ZINFI Technologies, Inc.

Vendors selling to a channel need to enable their channel partners to generate and drive channel partners. This has been a challenge for almost all vendors, whether they are selling to vendors or consumers. While partners are a great fulfillment arm, few of them generate enough leads to drive demand on their own. To address the problem more companies over the past few years have been deploying channel automation platforms. However, the adoption of these platforms in the channel has been quite poor, and this has led to a lot of speculation and frustration. It has also led a number of companies to switch providers of channel marketing automation platforms, thinking that the move from one platform to another might help them attain higher levels of adoption. However, the issues generally lie elsewhere. Yes, the channel marketing automation platform needs to be robust, scalable, easy to use, etc., but only rarely is the failure to achieve widespread adoption of automation in the channel tied directly to the channel automation platform itself. In this article we will explore the core issues that underlie channel marketing automation adoption and outline steps vendors can take to generate ROI from the investment they are making in channel marketing automation platforms.Challenges* Lack of partner resources. Most channel partners have neither resident marketing experts nor sufficient resources to create and execute campaigns on their own. As a result of that, most marketing channel automation platforms that are introduced into the channel are simply not used. The problem is not that the platforms are difficult to use, but that partners don’t have the resources—namely, time—to sit down and learn a tool and then go execute a campaign or a program. Also, in the case of large partners that do have sufficient resources, often those resources go into vendor management and relationship management rather than into the proper use of channel management automation software.* Lack of horizontal campaigns. Vendors typically deploy a marketing channel automation platform with new or niche products. Partners, on the other hand, generally do not want to squander whatever limited time and resources they have on programs that are not time-tested. In fact, one of the main challenges in spurring adoption of channel management automation is that deployment is often tested with campaigns that lack excitement on the partner side.* Lack of partner incentives. Vendors will often have several campaigns, assets, etc. uploaded on the marketing automation platform, but without aligning any specific incentives with those campaigns. As a result, partners fail to see the benefits of putting in all the hard work of executing a campaign when the easiest thing they can do is just have the vendors hand over qualified leads. From the partner perspective, that’s a more efficient way to go.* Lack of internal organizational alignment. It’s quite common in many organizations for the internal sales team or channel account management team or partner business management team not to be fully aligned with the channel marketing management automation system. In those cases, even when marketers load up a campaign on the platform, without inside sales or channel sales buy-in the campaign doesn’t go anywhere and the channel marketing platform is rarely discussed in a face-to-face partner meeting or in a phone conversation. As a result, channel marketing automation remains a “sidebar” conversation rather than a mainstream focus.* Lack of public celebration. Most vendors have annual partner conferences where they try to promote the use of the channel marketing automation platform. However, most partners attending such conferences choose to attend such events for other reasons. Very rarely do they attend in order to check out all the cool features and functionality of a channel marketing...

Vendors selling to a channel need to enable their channel partners to generate and drive channel partners. This has been a challenge for almost all vendors, whether they are selling to vendors or consumers. While partners are a great fulfillment arm, few of them generate enough leads to drive demand on their own. To address the problem more companies over the past few years have been deploying channel automation platforms. However, the adoption of these platforms in the channel has been quite poor, and this has led to a lot of speculation and frustration. It has also led a number of companies to switch providers of channel marketing automation platforms, thinking that the move from one platform to another might help them attain higher levels of adoption. However, the issues generally lie elsewhere. Yes, the channel marketing automation platform needs to be robust, scalable, easy to use, etc., but only rarely is the failure to achieve widespread adoption of automation in the channel tied directly to the channel automation platform itself. In this article we will explore the core issues that underlie channel marketing automation adoption and outline steps vendors can take to generate ROI from the investment they are making in channel marketing automation platforms.

Challenges

* Lack of partner resources. Most channel partners have neither resident marketing experts nor sufficient resources to create and execute campaigns on their own. As a result of that, most marketing channel automation platforms that are introduced into the channel are simply not used. The problem is not that the platforms are difficult to use, but that partners don’t have the resources—namely, time—to sit down and learn a tool and then go execute a campaign or a program. Also, in the case of large partners that do have sufficient resources, often those resources go into vendor management and relationship management rather than into the proper use of channel management automation software.

* Lack of horizontal campaigns. Vendors typically deploy a marketing channel automation platform with new or niche products. Partners, on the other hand, generally do not want to squander whatever limited time and resources they have on programs that are not time-tested. In fact, one of the main challenges in spurring adoption of channel management automation is that deployment is often tested with campaigns that lack excitement on the partner side.

* Lack of partner incentives. Vendors will often have several campaigns, assets, etc. uploaded on the marketing automation platform, but without aligning any specific incentives with those campaigns. As a result, partners fail to see the benefits of putting in all the hard work of executing a campaign when the easiest thing they can do is just have the vendors hand over qualified leads. From the partner perspective, that’s a more efficient way to go.

* Lack of internal organizational alignment. It’s quite common in many organizations for the internal sales team or channel account management team or partner business management team not to be fully aligned with the channel marketing management automation system. In those cases, even when marketers load up a campaign on the platform, without inside sales or channel sales buy-in the campaign doesn’t go anywhere and the channel marketing platform is rarely discussed in a face-to-face partner meeting or in a phone conversation. As a result, channel marketing automation remains a “sidebar” conversation rather than a mainstream focus.

* Lack of public celebration. Most vendors have annual partner conferences where they try to promote the use of the channel marketing automation platform. However, most partners attending such conferences choose to attend such events for other reasons. Very rarely do they attend in order to check out all the cool features and functionality of a channel marketing automation tool,

Over the last year or so, there has been much talk about another impending recession and how it could impact channel management. The recession theory is based upon historical trends, which suggest business cycles tend to last around five to seven years each. That means every five to seven years we experience some sort of a recession. Eventually the economy recovers, and then something else happens to triggers another recession. Current discussions are predicting another slowdown soon. This article explores how you can get your organization—and your channel management team —ready for the moment when another recession arrives.

Channel management is complex (see our article Challenges of Channel Management for more on this), but with proper preparation you can address many of the problems and even succeed in the face of the next recession.

Is recession coming? The current state of affairs

Bear market rallies

Over the last few weeks, the global markets have seen a series of bear market rallies, and several analysts are suggesting that when the market rises again in the near term, holders of securities should sell because the market has not yet reached its bottom. In several countries, markets are already down quite substantially.

China: borrowing from the future to stimulate growth

China, for example, has lost more than 50% of its market value over the last year. The Chinese economy is currently the second largest in the world, valued at around $9 trillion per year. Over the past five years or so, the Chinese government has provided multiple stimulants to drive economic growth. The biggest challenge for China, however, is that it has borrowed from the future to build its economy out, yet consumption has not increased substantially. Because of that dynamic, as the worldwide economy slows down, China as “the factory of the world” can no longer sustain growth due to weakness in demand—not just domestically, but abroad. This has led to a substantial slowdown of the Chinese stock market.

Slowdown in many of the world’s largest economies

Most recently, Japan has entered a recession again, tied primarily to demographic forces, and most developed countries have a huge amount of national debt, which is preventing them from developing in the future. Outside of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey), the rest of the world is not large enough to compensate for the slowdown in most of the world’s large economies, even though commodity prices, including oil prices, have dropped substantially.

Wage stagnation in the middle class weakens consumption…

Basic consumption patterns have changed dramatically over the last 30 years, because of the amassing of wealth within the top one or two percent of society. At the end of the day, a rich person consumes on a daily basis roughly the same amount of commodities, energy or materials—exclusive of the luxuries associated with conspicuous consumption—as a middle class person does. However, because of wage stagnation in the middle class, incomes have not increased substantially, and thus demand for goods has stagnated as well.

…while productivity gains are being diverted to corporate profits

While technology continues to drive productivity, that productivity contributes more to corporate profit margins than to wage growth, and this has slowed down consumption substantially across the world. While Japanese and Chinese consumers tend to save more than consumers in developed countries like the U.S. and the U.K., some developed countries like Germany also have high rates of savings. As a result, especially after World War II, the engine that drove prosperity and growth—middle-class consumption—dropped substantially.

What does this mean for channel management?

For businesses, channel management has in many ways become more challenging, even as companies have taken various measures to reduce their sales cost and increase their reach—both in the business-to-business domain via various resellers, partners, etc., and the business-to-consumer domain through franchises, outlets and so on. Overall, the complexity of channel management has increased substantially (as we’ve noted in previous articles) due to the rapid progression of technology, the hypercompetitive nature of the marketplace and the reduction in the length of the product lifecycle, with new products being introduced much faster and time to profitability decreasing dramatically. On top of this, in the past five to seven years B2B sales and marketing processes have changed dramatically. Outside sales is rapidly being replaced by marketing automation and inside sales infrastructure.

Companies that are not ready, that have not invested properly to reduce their cost structure and build a lean mean channel management machine remain significantly exposed to the next downturn. Based on a consensus among most economists, analysts are not predicting a meltdown on the scale of what happened in 2008. However, they are anticipating a scenario similar to what has happened in Japan over the past two decades, with persistently sluggish growth—basically, a U-shaped recovery curve in which the market comes back very slowly, as opposed to a V-shaped curve in which the recovery is more rapid.

So when you look at countries like Brazil, China, more developed parts of Africa, and certainly most of Europe, including southern European countries like Greece, Spain and Italy, the issues are real: growth is disappearing and corporate profitability is at risk. The question is, how do you get your organization ready for the next downturn, and what can you do from a channel management perspective to stay ahead of the curve and continue to win?

Solutions: What you can do to prepare

Here are some ideas:

Instead of waiting for the recession to hit, cut costs now. Cutting costs doesn’t necessarily mean laying off people. It means driving growth at a lower cost. The primary way to accomplish this is through automation and a slowdown on hiring. As you become more productive through automation, you are able to do more and grow more at the same cost structure. Also consider outsourcing your non-core activities to companies that focus their entire business on those activities. If those vendors can reduce your operating costs in several functions by 5% to 10%, that can give you a huge competitive advantage.

Prioritize spending. Channel management has always been challenging when it comes to prioritization, because most organizations don’t have the granular data to really understand which partners are performing really well and why. While most companies have sales velocity data that shows which partners sell the most, very few have an understanding of which partners are most capable, why they are selling the most and how they are able to accelerate growth. This is where partner profiling comes in. If you profile your channel and have an understanding of why some partners are able to sell better than others, now you have the means to focus your engagement. Instead of panicking when the recession hits, your organization is already aligned with the future.

Focus on a few partners that can help you win during a recession. When times get tough, most channel management teams will hitch their wagon to the partners that are performing, and that will make competition even fiercer. You may have to drop your prices, you may have to reduce your margins, and your organization may suffer at that point in time. Instead of waiting for that moment to arrive, you can hand-select a few partners today based on partner profiling activities and analysis, and start building those relationships in a strategic way. When the recession hits, you will already have strong relationships with the partners who are going to be absolutely critical during the downturn. Most importantly, you may even be able to add a few more partners in multiple countries where there is potential to grow. Even if they can’t grow when the downturn hits, they may be able to do so now while the economy is more or less okay, and they may rebound more quickly.

Increase your reach in stable economies and reduce your exposure in vulnerable ones. At the global level, you have to prioritize where you are going to invest. The U.S. is still demonstrating a strong economy. Over the last six or seven years, the U.S. economy has undergone a significant transition and transformation by deploying technology and reducing delivery costs in multiple market segments, and it is in a much better position to withstand shock than other economies where businesses are highly regulated, where the flow of money is slow and where transparency is lacking. Prioritizing spending in companies where economies are more resilient and reducing your exposure to companies and economies where growth has been happening over the last few years may be a good strategy for preparing for the next downturn.

Build a better forecasting engine by leveraging people, processes and automation. Forecasting matters less when all boats are rising; at that point you are just fulfilling demand. But forecasting is especially critical at times when the economy is struggling and demand is down, because when the supply-based cost structure is higher than what you can generate on the demand side, you remain exposed. When it comes to channel programs, rewards, rebates and other channel incentives, you need to think through about where you will focus a year from now if sales are off by 10%. Going through that forecasting process now will prepare you for that future when it arrives.

As we’ve said many times before, channel management is complex. However, proper planning, automation, and programs and processes aligned to focus on a few strategic partners ahead of time can get you ready for the next downturn. While nothing can guarantee complete success,...

Over the last year or so, there has been much talk about another impending recession and how it could impact channel management. The recession theory is based upon historical trends, which suggest business cycles tend to last around five to seven years each. That means every five to seven years we experience some sort of a recession. Eventually the economy recovers, and then something else happens to triggers another recession. Current discussions are predicting another slowdown soon. This article explores how you can get your organization—and your channel management team —ready for the moment when another recession arrives.Channel management is complex (see our article Challenges of Channel Management for more on this), but with proper preparation you can address many of the problems and even succeed in the face of the next recession.Is recession coming? The current state of affairsBear market ralliesOver the last few weeks, the global markets have seen a series of bear market rallies, and several analysts are suggesting that when the market rises again in the near term, holders of securities should sell because the market has not yet reached its bottom. In several countries, markets are already down quite substantially.China: borrowing from the future to stimulate growthChina, for example, has lost more than 50% of its market value over the last year. The Chinese economy is currently the second largest in the world, valued at around $9 trillion per year. Over the past five years or so, the Chinese government has provided multiple stimulants to drive economic growth. The biggest challenge for China, however, is that it has borrowed from the future to build its economy out, yet consumption has not increased substantially. Because of that dynamic, as the worldwide economy slows down, China as “the factory of the world” can no longer sustain growth due to weakness in demand—not just domestically, but abroad. This has led to a substantial slowdown of the Chinese stock market.Slowdown in many of the world’s largest economiesMost recently, Japan has entered a recession again, tied primarily to demographic forces, and most developed countries have a huge amount of national debt, which is preventing them from developing in the future. Outside of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey), the rest of the world is not large enough to compensate for the slowdown in most of the world’s large economies, even though commodity prices, including oil prices, have dropped substantially.Wage stagnation in the middle class weakens consumption… Basic consumption patterns have changed dramatically over the last 30 years, because of the amassing of wealth within the top one or two percent of society. At the end of the day, a rich person consumes on a daily basis roughly the same amount of commodities, energy or materials—exclusive of the luxuries associated with conspicuous consumption—as a middle class person does. However, because of wage stagnation in the middle class, incomes have not increased substantially, and thus demand for goods has stagnated as well.…while productivity gains are being diverted to corporate profitsWhile technology continues to drive productivity, that productivity contributes more to corporate profit margins than to wage growth, and this has slowed down consumption substantially across the world. While Japanese and Chinese consumers tend to save more than consumers in developed countries like the U.S. and the U.K., some developed countries like Germany also have high rates of savings. As a result, especially after World War II, the engine that drove prosperity and growth—middle-class consumption—dropped substantially.What does this mean for channel management?

Over the last year or so, there has been much talk about another impending recession and how it could impact channel management. The recession theory is based upon historical trends, which suggest business cycles tend to last around five to seven years each. That means every five to seven years we experience some sort of a recession. Eventually the economy recovers, and then something else happens to triggers another recession. Current discussions are predicting another slowdown soon. This article explores how you can get your organization—and your channel management team —ready for the moment when another recession arrives.

Channel management is complex (see our article Challenges of Channel Management for more on this), but with proper preparation you can address many of the problems and even succeed in the face of the next recession.

Is recession coming? The current state of affairs

Bear market rallies

Over the last few weeks, the global markets have seen a series of bear market rallies, and several analysts are suggesting that when the market rises again in the near term, holders of securities should sell because the market has not yet reached its bottom. In several countries, markets are already down quite substantially.

China: borrowing from the future to stimulate growth

China, for example, has lost more than 50% of its market value over the last year. The Chinese economy is currently the second largest in the world, valued at around $9 trillion per year. Over the past five years or so, the Chinese government has provided multiple stimulants to drive economic growth. The biggest challenge for China, however, is that it has borrowed from the future to build its economy out, yet consumption has not increased substantially. Because of that dynamic, as the worldwide economy slows down, China as “the factory of the world” can no longer sustain growth due to weakness in demand—not just domestically, but abroad. This has led to a substantial slowdown of the Chinese stock market.

Slowdown in many of the world’s largest economies

Most recently, Japan has entered a recession again, tied primarily to demographic forces, and most developed countries have a huge amount of national debt, which is preventing them from developing in the future. Outside of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey), the rest of the world is not large enough to compensate for the slowdown in most of the world’s large economies, even though commodity prices, including oil prices, have dropped substantially.

Wage stagnation in the middle class weakens consumption…

Basic consumption patterns have changed dramatically over the last 30 years, because of the amassing of wealth within the top one or two percent of society. At the end of the day, a rich person consumes on a daily basis roughly the same amount of commodities, energy or materials—exclusive of the luxuries associated with conspicuous consumption—as a middle class person does. However, because of wage stagnation in the middle class, incomes have not increased substantially, and thus demand for goods has stagnated as well.

…while productivity gains are being diverted to corporate profits

While technology continues to drive productivity, that productivity contributes more to corporate profit margins than to wage growth, and this has slowed down consumption substantially across the world. While Japanese and Chinese consumers tend to save more than consumers in developed countries like the U.S. and the U.K., some developed countries like Germany also have high rates of savings. As a result, especially after World War II,

Appointment setting has actually existed for nearly two decades. Over the last five to seven years, however, it has undergone a dramatic transformation. When appointment setting began, it focused primarily on the business-to-business environment, where an inside or outside sales rep would cold call into an account to set up a face-to-face appointment. Even today, it is common to observe salespeople knocking on the doors of small businesses, trying to drop off their business cards—whether they are selling copiers or cleaning services or maintenance and repair services. The goal of securing a face-to-face meeting is still quite common today. However, traditional methods of appointment setting require a huge investment of sales resources, and from that perspective these methods are simply not productive anymore. The fact is, traditional appointment setting wastes a lot of money and time today. However, when conceived as the last step of a structured digital prospecting process, appointment setting can be totally reconfigured and drive significant ROI, and it also can substantially increase customer satisfaction.

The future of appointment setting depends heavily on integration with inbound marketing. In other words, successful appointment setting in today’s marketplace requires a proper balance between inbound and outbound marketing tactics. Appointment setting traditionally has been considered on outbound marketing tactic, but recently it is more common for it to be incorporated as the last step of inbound marketing.

For this article, I’d like to focus on seven critical principles for making an appointment setting campaign successful:

Appointment setting must begin with an inbound marketing approach. Traditionally, inbound marketing refers to the integrated use of search, social media and a website to drive the awareness of prospective buyers and generate interest among those buyers in reaching out to a specific vendor, asking them to initiate contact. This where an integrated appointment setting strategy can drive real results.

The website is your 24x7 salesperson. Traditionally the website has functioned as a summary of what a company does at a high level, with explanations of products and solutions, a section with information about the company’s office presence and contact information, a description of the leadership team and so on. However, over the past five years or so the company website has morphed into what I would call a “digital salesperson” who can sell on a 24/7 cycle. Most companies that are now focused on content marketing to drive lead generation are using their website as a digital salesperson. What does that mean? Today’s website is structured to engage buyers at various stages of research that they are undertaking to determine whether or not the vendor can meet their needs. For instance, in a classic scenario the buyer goes through a series of phases on the path to purchase: awareness, interest, trial or demo, engagement with the vendor and procurement—followed by renewal or repurchase. In the earliest phase where the buyer is developing awareness and interest in a vendor’s solution, the conversation needs to be very different than in other stages. Traditional appointment setting has done a poor job of addressing the multiple stages the buyer may be progressing through. An effective website, on the other hand, can address those stages with different types of content.

Search is king and queen. After the website, the next most important function for appointment setting is search. Search engine optimization is what actually drives traffic to the website. When buyers begin their journey to look for a solution or pursue an interest, they go online and search using certain keywords. That’s why a website needs to be fully optimized—to ensure that when a buyer searches, the vendor’s name pops up. Ideally it appears on the first page of search results, but it definitely must appear by the second page. Statistical data shows that links on the third page and beyond are rarely visited by prospective buyers. That’s why it’s so critical to have the entire website optimized around a set of keywords a buyer is likely to be using to search for a specific solution or to better understand a specific problem and discover approaches to solving it.

Social adds flare and expands presence. Social marketing is also a critical means of driving awareness. Because the front end of the marketing funnel in today’s media environment is highly fragmented, it’s very difficult to engage a buyer via a single target, such as a specific site or a specific set of actions. The prospective buyer is likely to be visiting multiple sites. A successful marketing strategy must therefore integrate social and search to engage the buyer at multiple touch points in the early phases of the journey in the effort to drive them to the website.

Having a structured process is critical. Process plays an important role in content creation, content development, content alignment across multiple buying phases, and in driving traffic through search and social in a systematic way. Process is critical in identifying the engagement of the prospect at various stages with different types of content on the vendor side, as well as providing that information to the salesperson. Without marketing and sales automation—the next essential element in successful appointment setting—this is almost impossible to accomplish.

Automation brings visibility and scalability. With appropriate automation, content can be hosted on various sites, optimized for search to drive prospects to a specific website, and then the prospect’s activity can be monitored with tracking engines so the salesperson can know when a visitor lands on the site exactly what content the visitor is reading, what specific solutions are being investigated and perhaps determine what stage of the buying cycle the visitor is currently in.

Qualify warm leads to set appointments. Once we’ve addressed the previous six tactics that I’ve identified as crucial to the appointment setting process, we’re ready to actually set appointments. Traditionally, appointment setting had to accomplish all of this with the 20-second pitch. That’s an extremely unrealistic expectation, and most of the time traditional appointment setting failed to deliver. But in today’s digital prospecting age, when calling a prospective buyer to set an appointment is conceived as the last step in a multi-phase process wherein the buyer has visited the website, opened emails, engaged with content and interacted with various sections of the site—thus reflecting an advanced stage of the buying cycle—appointment setting can be a highly effective means of engaging with the prospect. The kind of appointment setting described here not only increases customer satisfaction, but it also demonstrates to the buyer that the vendor respects the buying process.

My hope in writing this article is to show that traditional appointment setting can’t succeed in today’s digital environment, but it can be highly successful if it is carefully integrated with inbound marketing tactics. The key for the vendor is to take a structured approach: updating the website, optimizing it for search engines, developing substantial content that addresses the needs of the buyer at various stages, and aligning different kinds of content across a variety of channels—search, social, website, etc.—to ensure the prospect is properly engaged. Then, and only then, is the vendor ready to conclude the entire campaign with a qualification step, where a qualified salesperson calls the buyer to extend an invitation to a webinar or discuss solutions that meet the buyer’s specific needs. This integrated approach can greatly enhance marketing ROI and lead to a substantial increase in the sales pipeline.

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Appointment setting has actually existed for nearly two decades. Over the last five to seven years, however, it has undergone a dramatic transformation. When appointment setting began, it focused primarily on the business-to-business environment, where an inside or outside sales rep would cold call into an account to set up a face-to-face appointment. Even today, it is common to observe salespeople knocking on the doors of small businesses, trying to drop off their business cards—whether they are selling copiers or cleaning services or maintenance and repair services. The goal of securing a face-to-face meeting is still quite common today. However, traditional methods of appointment setting require a huge investment of sales resources, and from that perspective these methods are simply not productive anymore. The fact is, traditional appointment setting wastes a lot of money and time today. However, when conceived as the last step of a structured digital prospecting process, appointment setting can be totally reconfigured and drive significant ROI, and it also can substantially increase customer satisfaction.The future of appointment setting depends heavily on integration with inbound marketing. In other words, successful appointment setting in today’s marketplace requires a proper balance between inbound and outbound marketing tactics. Appointment setting traditionally has been considered on outbound marketing tactic, but recently it is more common for it to be incorporated as the last step of inbound marketing.For this article, I’d like to focus on seven critical principles for making an appointment setting campaign successful:* Appointment setting must begin with an inbound marketing approach. Traditionally, inbound marketing refers to the integrated use of search, social media and a website to drive the awareness of prospective buyers and generate interest among those buyers in reaching out to a specific vendor, asking them to initiate contact. This where an integrated appointment setting strategy can drive real results.* The website is your 24×7 salesperson. Traditionally the website has functioned as a summary of what a company does at a high level, with explanations of products and solutions, a section with information about the company’s office presence and contact information, a description of the leadership team and so on. However, over the past five years or so the company website has morphed into what I would call a “digital salesperson” who can sell on a 24/7 cycle. Most companies that are now focused on content marketing to drive lead generation are using their website as a digital salesperson. What does that mean? Today’s website is structured to engage buyers at various stages of research that they are undertaking to determine whether or not the vendor can meet their needs. For instance, in a classic scenario the buyer goes through a series of phases on the path to purchase: awareness, interest, trial or demo, engagement with the vendor and procurement—followed by renewal or repurchase. In the earliest phase where the buyer is developing awareness and interest in a vendor’s solution, the conversation needs to be very different than in other stages. Traditional appointment setting has done a poor job of addressing the multiple stages the buyer may be progressing through. An effective website, on the other hand, can address those stages with different types of content.* Search is king and queen. After the website, the next most important function for appointment setting is search.

Appointment setting has actually existed for nearly two decades. Over the last five to seven years, however, it has undergone a dramatic transformation. When appointment setting began, it focused primarily on the business-to-business environment, where an inside or outside sales rep would cold call into an account to set up a face-to-face appointment. Even today, it is common to observe salespeople knocking on the doors of small businesses, trying to drop off their business cards—whether they are selling copiers or cleaning services or maintenance and repair services. The goal of securing a face-to-face meeting is still quite common today. However, traditional methods of appointment setting require a huge investment of sales resources, and from that perspective these methods are simply not productive anymore. The fact is, traditional appointment setting wastes a lot of money and time today. However, when conceived as the last step of a structured digital prospecting process, appointment setting can be totally reconfigured and drive significant ROI, and it also can substantially increase customer satisfaction.

The future of appointment setting depends heavily on integration with inbound marketing. In other words, successful appointment setting in today’s marketplace requires a proper balance between inbound and outbound marketing tactics. Appointment setting traditionally has been considered on outbound marketing tactic, but recently it is more common for it to be incorporated as the last step of inbound marketing.

For this article, I’d like to focus on seven critical principles for making an appointment setting campaign successful:

* Appointment setting must begin with an inbound marketing approach. Traditionally, inbound marketing refers to the integrated use of search, social media and a website to drive the awareness of prospective buyers and generate interest among those buyers in reaching out to a specific vendor, asking them to initiate contact. This where an integrated appointment setting strategy can drive real results.

* The website is your 24x7 salesperson. Traditionally the website has functioned as a summary of what a company does at a high level, with explanations of products and solutions, a section with information about the company’s office presence and contact information, a description of the leadership team and so on. However, over the past five years or so the company website has morphed into what I would call a “digital salesperson” who can sell on a 24/7 cycle. Most companies that are now focused on content marketing to drive lead generation are using their website as a digital salesperson. What does that mean? Today’s website is structured to engage buyers at various stages of research that they are undertaking to determine whether or not the vendor can meet their needs. For instance, in a classic scenario the buyer goes through a series of phases on the path to purchase: awareness, interest, trial or demo, engagement with the vendor and procurement—followed by renewal or repurchase. In the earliest phase where the buyer is developing awareness and interest in a vendor’s solution, the conversation needs to be very different than in other stages. Traditional appointment setting has done a poor job of addressing the multiple stages the buyer may be progressing through. An effective website, on the other hand, can address those stages with different types of content.

* Search is king and queen. After the website, the next most important function for appointment setting is searc...

Many organizations selling through the channel today are trying to determine how best to automate their partner relationship management (PRM) process. In order to do so, quite a few are getting online and searching on Google and other search engines for “PRM software.” When you do so, multiple vendors pop up. How do you distinguish among them? And how do you select a PRM software vendor that can satisfy your needs? In this article, we will explore in an objective way five key capabilities that PRM vendors must provide in order to meet the needs of most organizations.

Flexibility, localization and scalability. When you think carefully about PRM software and what it is supposed to do, you realize the main purpose of PRM software is to truly automate the PRM process end-to-end. True PRM automation would not only bring a structured approach to partner recruitment, partner engagement, partner enablement and partner management, but it would also offer visibility and scalability on a global level. A company that automates PRM processes should be able to deploy a common set of programs globally and execute them locally in each country using local languages. An organization that’s selling through the channel needs to be able to meet the unique requirements of each country where it operates. While much of the time partner programs are consistent across all countries, it’s important to remember there is a degree of variability among different geographies. Therefore, any organization selling through the channel on a global scale needs to be certain its PRM vendor can complete flexibility, localization and scalability across multiple markets.

Modularity. Most organizations selling through the channel today have some level of existing infrastructure in place. Very rarely would a company find it desirable or practical to rip and replace everything they have in place. As a result, the PRM software vendor must be able to provide a modular architecture whereby an organization can pick and choose which PRM software modules they want to deploy, and decide which they will configure first and then successively turn on. Modularity is key for a PRM software vendor.

Partner marketing management capabilities. While most PRM software vendors provide some sort of functionality for partner records management, business planning, contract management, training management and incentives management, almost none — except ZINFI — provides full integration of partner management capabilities. Why is this important? Once you manage “market to” activities, such as partner recruitment and partner engagement, which are focused primarily on training, and partner management, which is organized around partner incentives, you eventually need to turn your focus to enable partners to drive leads and build pipelines on their own. Partner marketing management is a natural extension of PRM that completes the partner relationship management framework. Therefore, a PRM software vendor must be able either to successfully integrate with an existing partner marketing tool or provide additional feature sets with incremental cost to turn on multi-partner demand generation capabilities.

Multi-tenant architecture. While most PRM software vendors provide a basic framework for multiple PRM modules and partner records management, very few provide a complete, CRM-like capability which allows not only the channel management folks from the organization—e.g., a channel account manager or a business manager—to manage the partners, but also provides a structure that can be deployed on the partner side—by, for example, a partner marketing manager or a partner sales rep—opening up access to the information in a seamless way within the PRM software software. Almost no vendors today provide this specific capability. A company can spend millions of dollars configuring their CRM infrastructure to do this, but a state-of-art PRM software vendor like ZINFI can provide this capability right out of the box.

Dynamic reporting engine. While automation is the core objective of a PRM software platform, it must also provide a dynamic analytical engine that allows the organization to clearly understand and continuously monitor where investments are being made, which partners are productive, what programs are working, what activities have been completed, and what projects are coming up and moving forward. Without a comprehensive analytical dashboard and a reporting engine, a PRM software platform will never realize its full potential. That’s why it’s absolutely essential that, when an organization seeks a PRM software vendor, it must ensure the reporting engine is robust and dynamic, and able to produce custom reports on the fly.

The channel is an incredible asset. Companies that are selling indirectly to businesses or consumers need to ensure they have complete visibility into their partner’s productivity across the entire partner lifecycle they are trying to manage. PRM is managed via four critical steps—partner recruitment, partner engagement, partner enablement and partner management— but without an end-to-end, integrated and modular PRM software platform, no organization can successfully harness the power of their channel. Organizations that wish to automate their PRM process should look for the five capabilities mentioned above. In addition, they should make sure the PRM software vendor they choose is global in its reach, can demonstrate robust financials, has deployed similar-scenario systems with multiple existing clients and can dynamically adapt and configure the platform to address a specific set of needs.

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Many organizations selling through the channel today are trying to determine how best to automate their partner relationship management (PRM) process. In order to do so, quite a few are getting online and searching on Google and other search engines for “PRM software.” When you do so, multiple vendors pop up. How do you distinguish among them? And how do you select a PRM software vendor that can satisfy your needs? In this article, we will explore in an objective way five key capabilities that PRM vendors must provide in order to meet the needs of most organizations.

* Flexibility, localization and scalability. When you think carefully about PRM software and what it is supposed to do, you realize the main purpose of PRM software is to truly automate the PRM process end-to-end. True PRM automation would not only bring a structured approach to partner recruitment, partner engagement, partner enablement and partner management, but it would also offer visibility and scalability on a global level. A company that automates PRM processes should be able to deploy a common set of programs globally and execute them locally in each country using local languages. An organization that’s selling through the channel needs to be able to meet the unique requirements of each country where it operates. While much of the time partner programs are consistent across all countries, it’s important to remember there is a degree of variability among different geographies. Therefore, any organization selling through the channel on a global scale needs to be certain its PRM vendor can complete flexibility, localization and scalability across multiple markets.

* Modularity. Most organizations selling through the channel today have some level of existing infrastructure in place. Very rarely would a company find it desirable or practical to rip and replace everything they have in place. As a result, the PRM software vendor must be able to provide a modular architecture whereby an organization can pick and choose which PRM software modules they want to deploy, and decide which they will configure first and then successively turn on. Modularity is key for a PRM software vendor.

* Partner marketing management capabilities. While most PRM software vendors provide some sort of functionality for partner records management, business planning, contract management, training management and incentives management, almost none — except ZINFI — provides full integration of partner management capabilities. Why is this important? Once you manage “market to” activities, such as partner recruitment and partner engagement, which are focused primarily on training, and partner management, which is organized around partner incentives, you eventually need to turn your focus to enable partners to drive leads and build pipelines on their own. Partner marketing management is a natural extension of PRM that completes the partner relationship management framework. Therefore, a PRM software vendor must be able either to successfully integrate with an existing partner marketing tool or provide additional feature sets with incremental cost to turn on multi-partner demand generation capabilities.

* Multi-tenant architecture. While most PRM software vendors provide a basic framework for multiple PRM modules and partner records management, very few provide a complete, CRM-like capability which allows not only the channel management folks from the organiza...