assemble assets into compelling campaigns.
• Work with your PRM provider to provide opportunities for maximum customization.
• Publish regular “Featured Campaign of the Week” and informational emails to share best practices.
• Offer an “agency finder” listing of approved, go-to agencies that are trained on the PRM system and can help partners deploy programs.
• Provide a dedicated “white-glove” or “concierge” agency that can work across your partner network to activate, manage, track and get partners in market quarter over quarter.
• Offer regular workshops and/or office hours that deliver digital education and lead-gen strategies to partners to further extend the use of available PRM marketing assets.

From the partner perspective, leveraging the marketing assets within OEM PRM platforms also frequently presents its own set of challenges and barriers to utilization. While vendor partner portals provide a vast array of co-brandable, “free,” ready-to-deploy marketing assets, partners often find they lack the resources or know-how to effectively assemble integrated campaigns – aimed at the right audiences and with the right cadence – in market. The level of customization from a brand, voice and tone perspective is also limited with most PRM systems. For partners looking to build their own brands and tell their own unique stories, precreated assets can present hurdles and limitations to having their materials truly stand out in the marketplace.

There are, however, many benefits to marketers looking to leverage all that PRM systems have to offer.

Making the most of PRM content marketing and campaign assets (for partners)

• Participate in vendor-sponsored portal training sessions; making the investment to understand and navigate to the content, tools and assets needed pays off.
• Take inventory of the marketing, content and campaign assets on the partner portals with an eye for how the assets align to your technology solutions offerings and sales opportunities.
• Map the available marketing assets on the partner portal(s) to your annual go-to-market plans.
• Take full advantage of the many customization opportunities built into the portals to make your marketing assets stand out.
• If the opportunity exists, upload your own, custom-branded image library for use across the many available marketing assets. Adding your own custom-branded imagery will go far in helping to build your brand image, while still being able to take advantage of the prearchitected marketing assets available.
• Consider downloading just the content (often made available on partner portals) and leveraging this content within your own custom materials. Doing so will provide a jumpstart to content creation while ensuring the OEM solution messaging remains in place.
• Work with a technology-focused marketing agency to help you customize, activate, deploy and measure the assets available on your partner portal(s).

In closing, PRM systems are not only not going away any time soon, but are going to continue to increase in number, feature sets, functionality and customization options. Mastering the foundational best practices from both the vendor and partner perspectives is key to further evolving all that PRM systems have to offer. Additionally, maintaining and measuring the efficacy of partner portals requires clear and frequent, three-way communications between OEM vendors, PRM providers and their partner end users to make the very most of these systems by all.

¹ McBain J, “Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Comes of Age,” Forrester Research, November 2018.

Solve for Effective Multi-Channel Marketing

Lauchlan works across the IT channel to develop and deploy highly effective, integrated, closed-loop multi-channel marketing for IT solution providers. Get in touch today to learn how we can help you reach your desired audiences and tell your unique story. Kathleen Lauchlan is Founder and CEO of Lauchlan. You can email Kathleen at klauchlan@lauchlanx.com.