Why Channel Marketing Initiatives Fail: 3 Key Mistakes

Content strategy developed? Check!
Marketing campaigns created? Check!
Sales force alerting channel partners about the campaigns? Check!
Telesales ready to field incoming calls and orders? Check!
Product ready for immediate shipment? Check!

So why didn’t your channel marketing initiative work? All of the planning will be for naught if you don’t avoid these common mistakes:

Channel Marketing Mistake #1:

Your marketing focuses exclusively on product features.

OK, but also help your partners extend your feature-rich messaging to include customer value. The biggest benefit your partners bring is their intimate knowledge of their customers. They can become an integral element of your content strategy by extending your messaging so the features you hold so dear morph into a highly relevant contextual marketing communication for your prospects.

Channel Marketing Mistake #2:

You don’t include your partners in your customers’ journey mapping and lifecycle marketing.

The reason you have a channel is so they can be where you can’t—at critical touch points all along a customer’s lifecycle. Be sure they have the appropriate tools to use for your mutual prospects and customers as they work their way through the buying process.

Channel Marketing Mistake #3:

You ignore your current customers.

Sure, everyone wants fresh leads and new customers. But what about those folks paying the bills today? The best return on marketing for you and your partners is to have satisfied customers who keep on buying. So be sure to augment the conquest marketing with retention marketing that is dynamically generated by your marketing automation platform. It’s never inappropriate to say “Thanks, Mr. Smith, for your business!”