Managing Channel Partner Relationships to Boost Partner Sales

Your brand has a strong product and robust marketing skills… But there’s only so much you can do on your own.  

That’s where channel partners come in.  

By acquiring a network of partners, you can take your success to the next level. These local affiliates bring strategic value to your marketing and can help you achieve major revenue growth — if you know how to manage them wisely.  

Learn everything you need to know about channel partner marketing, including how to acquire and nurture channel partnerships to drive the greatest impact. 

Channel partners — also known as affiliates — are businesses that act as intermediaries for brands by promoting and selling their products or services through channel marketing. This distribution strategy is known as a business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model and is mutually beneficial to both parties, giving brands access to their partners’ existing customer networks while affiliates make money by selling brands’ products.  

Let’s look at a real-world example of a channel partnership. Take New Balance — you can buy this brand’s shoes on the New Balance website, but you can also find them at your local DICK’s Sporting Goods, Foot Locker, or Famous Footwear. These third-party distributors are New Balance’s channel partners.  

Though channel partners are known by many names, all of them essentially serve the same function of marketing and selling a brand’s offerings. The difference is that these affiliates’ titles vary by industry.  

Here are some of the many types of channel partners in the context of channel marketing: 

• Retailers: Partners are most commonly referred to as retailers in the retail space, including the beauty, apparel, furniture, electronics, toys, and food and beverage industries.  
• Franchisees: These channel partners are authorized to operate branded, third-party outlets for a parent company. Franchisees can cover a wide range of industries, such as restaurants, gyms, hotels, hair salons, and hardware stores. 
• Distributors: These affiliates are typically found in the consumer packaged goods, technology, and pharmaceutical industries. Distributors also make up one of the three tiers of the beverage alcohol industry, where their role differs a bit from traditional distributors, as they operate as wholesalers. 
• Resellers: Resellers often refer to partners in the electronics, telecom, manufacturing, and clothing industries.  
• Dealers: Channel partners are most commonly referred to as dealers in the automotive and manufacturing industries.  
• Agents: The term “agents” is most often used to refer to partners that sell insurance and real estate. 
• Reps: Sales reps are typically found in the technology, healthcare, and automotive industries.  

Channel sales, also known as partner sales, are a distribution model by which a brand sells products through its channel partners. This process is also referred to as an indirect sales strategy due to the separation between the brand and its customers. In a direct sales strategy, on the other hand, the brand sells products directly to consumers through its website or brick-and-mortar location — not through channel partners. 

In a channel sales model, the brand and its partners share responsibility for both product sales and marketing. That means, as a brand, you put a lot of faith in your partners to promote your products effectively and in compliance with your branding standards. That’s why properly managing your channel partners and empowering them to market effectively is vital to any channel sales strategy. Otherwise, you could run into challenges like investing in low-impact channels, running noncompliant marketing, and even a lack of marketing altogether. 

If selling through channel partnerships comes with so many risks, why bother doing it? Why not just benefit solely from direct sales? 

The truth is, the benefits of channel partner marketing far outweigh the risks. Consider some of the many advantages of maintaining strong channel partnerships: 

• Expanded reach: Perhaps the biggest benefit of having a channel partner network is gaining access to your partners’ existing markets. That means you can tap into a wider audience, new channels, and different geographic locations without having to build everything from the ground up. 
• Cost efficiency: It’s no secret that you have to spend money to make money. But with channel marketing, you share all the associated costs of marketing with your partners, reducing the amount that comes out of your brand’s budget.  
• Local expertise: Effective marketing requires an intricate knowledge of your audience — and no one knows their local communities quite like your channel partners. By benefiting from their local expertise, you can better engage customers. 
• Customer loyalty: Your channel partners will already have loyal customers that trust them. That means, by association, these consumers will be more likely to trust and buy from your brand. 
• Greater brand visibility: The more partners you market your products through, the more visibility and recognition you gain for your brand.  
• Increased sales: With an entire network of channel partners distributing your brand, you can expect even more revenue and sales volume.  

Creating a robust channel partner strategy is the key to maximizing revenue across your channel network.

Don’t know where to start? Follow these steps to create an effective channel strategy.

Before you can create channel partnerships, you’ll need to establish your marketing and sales goals. Knowing what you want to achieve through your channel partners will help you better determine which businesses to form partnerships with. It’s important that the affiliates you choose are aligned with your strategy and objectives.  

Do you want to expand into a new market? Boost customer loyalty? Generate greater brand awareness? Whatever the goal, the rest of your channel partner strategy should follow suit.  

Now that you know your business goals, it’s time to form partnerships that will support those objectives. That means finding partners that are the right fit for your brand.  

What exactly does “the right fit” entail? Here are some areas you’ll want to consider: 

• Market access: Do they have access to a geographic area or customer base you’re interested in?  
• Expertise: Do they have the industry and local expertise needed to succeed? 
• Capabilities: Will their skills, strengths, and resources further bolster your brand? 
• Values: Are your values and culture aligned? 
• Existing partnerships: Do they have any existing partnerships that are in competition with your brand?  

Once you find businesses that check all your boxes, it’s time to start reaching out. 

To expand your channel network, you’ll need to find ways to seek out new partnerships. There are various avenues you can take to find potential partners, such as LinkedIn and online industry directories. These platforms are literally made for creating business relationships, so they’re always a good place to start. You can also attend industry events and trade shows, which make your job even easier by gathering dozens of compatible partners under one roof. 

Also consider reaching out to connections within your existing professional networks, such as friends or colleagues who might be able to connect you with compatible partners. 

After you’ve identified the partners you want to reach out to, you’ll need to create a value proposition for each of them. This statement should concisely outline the benefits each partner will get when collaborating with you, including: 

• The value your brand will bring to their customers 
• Pain points your brand will solve for them 
• Why your strengths and offerings are complementary 
• Unique selling points that set you apart from competitors 
• Social proof, such as case studies, data, or testimonials 
• Your go-to-market strategy 

Once you’ve created your value proposition, you can begin contacting potential channel partners. 

After establishing your channel partnerships, it’s essential to outline the terms of the agreement, including partner roles, responsibilities, and performance measurement. You’ll also need to clarify factors like territories, pricing, and sales targets.  

Establishing these parameters using clear and concise language will ensure that your partners understand what’s expected of them as they promote your brand while holding them accountable along the way. 

It’s not enough to tell your partners what you want them to do — you need to show them how to do it. After all, most affiliates aren’t natural-born marketers, so they’ll need some guidance to get them in the right direction.   

You can fortify your partners’ understanding of marketing by equipping them with the tools they need to succeed, such as online training courses or educational resources like articles, videos, and infographics. Want to go the extra mile? Consider creating a marketing strategy checklist to give your partners actionable steps toward launching successful campaigns.  

Performance measurement is one of the most important aspects of any channel partner strategy. By tracking key performance indicators, you can determine if your partners’ marketing efforts are moving the needle or if you need to readjust your strategy.  

Metrics you can track to determine performance include: 

• Revenue growth 
• Leads 
• Impressions 
• Clicks 
• Sales 
• Site traffic 
• In-store visits 
• Engagement rate 

The best way to track your partners’ success is to invest in an analytics platform that delivers clear, data-driven insights through straightforward dashboards. That way, you can see the outcome of your partners’ efforts in real time. 

Though much of your channel partner marketing is in your partners’ hands, there are things you can do to help them make smarter marketing decisions and promote your brand more frequently while maintaining their loyalty over competitors. 

Follow these best practices when managing your channel partners. 

Most local partners don’t have the amplest budgets, so they may not be able to invest in your marketing as generously as you’d like. Plus, with so many responsibilities on your partners’ plates, marketing often takes a backseat to other priorities.  

The best way to give your partners the resources and motivation they need to adequately promote your brand? Partner marketing funds.  

By providing your partners with dollars specifically intended for marketing, you incentivize them to invest in your brand while ensuring funds are spent on marketing tactics that actually move the needle. Note that there are various types of fund programs you can launch, so you should consider which one makes the most sense for your channel partners. 

The assets your partners use to promote your brand should be high-quality, engaging, and consistent with your branding standards. But when local partners take the reins, campaigns don’t always turn out that way.  

When you provide your channel network with pre-approved marketing assets and easily customizable templates, you can ensure that every asset represents your brand accurately and effectively while adhering to your brand’s compliance standards. 

When channel partners feel that corporate is committed to their success, they exhibit higher satisfaction, which leads to greater revenue growth. To show your ongoing commitment to your partners, it’s important to deliver on their program needs.  

In other words, if your partners ask for a specific program feature — fund matching, for example — consider implementing that feature into your channel partner program. This shows your partners that you’re committed to their success and will make them greater advocates for your brand in return. 

Have you ever tried using an old, slow, or complicated piece of technology? Chances are, you got frustrated or even gave up altogether.  

The same goes for your partner marketing solutions. 

Outdated partner programs won’t get you far. In most cases, your affiliates simply won’t use them. That’s why it’s vital to provide your channel network with modern, up-to-date technologies that make marketing easy.  

With a channel marketing portal, you can centralize all marketing tools, resources, and assets in a single location, making these materials easily accessible to your partners while giving you complete visibility into their marketing efforts. 

When managing channel relationships, you can’t just give your partners a welcome basket of resources, then leave them to their own devices for the rest of the partnership. Channel partner marketing requires ongoing maintenance to nurture partner relationships, which is why you should follow these guidelines when managing your channel partners over time:  

1. Communicate regularly: Set up regular communications with your partners via meetings or digital updates to keep them in the loop about relevant business matters, maintain alignment, and give them a stage to voice their own thoughts and concerns.  
2. Continuously engage: To ensure partners continue to participate in your marketing, you’ll need to find ways to keep them engaged. That means offering incentives and providing ongoing enablement. 
3. Offer ongoing training: Keep your partners’ marketing skills fresh by providing continuous training that goes beyond initial onboarding.  
4. Assess performance: Ensure that your partners’ marketing efforts are making an impact by regularly evaluating their progress through reporting and analytics. This gives you visibility into performance and helps identify problem areas for partners struggling to deliver. 
5. Recognize success: Reward high-performing partners with rewards and recognition to keep them feeling motivated to stay on top. 

As with any business relationship, channel partnerships aren’t without their challenges. Know the main obstacles to expect and how to overcome them: 

• Lack of visibility: One of the biggest challenges of channel partner management is poor visibility into partner marketing and performance, making it difficult to know whether affiliate efforts are actually making an impact. But with a centralized partner marketing platform with built-in analytics and real-time performance insights, you can ensure full visibility into your partners’ marketing. 
• Low partner engagement: Many brands have difficulty keeping their partners engaged in marketing, resulting in poor partner loyalty and reduced sales. Consider activating your affiliates with rewards and incentives, and ensure all marketing processes are simple and streamlined so as not to discourage marketing efforts. 
• Branding inconsistencies: Your partners don’t know your brand like you do, so partner-made promotional materials don’t always hit the mark in terms of branding accuracy and consistency. You can ensure brand compliance across partner campaigns by providing them with pre-approved branded assets and flexible templates they can easily customize and use without stepping outside of your brand guidelines.  

When it comes to your marketing, channel partners are necessary for expanding your brand’s reach, visibility, and sales. However, when acquiring and managing these partnerships, it’s crucial that you know how to enable them to make the greatest impact for your brand. 

At Ansira, our distributed marketing platform is designed to help brands synchronize and amplify their partner ecosystems. Get in touch with one of our experts to learn how to optimize your channel partner program.