The Five Most Useful Partner Marketing Assets

Partner marketing is smart. Selling products through distributors allows you to reach many more customers, and grow your business exponentially. But partners need the right tools—different tools than those you’d share with your customers—to successfully sell your services and maintain the integrity of your brand.

The Content Bureau has helped numerous clients develop core partner marketing assets. We understand that content and tone for partners needs to be subtly different, and we’ve learned what types of resources can provide the biggest bang for your partner marketing buck. Armed with this knowledge, here’s our list of “The five most useful partner marketing assets.” Stay tuned as we discuss each of these asset formats—and how they can help you drive channel sales—over the next five weeks.

msg_blogMessaging + copy blocks: Help your partners tell their customers exactly what you want them to say about you. With clear, powerful messaging that describes your company’s solutions and how they work well with your partner’s solutions, you’ll have a strong foundation upon which to build any downstream assets. After messaging is in place, the next step is to create copy blocks that can be easily turned into web copy, emails, datasheets, social media, etc.

playbook_blogSales playbook: A great playbook is the channel marketer’s secret weapon—it gives your partners’ salespeople the tools and information they need to identify your target customers, convey the benefits of using your solutions, overcome objections, and ultimately close deals. A fun format like an interactive PDF can make this tool especially easy for salespeople to use.

ppt_blogCo-branded PowerPoint deck: To make it easy for partners to sell, we recommend developing a co-branded sales deck where partners can pop in their logos and other customized information about how your products work together for the customer’s benefit. The result: a ready-made sales pitch the partner can share with customers.

casestudy_blogCo-branded case studies: There’s nothing better than when your customers tell your prospects how much they love your company and the partner you’re selling through. When you share this story in an attractive co-branded case study template, you and your partner look beautifully coordinated.

datasheet_blogCo-branded data sheets: Traditionally, a data sheet summarizes a product’s features and benefits—and the challenges it helps your customers overcome. But when you’re co-marketing with partners, it’s helpful to build in the design flexibility to co-brand your data sheets with multiple partners while still conveying these core messages.

At the Content Bureau, we have experience creating all of these partner marketing assets for our clients. Stay tuned for more about each one as our Partner Marketing Blog Series continues.

Next up: messaging and copy blocks.

By Allison Hayase