ZINFI Technologies, Inc.

Partner relationship management (PRM) tools have existed for more than a decade right now. Although early in the 2000s there were a few companies trying to build applications to manage a distributor channel, the actual proliferation of PRM software didn’t really happen until about five years ago. The primary focus for PRM tools is automating workflows between a vendor and a partner to make it easy to do business. Most PRM platforms come with a whole bunch of application modules ranging from onboarding, contracts and learning management to asset sharing, deal registration, incentives and more. In this article we will explore the concept of co-branded assets and how co-branding can help vendors streamline distributed sales activities as well as increase sales. 

You may be wondering what exactly asset co-branding is. Let me explain - Co-branding allows your channel partner to put their logo next to your logo on specified assets and share those assets with the end-customer. This allows the partner to claim a formal association with your brand and gives them an opportunity to ride on the halo of your logos. However, vendors who enable co-branding need to make sure their brand and logos are protected and don’t get distorted— whether intentionally or not—when assets are shared. It’s critical for vendors to maintain control over their branding and be able to enforce co-branding guidelines.

Vendors recruit channel partners for one primary reason: to sell the vendor’s products and services. For the relationship to work, the vendor needs to help the partner learn to sell the vendor’s product and services. In order to succeed in that mission, sales reps from the partner organization need to have access to a set of sales tools and sales materials or “slicks.” Traditionally, the vendor provides these through their partner portal, assuming they have one. However, in most companies where the channel organization is in its early stages of formation and doesn’t have a PRM tool, the channel team ends up sharing these documents via Dropbox or other file-sharing tools. This makes the experience pretty cumbersome, because the partner has to go through a flat file structure to figure out what’s what. Also, this reliance on file-sharing sites makes it easy for partners to make mistakes when they select an asset, co-brand it and share it with their end-customers.

This is exactly where a co-branded asset module or application becomes very useful. Most PRM tools or platforms today include some sort of a co-branding capability. If you’re evaluating a PRM tool with co-branded asset capabilities, make sure the core features are capable of addressing your needs as well as your partners’ needs. You should consider:

Types of assets: When you’re evaluating a PRM tool, make its co-branding capabilities are world class and can accommodate multiple types of assets, such HTML, HTML5, PDFs and other common document types.Asset preview: Your partners should not only be able to co-brand assets with different types of logos and insignias but should also be able to preview assets easily before they download them for offline use. They should also be able to share these documents, if required, directly from the system.Co-branding of assets: Co-branding should be easy. Partners should be able to select a set of assets you have provided to them and quickly add customized content in specified areas, based on their edit and access rights. You should be able to configure access and editing rights so, for example, your Gold partners are allowed to modify more areas than your Approved partners and add their own content.Print quality: Assuming your partners send out printed materials to their customers, you will need the ability to provide high-resolution print quality assets to your partners for their co-branding activities. Unlike ZINFI, most PRM vendors in the market today are not able to do that.Analytics: Finally, it’s essential that your PRM tool is capable of providing deep analytics so you can figure out which partners are accessing which materials, and what changes you need to make to improve partner adoption and sales throughout your network.

In addition to the features that I discussed above you may also require approval routing functionality. While we don’t see this as a common feature request from many existing customers, we do sometimes see it from larger accounts where there is a need to control their brand in a clear way. With approval routing, partners will need to ask for approval from a channel marketing manager on the vendor side before any modifications can be finalized. This workflow management capability is pretty critical for some vendors, especially if they are sending materials overseas and don’t have a local agency that can manage this for them.

The ability of partners to easily co-brand your assets and share them with their customers is a core sales requirement in today’s world, where most transactions are happening online rather than face-to-face. When you are evaluating PRM tools, there are a lot of choices out there. It’s easy for vendors to present a slick demo to showcase some of their capabilities, but these days I don’t recommend buying software unless you can try it on your own to make sure the product actually does what the salesperson says it can. I would strongly urge you to ask prospective PRM vendors to give you a free trial so that you can test drive the solution before you buy it. 

I hope this article gives you a high-level overview of how you can take your manual processes for sharing assets with your partners to the next level by using a quality PRM tool to automate the process. If you have any additional questions or want to learn more, please go to www.zinfi.com and request a free trial to test the industry’s leading, most advanced co-branded asset module in ZINFI’s world-class PRM platform.

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Partner relationship management (PRM) tools are gaining traction across multiple verticals. While PRM tool adoption started predominantly in the technology segment, over the past few years other verticals—including manufacturing, finance, insurance, real estate, franchising and others—have adopted various versions of partner relationship management (PRM) tools. However, despite the rapid growth of this category over the past few years, onboarding partners into a PRM tool remains a major challenge for most companies. In this article, we will explore what you can do to drive adoption of your PRM tools by onboarding your partners.

Organizations market and sell through a network of channel partners primarily to generate revenue and provide support to an end-user base that a customer cannot reach directly. Using the channel tends to lower sales and marketing costs at a unit level but increase reach exponentially. Reach is the fundamental reason a company decides to go through channel. There are other reasons, however. By default, products and services that have to be bundled with other products rely solely on a partner network. 

Depending on whether you are selling a product that can be used on its own, like a computer, or are selling an application that runs on a server or is dependent on another primary instance of software, the nature of your go-to-market strategy will vary. Your PRM tool needs to be able to address this selling motion in a highly focused way. To keep things simple, in this discussion we will not address the different approaches required for different products, but instead focus on a broad set of principles you should consider when you are trying to drive adoption of your PRM tool via partner onboarding.

There are basic five principles a company needs to consider to think through partner onboarding. Onboarding is not just a one-time event. It is more of a process that needs to proceed through a phased definition, development, execution and improvement cycle to be a true value-added activity. The channel evolves on a continuous basis, and as a result your onboarding program should be continuously bringing partners onboard to your PRM tool in a structured and logical fashion.

Here are the five most important principles to consider when you are thinking about onboarding your partners into your PRM tool:

Business value: For your partners to log into your partner relationship management (PRM) tool, the tool itself has to offer a specific set of business values. If you are only sharing news and updates, it is not a compelling offer. However, if you are providing market development funds (MDF), sales and marketing tools, or leads, then your business value to your partners will go up by multiples. Therefore, it is very important to start with the basics of channel development when you are launching a partner portal using a PRM software tool. You need to initially provide training, sales and marketing tools, and eventually provide leads and incentives such as MDF and co-op funds.

Ease of use: Your partner portal powered by a PRM software tool needs to be easy to use. Partners are incredibly busy and typically handling multiple priorities at once. If your partner portal is a patched-up solution made up of open source software or a variety of distinct tools like SharePoint and Dropbox, then ease of use will be minimal. Your partners will have to jump through hoops and log into and out of these tools using multiple passwords to find the right information and content. On the other hand, if you deploy a state-of-the-art Unified Partner Management platform that has a seamless interface, and if your partners can easily move from one area to another within a single interface, then utilization will go up substantially. We see this in our customer base all the time. When customers transition from an environment of hodge-podge tools to ZINFI’s PRM tool, partner adoption goes up exponentially.

Continuous engagement: While it is incredibly important to have the right value proposition for your partner portal  and make it super easy to use, the content you provide via that portal is equally important. You should be communicating to your partner base on a regular basis. For example, you should let them know whenever you launch a new product and immediately alert them that you’ve provided a new set of sales documentation and marketing tools. You should also be informing them regularly about your training programs and the incentives associated with them, and you should be helping them generate leads and incentivize them using MDF and other incentives. The more engaging the content you provide via your PRM tool, the more likely your partners will be to log into your portal on a regular basis.

Incremental changes: While continuous engagement is critical, partners generally hate the “program of the month” approach. They want continuity. Don’t throw the kitchen sink at them. If you are launching a new training program, keep the communication focused for three to six months around various aspects of that program, and tie your messaging around training to other relevant pieces of content like sales tools, marketing tools, and incentives. If your messaging changes from week to week, partners will be left confused, and they will stop logging into your PRM tool. However, once they are in the platform, it makes sense to provide messaging that is personalized to partner types.

Realignment: Every year or so, step back and look at what worked and use that as a guide to develop new business goals. In the channel, change doesn’t come easy. Whenever you launch a new program, it may take three to six months for your partners to find out, learn and execute. It’s good to have a multi-year plan if you want to remain consistent, but it’s also good to introduce regular changes into your programs. Don’t change your training program or certification plan every year. Yes, some companies are forced to do that if they are growing rapidly, but even in that case think things through as much as you can. When it comes to a channel network, less is almost always more.

Now with these five principles as a foundation, one of the most important things you can do is set up an concierge team to call and reach out to engage your partners with your PRM tool to drive adoption and provide support on demand. While you can send email blasts and promote your partner portal via social marketing platforms, the best way to engage with partners and get their attention is to have a person-to-person call first and ask them to attend a webinar to learn more about a new program you are launching. Too often, we see marketers first try to focus on scalability by using digital outreach tactics, only to find out the open rate or engagement rate is really poor. The best way to engage at this stage is to first reach out and build momentum. Then, when partners start engaging, you can start communicating with those partners digitally while reaching out to new partners who haven’t been to your portal or participated in your programs by phone. If you take this kind of sequential approach, you are bound see more partners regularly onboard to your PRM tool, adopt your partner portal and engagement with programs rising quarter after quarter.

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In this age of digital and remote work, partner training has moved online via partner relationship management (PRM) tools. Gone are the days when you used to travel for roadshows or have the partners fly into a training center for hands-on instruction. Whether you are dealing with hardware, software or service, a lot can be done online. Yes, certain trainings do require face-to-face engagement to connect the blue wire with the blue socket and the red wire with the red socket, but most training can now be done online. This is where a state-of-the-art PRM tool can make a big difference.

Whether you are building a new channel or upgrading the skills of your existing channel, training is the most critical and strategic activity that you can perform. Just as well-trained sales and service staff are crucial to the success of your direct sales operations, a well-trained partner base is essential to your channel success. While it’s true that many companies make training too complex or don’t invest enough in training programs, we have repeatedly seen companies achieve substantial ROI with a structured, consistent, high-quality training program, whether partners are being trained in demand generation, marketing, selling or servicing a customer base. To manage an effective training program in a digital world you need a state-of-the art PRM tool that can help you align your programs to your process so your people can efficiently and cost-effectively deliver programs locally and globally.

Let’s go through the five critical success factors for an effective partner training program. While these are not the only factors that you need to consider, they are the most significant drivers for most organizations trying to train a large group of people in a methodical fashion.

Learning management system (LMS) – One of the core requirements for digital training is a PRM tool that has a state-of-the-art LMS. Your LMS should be able to provide tracks, courses and certifications. It should also be SCORM-compliant and be able to serve customized content based on various partner groups and profiles. The ability to personalize content to specific audiences is essential. Be sure that the PRM tool that you pick is flexible and configurable enough to address this aspect of your partner training needs.

Face-to-face trainings – In addition to providing online training and an LMS, your PRM tool should be able to provide you with a robust offline training and event management platform. Unless you are selling software and can do the entire training online, you will have to consider at least some face-to-face training. This is essential for hardware or other goods. In the areas of retail and hospitality especially, live in-person face training will play a critical role in your success. Your PRM tool should be able to integrate online digital and offline physical training in a seamless way.

Aligned incentives – Any kind of training will entail expenses. A fully trained partner base can drive more sales and lower service costs, but let’s not forget that training involves time (which you pay for) and resources. Because of that, whether a partner organization is going through online or offline training across multiple functions or vendors are offering training to partners, both the channel organization and the partner organizations must have appropriate incentives to benefit from meaningful, integrated training and reap the results from it. That’s why our PRM tool needs to be able to help you set up and track various incentives programs, and link them back to specific training events and programs.

Lead distribution & management – One of the best ways to incentive partners is to give them leads once they are certified with specific product categories. Nothing excites more partners to make more money than the prospect of converting the knowledge they receive in training programs into real dollars. Your PRM tool needs to be able to link your training program not just to financial incentives but also to business incentives like lead distribution. A good PRM tool will make it easy for you to track your lead closure rate based on variables like partner certification rate.

Help desk & support – Finally, better trained partners cost less for you to support, but you can also increase your sales by providing some partners with premium-quality support. For example, you can offer partners who are certified in certain categories access to premium support for free or for a certain number of hours per quarter, provided they maintain specified qualification levels. Your PRM tool should be able route partners—via partner groups or profiles based on their certification levels—to specific help desk access for premium support.

As you can tell, to provide world-class training you not only need a learning management system (LMS) in your PRM tool, but you also need other very important capabilities for offline training management, incentives management, lead distribution and management, and help desk and support. A state-of-the-art Unified Partner Management platform from ZINFI comes is fully modular, allowing you to start with a basic set of modules, such as partner onboarding and learning, and then add on additional modules to address various parts of your channel programs and needs. You should expect this level of modularity and flexibility from any PRM tool you invest in.

More and more vendors are focused on an indirect sales (channel) model. Beyond the initial stages of fulfilment and support engagement, a major activity for these vendors is lead management. Channel marketing software can be a big help when it comes to lead generation and management. In this article, we will explore a variety of lead generation and management techniques that companies can pursue using channel marketing software.

Channel marketing software focuses on three core sets of activities: marketing to partners, marketing through partners and marketing with partners. The latter two activities are focused primarily on lead generation, which typically entails generating demand from a partner’s installed base of customers or getting new prospects into the partner’s and company’s pipeline. 

We will explore in more detail the tactics partners can use to drive lead generation from their installed base and net new prospect segments. But before we do that, let’s take a few minutes to consider some tactics channel marketing software should be used for based on average selling price, solution complexity and market segments.

Small business (100 employees or fewer): Small businesses purchases tend to be owner- or CEO-driven. Assuming average revenue is around $100,000 to $150,000 per employee, the revenues for these organizations range from about $1 to $15 million. Companies of this size tend to engage in less structured buying as opposed to on-demand or needs-based buying. Many small businesses also tend buy based on relationships. Selling into these segments means staying connected. Standard tactical tools offered by channel marketing software platforms—like social, syndication and email platform—tend to be quite effective.

SMB market segment (100–500 employees): As a company grows and revenue starts to fall into the $10 to $100 million range, processes evolve. Most purchases in this segment fall into two categories: scheduled maintenance or strategic investments. Most transactional purchases in this segment are driven by price and quality, while strategic investments tend to rely on overall solution complexity. Partners selling transactional products tend to do poorly in this segment, because most companies buy directly based on pre-agreed pricing for things that they need–whether it’s gloves for hospital staff, coffee for morning breaks or paper for printing. Strategic purchases, on the other hand, are driven by partner competencies, so event-based channel marketing software tools facilitating activities like webinars and road shows tend to come in handy here.

Mid-market (500–2,500 employees): Revenues for these companies are in the $100 to $500 million range. Most purchases are planned and reserves are maintained. Very rarely do these companies seek new vendors in mature categories and purchase. However, in emerging industry segments, new vendors—and therefore new resellers—can participate in  a request for proposal (RFP) process and thereby get a foot in the door. Channel marketing software in this category can help build reach through continuous marketing via social media and syndication of thought leadership content, followed by tactical campaigns for opt-in email, microsites and events. Online advertising on LinkedIn and Google AdWords can also drive traffic from this segment in a focused way. LinkedIn campaigns tend to fare better with narrowcasting, while Google AdWords tend to work well with broadcasting campaigns.

Large enterprise (2,500–10,000 employees): Many of these companies grow through acquisitions, because the kind of organic growth that companies like Google, Facebook, Tesla and others have achieved is hard to come by. During acquisitions, companies actually reduce the number of vendors they work with and tend to target their preferred vendor list for transfer of purchases. This is a classic installed base marketing scenario, and regular newsletters, webinar-driven education, white papers, video case studies and similar marketing approaches provide essential content that can be efficiently delivered using channel marketing software.

Very large enterprises (more than 10,000 employees): This segment behaves in a way that is quite similar to the large enterprise segment. However, in many categories a customer of this size may prefer to have primary, secondary and tertiary suppliers to mitigate supply risk. Therefore, depending on the nature of the purchase—transactional or solutions-driven—the tactics involved using channel marketing software vary considerably.

I am well aware if you are selling to a broad marketplace that includes small businesses, very large enterprises and everything in-between, developing a targeted approach to lead management may seem daunting. My best suggestion is to start with campaigns that can support your broad-line product categories—the products and solutions you sell the most and the customers to whom you sell the most. Momentum drives sales. If you already have momentum in a category, chances are your partner base will be able to drive additional demand to generate better ROI using channel marketing software loaded with the right content. Instead of trying to go after all segments, it’s best to start with what sells best and then fan out in a measured, logical fashion.

There are two other dimensions every marketer needs to consider in their approach to lead generation and management: the types of products you are selling and the market verticals you are selling to. 

Vertical campaigns: Just like people, market segments follow an adoption model. Technology, healthcare, finance and similar industries tend to be early adopters of technologies and solutions, while government, education, agriculture and other segments tend to lag. (Manufacturing, construction, real estate, etc., are somewhere in the middle.) When you are setting up campaigns in your channel marketing software, be aware of the market adoption tendencies of your customer base. Your partners won’t be able to change market adoption dynamics. They can only capture what is out there or who is out there looking. Therefore, trying to push a state-of-the-art storage technology solution in agriculture may not be your best bet. Be realistic. Following your end-user-driven purchase patterns is crucial to getting better ROI from your channel marketing software and associated investments.

Transactional vs. solutions campaigns: If you are selling french fries that go with burgers but don’t sell burgers, you need to find someone who sells burgers so you can bundle in those french fries. However, if you are a diner and can sell burgers and steaks or many sides along with an Oreo milkshake, then you can have a lot more power running as many campaigns you want. This is where alliance partnerships come in. “Intel Inside ” is a classic example of this dynamic in the technology space. There are many examples of bundled-solutions versus standalone-product marketing in all segments. For instance, a bank might not sell insurance, but it can co-market to its customer base with an insurance provider. As you pull campaigns together and load them in your channel marketing software platform, you need to think through what goes with what; otherwise, your campaigns won’t have the desired impact on potential buyers.

I hope I’ve demonstrated that when channel marketers think through who they are targeting, how they buy, and what they are buying, and appropriately align campaign content with tactics, they can enable partner success in generating leads, either from their installed base or from net new prospects. Over the past few decades marketing has become a science, and channel marketing brings in another layer of complexity to this newly emerging science. However, with the right channel marketing software you can run campaigns across a diverse partner base, run analytics to see what is working, and build out a much better go-to-market strategy for your campaigns and content across market verticals, different market segments and partner competencies to maximize your ROI.

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The world has been on a rapid digitization trend over the past few decades, but 2020 rocket-fueled the adoption of many digital platforms starting with tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other types of collaboration software. Leading channel marketing software platforms have always been at the center of channel collaboration, because you can use them to seamlessly digitize workflow and content sharing across various groups of partners and channel stakeholders. Remote collaboration in the channel has been always focused on driving partner ease of use and lowering friction across various parts of the channel value chain.

With the advent of integrated partner relationship management (PRM) tools and through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) tools, channel marketing software has focused on all aspects of remote marketing, including “market to,” “market through” and “market with” activities. Let’s discuss these activities in a bit more detail and explore how channel marketing software can help:

“Market to” – Traditionally, marketing to partners or prospecting for partners put a premium on advertising and events where a vendor promoted its wares as well as its programs. If prospective partners had interest, they would call into the vendor channel support line and sign up for a program to see if they qualified. This required a kind of mass marketing approach; narrowcasting was not available. However, with today’s leading channel marketing software tools, a vendor can laser-target a set of potential partners directly (via newsletters and other vehicles) or narrowcast via various social networks and channel content sites. This engagement can be fully digital, and traffic from those sites and sources can be driven to a central site where a vendor can run webinars (live or on-demand), showcase various customer and partner success stories, and have very specific calls to action to sign up for programs.

These tools were around in the pre-pandemic world, but COVID-19 pushed marketers back home and made these tools a central part of outbound marketing. Needless to say, as we exit the pandemic constraints and start mixing again in face-to-face events, digital will continue to dominate and channel marketing software will be able to provide a seamless, integrated platform to channel marketers for both digital and physical activities. Based on customer usage data and ROI, we can also confidently forecast that digital ROI will always outpace the ROI of physical events, although the latter will probably still be necessary to maximize reach. The pandemic won’t stop physical events forever, but we have now shifted decisively to a digital space and we will all be trying to optimize activities around it.

“Market through” – When a vendor grows, and its channel partner ecosystem grows, it tends to focus on partner-led demand generation activities. In early stages of growth, most vendors drive awareness of their products and solutions to the end-buyers themselves, but as the brand and category awareness increase, vendors tend to focus more on their partner base as a major source of new lead generation and business. This is where channel marketing software can significantly augment a vendor’s lead generation effort by providing partners with a set of focused tools that can engage end-buyers with vendor-specific content, augmented by the partner’s own solutions and capabilities.

2020’s pandemic forced everyone to work from a remote environment and reduced physical event-based activities to  a minimum. Even when we come out of the pandemic lockdown and social distancing requirements, we will continue to see many end-user-centric events ending up being online. Just like “market to” activities, “market through” activities were already going digital before, but the pandemic pushed most of these activities decisively online. A state-of-the-art channel marketing software platform can provide the necessary integrated marketing tools—such as email, events and microsites—to help vendors provide pre-developed marketing content to be used by their partner base consistently across all targeted segments. Like “market to” tools, all “market through” tools can also seamlessly integrate digital and physical activities when necessary.

“Market with” – This category of activities was made famous with the “Intel Inside” campaign a few decades ago. However, prior to that, retailers would work with various vendor brands to set up shops within an existing retail environment. We have seen the rise of Apple and Microsoft and Samsung stores within electronic retailers like Best Buy, and this phenomenon has also shifted recently from physical environments to almost completely digital environments. For example, in Amazon and many other etail environments you can now find branded showcases and product corners. This trend has been increasing over the past decade or so, but will now only accelerate further.

To drive “market with” activities, it is essential to have an integrated marketing, sales and performance management platform in place, where a vendor can manage multiple retailers, etailers or various other partner types through properly developed and managed incentives programs. For instance, a vendor would be ill-advised to run a 50%-off promotion for a product in an online shop for one retailer and not provide the same promotional tool to another. In today’s digital world, price check software can quickly drive traffic to one retailer if their price is lower by even a bit. Therefore, today’s “market with” activities rely heavily on channel marketing software that can properly design and track programs across various partners in the channel network to provide uninform offers across multiple tactics and market segments.

As you can tell, many of the activities that I have described here already existed prior to the 2020 pandemic. However, necessity being the mother of invention—or perhaps I should say the mother of adoption—we have seen a dramatic acceleration in the usage of these digital channel marketing tools. We at ZINFI, as a leader in channel marketing software, have definitely seen a rapid increase in the adoption of these tools across various market segments. We are confident that customers, both existing and new, will see lasting value in these tools as we continue to shift from physical, time-bound, live activities to a digital and more time-shifted, on-demand environment.

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Organizations selling through the channel always worry about one primary thing: driving more sales at a lower cost. The entire purpose of a channel organization is to extend reach to every part of a market where the product or service has value, ideally piggy-backing on other organizations that already have invested in generating demand and capturing it through their sales and delivery teams. A major focus for any partner relationship management (PRM) program is a unified lead management capability for generating leads and distributing them to partners—but also for allowing partners to generate leads and close deals on their own. In this article, we will explore how partner relationship management automation can help organizations generate more leads at a lower cost and then manage the lifecycle to attain a higher sales closure rate.

The primary purpose of lead generation and management is to identify prospects who have a pain point that a specific product or service can fulfill. Entire armies of marketing personnel and libraries of marketing content are optimized to find and educate prospective buyers who may be interested in a company’s solution. This has become a combination of art and science in direct marketing, but when it comes to generating leads through a partner network, it requires more tools and more attention. This is where partner relationship management (PRM) software comes in. It helps vendor organizations manage the complexity of distributing content to their partner base, training them properly and managing them to close the leads that are provided to them. There are two primary ways this can be done:

Vendor-Led Lead Management – This is when a vendor organization does all the heavy lifting of driving awareness and interest from a target audience, and then distributes the resulting leads to the partner base for closure. This is accomplished in a couple of ways:

Open Accounts (Shark Tanks) – In this lead distribution system, a lead is given to all qualified partners, and whoever reaches out to the prospect first ends up owning that opportunity. While this may appear relatively simple, the nature of this distribution method tends to vary—not only across organizations, but even within a single organization based on product type, certification requirements, the nature of the promotions and many other factors. However, a state-of-the-art partner relationship management (PRM) platform should be able to handle any of these scenarios in an artful way.

Named Accounts – In this scenario, a specific lead from an end-user company is given to a specific account. This could be based on contracts that the organization has with a specific partner, or it could be based on a special program, the nature of the product, partner qualifications or territory in an under-distributed environment. At times, end users may also request a specific partner for an opportunity and the organization may make that exception. Again, a state-of-the-art partner relationship management (PRM) platform should be able to automate these lead selection and assignment workflows based on partner critieria in a seamless way.

Partner-Led Lead Management – When a partner is able to generate end-user demand and leverage a vendor’s product or service as part of their core offering to the end-customer, it generally makes sense for the partner to lead the process. Here, too, I should mention a couple of common scenarios:

Standalone Offer – When a partner is primarily selling a service centered around a specific product—say, insurance, retail, hospitality or technology—where the product is the core offering and a partner’s services only augment the core product, for the most part the partner can leverage marketing content and tools from the vendor to sell its product or service. In order to enable its partner base, the vendor would need to look for a partner relationship management platform that either connects to through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) tools or offer TCMA tools as add-ons.

Bundled Offer – The classic example of bundling in the computer industry is Intel Inside. In this case a vendor like Dell or Lenovo or HP markets their end product (a computer) as a primary offer, but differentiates their solution from other solutions by stating very clearly that it is powered by Intel. This notion of “powered by” is quite common now, not only in the technology segment, but also in other segments like hospitality, for example, where a hotel chain specifically mentions certain partner offerings like branded towels or bed types or coffee. For this type of lead management activity, a partner relationship management platform needs to have tools for enabling and managing co-marketing activities like market development funds (MDF), co-op funds, etc.

In addition to addressing these two primary types of lead generation and management scenarios I have mentioned above, partner relationship management (PRM) software also needs to address channel conflict resolution across multiple partners pursuing the same opportunity. This is typically done with deal registration applications built into a partner relationship management platform. We have discussed deal registration in other articles, so I will not go into that here. However, I would like to make one additional point: Sales is a performance game. The best strategy in lead management strategy is to focus on high-performing partners and either give them leads (vendor-led) or co-generate leads with them (partner-led). This will yield much better results than randomly giving leads to partners who may not be well-qualified to sell and close opportunities for the vendor. We will explore this dimension in more detail in other articles about performance management.

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Over the past 40 years the world has been speeding up the pace of digital adoption. While it may seem like Amazon was founded yesterday, it was actually founded in 1994—about 25 years ago. Microsoft was founded a couple of decades earlier than Amazon, in 1975, and Oracle was founded in 1977. About a decade earlier than Microsoft, Intel was founded in 1968. I think you get the point: The advent of digital goes back about 30 to 40 years—roughly half the span of an average human life—but the pace of change keeps getting faster, most recently with the explosion of cloud-based applications and solutions (hardware and software working together). This is also true of technology that addresses partner relationship management (PRM). 

As we adopt more and more digital tools in our lives—at work, home and school, and while travelling away from home—silently but surely we are rebuilding how we work, live, learn and enjoy our leisure. Partner relationship management (PRM) software is no different. Partner management has existed since commerce existed in pre-historic times, but over the past few decades, with the adoption of digital tools and digitization of commerce, more and more companies have focused on automating their channel management and partner relationship management activities. In this article we will explore how we can manage the partner base remotely and globally using state-of-the art partner relationship management tools.

Here are the core activities we need to engage in to build and manage a channel remotely:

Partner Profiling – Once an organization figures out who to recruit, the goal is to target, engage and educate prospective partners for recruitment. Gone are the days of hanging around in trade shows and randomly throwing out business cards hoping partners will sign up, or aimlessly running banner ads on channel magazines. Today, the tools are much more precise and they are all digital, even though physical trade shows, recruitment roadshows and similar events can certainly augment the digital presence on the ground.To run an effective partner recruitment program, an organization needs to have profiles of the kinds of partners that they want to recruit. Target profiles can be created by researching existing partners’ firmographic profiles and/or establishing capabilities the organization needs a potential partner organization to have—characteristics like certifications, regional coverage, go-to-market sales models and so on. Once this target profile has been created—a process we call partner profiling—then the recruitment journey can begin.

Partner Recruitment – With the specific target in mind, an organization now will have to target prospective partner audiences via various digital tools, such as social marketing tools (LinkedIn, Facebook, SlideShare, Twitter, etc.), online advertising of various kinds and outbound newsletter placement tied to subscription lists. Outbound emailing is becoming more difficult because of emerging privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, but opt-in lists for digital publications are still good vehicles for extending reach to a potential target audience. Once a prospective partner has expressed interest into a company’s partner program, then engaging with those partners with compelling digital content via a partner relationship management platform is critical. This is where a partner portal comes in really handy. Any state-of-the-art PRM platform will provide a full-featured partner portal where users can create a zone for prospective partners to learn and educate themselves on the company’s offerings wherever they are working from.If a prospective partner is interested, they may apply and go through a simple or a comprehensive review process to be registered as an authorized partner to sell the organization’s products. In case of captive distribution, this could be a franchise model where a partner has to pay to play, but in other cases—e.g., agents, or resellers and distributors—they may qualify to join for free, based on certain selection criteria. This is the next key step in partner relationship management—figuring out who you want and how to recruit them—and all of these activities, or certainly most of them, can happen remotely via a state-of-the-art PRM tool.

Partner Onboarding – The next most important step is onboarding a partner digitally. Gone are the days where you would send a box with a whole bunch of welcome documents and trinkets to onboard a new partner into a program. You can certainly do today that as a gesture, but it doesn’t work any more on its own. A partner who has recently signed up needs to be onboarded via dedicated programs. Each of these programs may have tracks, such as the signing of the agreement, going through basic training, conducting business planning and so on.Each of these onboarding steps can be fully digitized. For instance, a partner can receive an email stating that their preliminary application has been approved, and now they have to log in to a portal to sign an agreement. This agreement can also be fully digital. If an exception needs to be made, documents can be signed offline and uploaded into a partner account manually as well. After an agreement has been signed, the partner has to go through a set of online training courses. These courses can again be linked to various tracks—e.g., a marketing track, sales track, technical track or service track. This is how personalized content can be delivered remotely to partner employees in a focused way for onboarding. After training, business planning is conducted in collaboration with the partner’s management team. This entire process can be digitized and achieved remotely via a partner relationship management platform, like ZINFI’s Unified Partner Management (UPM) platform.

Partner Enablement – Once a partner has been onboarded, based on their industry preferences or functional track or geographical coverage, they can be put in various groups or categories, and each of these groups can be offered group-specific customized content and programs for enablement. For example, marketing people can be given access to a set of marketing tools like email, social, web, event and so on, while sales people can be given access to tools, and content like sales training, sales data sheets, product literatures, price lists, etc.For most companies selling through the channel, enablement also includes some level of lead distribution and management. It is critical to have a system that can automate—and remotely distribute and manage—leads to and from partners. In organizations where there are significant opportunity overlaps in the channel, a deal registration program can reduce channel conflict and increase partner satisfaction. An integrated approach to lead management and deal registration is always critical to streamline the core focus for partner recruitment and onboarding, which is revenue generation. In addition to providing content and sharing marketing tactics, a good partner relationship management platform will allow a vendor to efficiently manage lead distribution and deal registration remotely and digitally for a distributed network of channel partners.

Partner Performance Management – Finally, organizations selling through the channel need an efficient way the monitor and manage partner performance. In today’s age, without a thoroughly digital tool like a partner relationship management platform, it is almost impossible to analyze sales data by territory, partner types, partner specialties, and other factors to understand what is working and what is not. This kind of analysis spans multiple regions, and functional organizations need to be involved. This is by definition a thoroughly distributed and intensely collaborative activity, and it requires a highly functional digital platform to pull everything together virtually so channel team members can easily connect, collaborate and analyze with channel partners and take decisive actions to drive sales performance to and through the channel.Performance management in a remote and distributed world not only requires a PRM-like digital platform, but it also requires the entire channel workflow to be automated end-to-end. Without automating recruitment, onboarding, enablement and other core activities, and without the ability to integrate digitized sales data into a seamless dashboard, it is impossible for organizations to determine what is really going on in their partner network in real time. That’s why a partner relationship management platform like ZINFI’s Unified Partner Management platform is required to enable remote partner management—so organizations can digitize these activities and track them dynamically, but also to  weave them together into an analytical “power tool,” allowing them to take their channel performance to a much higher level.

It has been almost two decades since customer relationship management (CRM) applications began to be adopted as a powerful way to automate sales processes. Meanwhile, we have also seen marketing automation grow rapidly over the past 10 years or so to augment the CRM process experience for direct sales teams. However, the rise of partner relationship management (PRM) SaaS applications like ZINFI’s has demonstrated where an application like Salesforce often falls short. While the development of a Salesforce-like CRM applications that can be customer-configured to address many partner relationship management requirements has been a big step forward, companies still need to invest substantially to customize these solutions successfully. The fact that CRM systems also lack built-in applications essential for PRM means they fall short of  providing true Unified Partner Management (UPM). This is why connecting an existing CRM infrastructure like Salesforce to a PRM infrastructure like ZINFI’s makes a lot of sense. In this article, we will explore the core common points of connection between a CRM and PRM.

When you think about sales automation, the first thing that comes to your mind is the word “revenue.” Yes, sales is all about generating revenue by closing deals from the leads that marketing generates. That’s pretty much what a CRM does. CRM takes a bunch of leads that the marketing automation system feeds it, and then allows the sales team to nurture those leads in a systematic way through various sales stages like discovery, qualification, demo, trial, review, agreement, purchase, renewal and support. Sales managers can run various reports across their sales representatives and determine who is most effective, what is working and what needs changing. Automation also allows the elimination of repetitive tasks such as sending out a reminder to a prospect or offering sales collaterals or coming up with automated pricing. There are multiple use cases that a Salesfsorce-like CRM system can address, and its functionality can be extended by using a large number of applications available in Salesforce AppExchange. Some of the standalone applications that plug into Salesforce address other aspect of sales and marketing needs, including rewards, incentives and analytics. This is where ZINFI’s partner relationship management (PRM) comes in.

ZINFI is an AppExchange-approved PRM application provider. While Salesforce also lists a few other PRM applications, unlike those other applications ZINFI’s PRM features an architecture and user interface that closely follows the logic of a CRM system. This allows a seamless flow of data flow back and forth between a Salesforce-like CRM and ZINFI’s PRM. 

Let’s explore three core connection points in more detail here:

Lead Management – As I began this article, I mentioned the primary purpose of a CRM system is to generate revenue by systematically managing the entire sales process from lead to close. The automation of this process is the focus of lead management in a CRM. Now, using a CRM for lead management works great for a direct sales team, but the moment you try to do lead management for channel sales using a CRM, things can quickly get quite complicated and expensive. This is where a purpose-built PRM like ZINFI’s platform can help tremendously by seamlessly connecting to a Salesforce-like CRM system. The integration allows the direct sales team to use the CRM as they always do, while the indirect channel sales and partners can use ZINFI’s PRM for lead managementDeal Registration – One unique use case for channel sales is protecting an opportunity for a specific partner. We have written multiple articles on deal registration, so I won’t get in the details of it here. Let me just point out that the entire focus of deal registration is to eliminate channel conflict and allow a specific partner to pursue an opportunity from lead to close. Unlike CRMs, partner relationship management (PRM) applications focus heavily on this aspect of channel sales. Effective integration of CRM and PRM allows the direct sales team or even the channel sales team to remain on a Salesforce-like CRM, but all deal registration activities for the partners’ sales reps are carried out in ZINFI’s partner relationship management (PRM) application, which has a variety of tools designed specifically for facilitating deal registration.Incentives Management – When it comes to direct sales, there are various sales rewards, gamification tools and other applications available in AppExchange and similar marketplaces. However, when it comes to rewards and incentives for channel sales, standalone applications just don’t do very well. Simply connecting a market development fund (MDF) application to a Salesforce-like CRM can make things quite complicated. A much better approach is to connect your partner relationship management platform to a CRM. In ZINFI’s Unified Partner Management offering, for example, the PRM platform comes with a built-in MDF application. Integration is much easier, and workflow management is significantly more flexible, with easy-to-use tools for adding, moving and changing process flows instantly.

The core benefit of having these workflows separated for direct sales (on a Salesforce-like CRM system) and indirect channel sales (on ZINFI’s PRM platform) is to eliminate dependencies on various parts of the organization. When you have dedicated infrastructure for channel sales in a mixed sales environment, you give significant autonomy to the channel sales team without relying on the direct sales team to make changes to adapt to channel sales requirements. This is important not just from a leads management, deal registration or incentives management perspective, but also from a compliance perspective: Remember, leads now need to stay on two separate “islands” due to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We don’t have time here to explore emerging data privacy requirements in detail, but you can think about it like the separation of church and state. You need to create two different infrastructures which can seamlessly connect and speak to each other but can be run independently.

Now, in addition to these core connection points between CRM and PRM, there are many other areas where the two systems can share data, including business planning, contracts management, learning management, configure-price-quote (CPQ) and more. We will explore these connection points in other articles. There is one additional point I’d like to make, though: Connecting a PRM to a CRM makes your life simpler, not just because your direct team can use a Salesforce-like CRM while channel sales uses a PRM—but also because you can address additional workflows in PRM that are difficult to manage on a CRM, such as through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) or partner sales management activities. We will explore these workflows in further detail in other articles.

I hope this article gives you an overview of how a Salesforce-like CRM system can connect to a partner relationship management (PRM) platform in order to maximize the core strengths of these different tools. While in principle there are a lot of similarities between them, each is purpose-built for a specific set of functions. Integrating them allows them to work together like butter and toast.

For more information, please check this article.

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Connecting HubSpot with a Partner Relationship Management platform unifies your sales data. This integration streamlines channel operations for significant growth and efficiency. It provides a single source of truth for both direct and indirect sales efforts.

Key Takeaways

Integrating a CRM and a PRM system eliminates harmful data silos within your company. It creates a unified view of all customer and partner interactions across channels.

A connected system automates the lead distribution and deal registration processes. This ensures partners receive qualified leads quickly and avoids channel conflict.

Centralized data allows for comprehensive reporting and analytics on channel performance. You can accurately measure partner ROI and overall program effectiveness.

The integration enhances the partner experience by providing a seamless workflow. Partners can manage leads and access resources without switching between multiple platforms.

Automation of manual tasks frees up your channel account managers. They can focus on strategic activities like partner recruitment, enablement, and relationship building.

A robust Partner Relationship Management platform extends the functionality of your CRM. It adds specialized tools for partner training, marketing, and incentive management.

Why is integrating a CRM into Partner Relationship Management essential?

Integrating your CRM with a Partner Relationship Management platform is fundamentally about data unity. Many companies operate with separate systems for direct sales and channel sales. Your direct sales team lives in a CRM like HubSpot, managing customer data.

Your channel team, however, works within a dedicated partner platform. This separation creates information silos that hinder visibility and create inefficiencies. Without a connection, you lack a complete picture of your entire sales landscape.

Data must be manually transferred between these disconnected systems. This process is slow, prone to errors, and wastes valuable employee time. It delays lead assignments to partners, which can result in lost sales opportunities.

Furthermore, it becomes nearly impossible to track a lead's journey accurately. You cannot see if a direct sales lead eventually closes through a partner. This lack of visibility makes reporting and forecasting incredibly difficult and unreliable.

An integrated approach solves these problems by creating a single source of truth. Data flows seamlessly between your HubSpot CRM and your Partner Relationship Management solution. Everyone in your organization gets a 360-degree view of customers and partners.

This connection automates critical processes like lead management and deal registration. When a new lead enters HubSpot, rules can automatically route it to the right partner. This happens in real-time, improving partner responsiveness and sales velocity.

A unified system also prevents channel conflict. With shared deal registration data, you can avoid multiple partners or your direct team pursuing the same opportunity. ZINFI's Deal Registration Management module ensures clarity and fairness for all parties involved.

Ultimately, this integration is essential for scaling your channel program effectively. It provides the foundation for consistent processes and reliable data. This structure empowers you to manage a growing partner ecosystem without increasing administrative overhead.

How does Partner Relationship Management enhance HubSpot's functionality?

HubSpot is a powerful CRM for managing direct customer relationships. However, it lacks the specialized tools needed for complex channel partnerships. A dedicated Partner Relationship Management platform extends HubSpot's capabilities for the indirect sales world.

PRM systems provide a secure portal specifically for your channel partners. This portal centralizes all the resources and tools partners need to succeed. It includes access to marketing materials, training courses, and sales playbooks.

Partner enablement is a core function that a PRM solution offers. You can deploy comprehensive training and certification programs through a Partner Learning Management system. This ensures partners are knowledgeable about your products and sales processes.

Channel marketing is another area where PRM excels beyond a standard CRM. These platforms offer tools for co-branded asset creation, social media syndication, and email marketing. This empowers partners to run effective marketing campaigns on your behalf.

For instance, ZINFI’s Email Marketing Management solution lets partners easily launch campaigns. They can use pre-approved templates that maintain brand consistency. This level of support is not native to a CRM like HubSpot.

Incentive management is also a critical component of a strong channel program. A Partner Relationship Management platform automates the administration of complex incentive programs. This includes Market Development Funds (MDF), rebates, and sales commissions.

These advanced financial tools are crucial for motivating partners and rewarding performance. Managing them within HubSpot would require extensive customization or manual workarounds. A PRM handles these tasks efficiently, linking incentives directly to sales performance data.

Finally, a PRM platform provides deep analytics on partner performance. It goes beyond simple sales numbers to track engagement, training completion, and marketing activity. This comprehensive view helps you identify your top performers and areas for improvement.

In essence, the PRM system acts as a specialized layer on top of your CRM. It transforms HubSpot from a direct sales tool into a comprehensive channel sales engine. This synergy allows you to manage your entire partner lifecycle effectively.

What are the steps to connect HubSpot and a Partner Relationship Management system?

Connecting HubSpot to a Partner Relationship Management platform requires a clear, strategic plan. Following a structured process ensures a smooth and successful integration. The first step is to clearly define your goals and objectives.

What specific problems are you trying to solve with this integration? Are you focused on lead routing automation, unified reporting, or improving partner engagement? Having clear goals will guide your entire implementation strategy.

Next, you must choose a PRM solution with robust integration capabilities. Look for a platform that offers a pre-built, native connector for HubSpot. This significantly simplifies the setup process compared to building a custom integration.

Once you have selected your platform, the next phase is data mapping. You need to decide which data objects and fields will sync between the two systems. Common objects include contacts, companies, deals, and activities.

You must carefully map the fields from HubSpot to the corresponding fields in the PRM. For example, a "Deal Stage" in HubSpot might map to a "Sales Funnel Stage" in the PRM. Accuracy in this step is crucial for maintaining data integrity.

After mapping, you will configure the synchronization rules and workflows. Determine the direction of the data flow for each object. For instance, new leads from your website might flow from HubSpot to the PRM.

Conversely, deal updates from partners in the PRM should flow back to HubSpot. You can use a tool like ZINFI's Workflow Management to build these automated processes. Defining these rules prevents data conflicts and ensures consistency.

Thorough testing is the final and most critical step before going live. Create test records in both systems to verify that data syncs correctly. Test all your defined workflows, such as lead assignment and deal updates.

Involve key stakeholders from your sales and channel teams in the testing phase. Their feedback will help identify any issues with the user experience or process logic. When choosing any core business system, it's wise to consult expert analysis. For example, Gartner provides valuable insights on CRM selection and strategy.

After successful testing, you can deploy the integration. Remember to provide training and documentation for both internal users and your partners. A successful integration requires technology, process, and people to be aligned.

What are the benefits of a unified Partner Relationship Management and CRM approach?

A unified approach combining HubSpot and a Partner Relationship Management platform delivers powerful business benefits. The most significant advantage is establishing a single, authoritative source of truth. This eliminates guesswork and ensures everyone works from the same data set.

This unified view improves decision-making at every level of the organization. Sales leaders can see the entire pipeline, including direct and channel opportunities. Marketing can track campaign influence across all sales motions.

Another major benefit is the elimination of manual data entry and reconciliation. Automation handles the flow of information between systems, reducing administrative workload. This frees your channel managers to focus on high-value partner-facing activities.

They can spend more time on strategic initiatives like business planning with partners. ZINFI’s Partner Business Planning tools help formalize this process. This shift from administrative tasks to strategic work directly impacts channel growth.

A connected system accelerates the entire sales cycle. Leads are distributed to partners instantly, allowing for faster follow-up. Deal registrations are approved or denied quickly, avoiding delays and channel friction.

This speed and efficiency create a superior partner experience. Partners appreciate a streamlined process that helps them close deals faster. A positive experience is a key differentiator that builds partner loyalty and engagement.

Furthermore, unified data enables more accurate and sophisticated analytics. You can generate comprehensive reports that show the true impact of your channel program....

If you manage a distributed network of partners and they are more than just a fulfillment arm for you, then chances are you have considered through-channel marketing automation (TCMA). In this article we will explore one of the core tactics of TCMA—email marketing—and how it can be used as a part of your overall TCMA strategy. While email marketing has been around for a while, it’s not always used effectively. Refining your email marketing tactics can enable your channel partners to generate leads in a low-cost, highly effective fashion.

First, let’s briefly discuss what email marketing is and how TCMA-based email marketing tactics may differ from your direct email marketing efforts. We all know that email marketing was very likely the first digital marketing tool that marketers used, starting in the early 2000s. While we suffered through a plague of spam emails during much of that period—and even today a few of those spam emails get through the spam filters—it’s important to emphasize effective email marketing is NOT spam. Email marketing today relies heavily on obtaining end-users’ or target consumers’ email addresses through some sort of an opt-in mechanism, as opposed to various nefarious harvesting mechanisms that spammers use to collect or spoof email addresses. Once a proper prospect or buyer has signed up to receive emails from a provider, then and only then  can a marketer use that medium to reach out in an appropriate way. This kind general leverages some kind of a marketing automation tool that relies on text-based or HTML-based email templates. In most cases, these templates are highly customized to convey a set of news, messages and/or offers that is likely to attract the interest of the targeted audiences.

Now, when it comes to email marketing tools for TCMA-related activities, it is important to have several critical features that are not necessarily relevant for direct email marketing tactics. These TCMA-specific capabilities include:

Template setup: In the case of direct email marketing, you set up templates predominantly for your own use or for a set of peers to use. However, in case of TCMA email marketing, you set up a master template that can be used by your channel partners, and you may decide to set up multiple templates for multiple partners and allow them to customize or not.

Approval routing: This is a critical feature in TCMA. This is used in cases where you may want your partners to send you their changes before allowing them to use a modified version of your master template. The primary purpose of approval routing is to maintain control over your message and brand positioning

Co-branding: If you are requesting that your partners use your email templates, they will very likely want to add their logos and contact information, and some may also want to add customized content to augment your offer in order to, for instance, showcase their own expertise around your solutions.

Multi-touch: Drip marketing began to appear in the mid 2000s. This  is a tactic where—based on the action a targeted consumer of your email—you may send a second or third follow-up email or “touch.” This tactic has evolved rapidly since those early days and is often an important part of integrated campaigns deploying a range of tactics. Drip marketing is a particularly effective tactic for through-channel marketing automation.

Click metrics: One of the most important features in email marketing for TCMA is the ability to track who opened and clicked through emails. When you are running multi-touch email campaigns, it is often very useful to track the success of your follow-on tactics and so you can identify the most effective messaging and offers and focus on that.

In addition to these core five areas, other features that tend to be important in a through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) email marketing tool include things like multi-tenant capabilities, copying, editing, reviewing, tagging and searching. We will discuss these features in another article.

However, before I finish this overview, I do want to point out that today email marketing is very rarely used as a single tactic, unless it is being used for a communication like a daily or weekly newsletter. In most cases email marketing is used as a part of an overall integrated demand generation strategy for through-channel marketing automation. When done effectively, it can drive significant ROI from your partner installed base or targeted regions by generating leads at a significantly lower cost than any other tactic.

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