Specialization sparks partnership: What does that mean for your digital marketing assets?

Partnership can mean very different things in today’s business world, from a one-time collaboration to design a crucial component, to long-term, cheek-by-jowl collaboration across projects and products.

Becoming best of breed doesn’t mean being the biggest

There’s one kind of partnership, though, that’s made a big difference in the way certain products are marketed and deployed—especially high-value, high-involvement products like business technology. That’s the relationship of a vendor, such as a hardware and software company, to trusted affiliates who re-sell, support, and add value to their products.

If you are a partner to a larger, market-recognized company, you are in a position to benefit from their R&D budget, their reputation and, potentially, their pool of customers and prospects.

You’re also poised to improve your own digital marketing and SEO efforts.

Many vendors have your bonus content already; just open the envelope

As a vendor-partner, you’re adding your unique value to their products you sell, but are you getting all you can from that relationship?

Be sure you’re taking the most advantage that you can of the opportunities that being a partner could bring. Your success is their success, after all. Examine your digital marketing assets and think about what new assets you may require, and how best to leverage the investments that your vendor partner has already made.

• Branding and reputation: Are you getting the most that you can from the branding that the vendor has worked to establish? Time-pressed business decision makers benefit from visual cues that help them spot quality products from brands they trust. If you can offer those brands, with endorsement from the maker, provide those cues on your website, your emails, and everywhere else they make sense. As an authorized partner and recognized expert in the solutions they need, don’t make them skim the fine print to find out. Also, take advantage of their content and branding along with your own to take advantage of the visual shorthand embodied in the upstream brand’s colors, look, and presentation style. By cross-linking and promoting both the vendor and your own brand, you can also increase your SEO results.

 

• Ready-made marketing assets: From analyst reports to white papers to ready-made graphics, the vendor partner may have already invested in assets that you can use to bolster your own assets, integrate into your sales process or simply link to from your site. Ignoring them is leaving cash on the table. You can also use these ready-made assets as time-saving leaping-off points to complement your own custom materials.

 

• Market exposure: The parent company is probably itching for a way to identify and applaud its best partners; don’t ignore possibilities for recognition. That might take the form of actual awards, recognition within the partner ecosystem, or the chance to talk at a conference as an expert. (Or even as a conference attendee—an excellent way to meet new customers in a friendly, target-rich environment.)If there’s an application to be called “Partner of the Year” to be recognized for a particular deployment, take the chance. This is one place (not the only one) where even 2^nd place is worth crowing about, on your home page and in every email you send.

 

• Co-marketing: Finally, think of all these opportunities to leverage your upstream partner’s hard work on your behalf with a potential big bonus in mind: cash. Your larger partner may have money set aside to help you get your message out, there for the asking. You may also qualify for discounts on advertising, for placement in searchable directories, for discounts on conferences and tradeshows—or even travel. Take advantage; co-marketing dollars can expand your reach and your budget.

An upstream-downstream two-way street

The larger partner in your business dealings enables your business—and in turn draws substantial benefit from your part in selling and supporting their products.

Now let them help you do it best, to better your position as a seller and as a crucial part of their business.

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DeLaune & Associates can help you develop benefits-driven marketing assets, whether you need help from the ground up or polishing assets that your experts have already prepared. We know enterprise-scale technology marketing and are ready to work together. Let’s get started!