Latest / Partnerships Unraveled / 015 - Mastering the art of Partner Communication

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015 - Mastering the art of Partner Communication · Partnerships Unraveled

• 0:07
  Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled. The podcast where we unravel the mysteries of channel and partnerships on a weekly basis.
• 0:15
  My name is Rick van den Bosch, and I'm the CEO and founder of Channext.
• 0:18
  And I'm here together with Alex Whitford, VP partners at Channext.
• 0:22
  Alex, how are you doing today?
• 0:22
  Yeah, really good.
• 0:24
  It's the first recording of 2023, which is exciting.
• 0:29
  It's been a couple of weeks break, so really excited to get back into it.
• 0:32
  Yeah, I agree.
• 0:33
  Let's record many episodes in the upcoming weeks.
• 0:36
  I'm up for it.
• 0:36
  Yeah, exactly.
• 0:38
  We want to build some buffering, so I think there's going to be lots of recording over the next few weeks, which is going to be good fun.
• 0:43
  100%.
• 0:44
  And I think for today's topic, in the last couple of episodes we've been talking quite so much already about end-user marketing and how to do that with your partners, how to scale it, how to create content for it.
• 0:57
  But there's also a certain type of communication and marketing that we haven't touched upon that much yet, which is to partner communication, I think.
• 1:05
  Can you enlighten our listeners, Alex, what is to partner communication and why is that so important within the channel?
• 1:12
  Yeah, sure.
• 1:12
  So I think what's really important around understanding what to partner communication is, I think let's talk about the partner journey first and where that to-partner communication comes into place.
• 1:23
  So let's imagine that we're really talking about active partners.
• 1:28
  So they've been recruited, they've been enabled, they're certified, they know what they're doing and then it's how do you give them product updates and how do you give them sales information and training and development and all of that key information?
• 1:40
  That's the piece that we're going to spend today talking about because there's a way to do it very effectively and there's a way to do it very ineffectively.
• 1:47
  And I think it's worth us talking about that because that's going to really be the cadence that your partner continues to improve and develop over time with your product.
• 1:57
  We've been talking quite so much about how hard it is to keep the attention of your partnerships and I think that's really where to-partner communication plays such a crucial role.
• 2:06
  Like how do you get the right message at the right time to the right partner and make sure that it's relevant.
• 2:11
  But also really like, what type of communication do you send to your partners?
• 2:14
  And I think also important to mention, don't send too much, be very explicit with what you communicate because if you send something you want that it sticks with your partnerships.
• 2:25
  Yeah, exactly.
• 2:27
  Let's talk about some of we've discussed segmenting partners very effectively in the last podcast.
• 2:33
  What's important about that is you're bringing the relevant information to that partner to make them successful, but also segment within the partner.
• 2:40
  Don't send sales information to operationally minded people.
• 2:43
  Right.
• 2:43
  They don't care and vice versa.
• 2:46
  And so what you want to make sure you're doing is targeting the right profile of people within the partner, bringing relevant and infrequent information.
• 2:55
  One of the things that I see vendors get wrong all the time is they think we'll just send them information all the time, send them loads of update emails.
• 3:02
  That's how you end up in the spam folder, which means then nothing gets through and to instead bring very relevant information with a call to action.
• 3:12
  Right.
• 3:12
  What's really important is if you're just wanting to give someone information, get them to fill in a survey or a test or do a Kahoot, whatever it is, because then you know it's landed and resonated and been read.
• 3:23
  Or if you want them to do a task, reach out to existing customers and position this new product as an attachment sale.
• 3:30
  Put that in.
• 3:32
  If you're just leaving it up to them how they take that to market.
• 3:35
  It's just another level of complexity that the partner's got to calculate.
• 3:38
  Whereas if you say, here's what we'd like you to do, here's why we think it works.
• 3:42
  Here's the expected return.
• 3:43
  Here's why it's valuable to you.
• 3:45
  Suddenly that's like, oh, okay, I very clearly understand what I need to do, how I need to do it, and what reward I should get out of it.
• 3:52
  Yeah, that call to action is crucial, and that's where it gets very closely aligned to end-user marketing as well.
• 3:58
  Like, if you send messages, make sure that there is a very clear call to action.
• 4:02
  But also what I would really advise, only one call to action.
• 4:05
  I've seen many email newsletters where it's like all the information in one newsletter on a weekly basis or a biweekly basis, for example.
• 4:13
  But then it's very hard for the partner.
• 4:15
  Like, what is actually expected from me in this case?
• 4:17
  Well, if you make it a very concise message about one specific topic with a very specific call to action, you really guide them in the right direction and take the action that's best for the partner and for you as a vendor.
• 4:28
  Yeah, the thing about a newsletter, to me, it almost feels very insular.
• 4:33
  You're worrying about your priorities and you're going, this is what we do, this is what we care about, this is what we love.
• 4:40
  And then I've sent it out to everyone and actually, that sort of you want to flip it entirely, which is go, okay, what does my partner care about?
• 4:48
  How can I make them more successful?
• 4:50
  And then cater my messaging to that partner and also the individuals within that partner?
• 4:55
  I've got to stress, if you want to send a marketing update, send it to marketing, and then if it's, oh, here's some marketing information, and here's where we think it will be used well, and here's the end-user to target.
• 5:07
  Here's some email content.
• 5:09
  Yeah, great, then do that, but then don't send that to everyone.
• 5:12
  Because I think that's when people are going to suddenly open it for the first time, go, this isn't relevant for me, and then, guess what?
• 5:18
  You probably lost that person forever.
• 5:18
  Yeah, that's correct.
• 5:21
  I think that's what we see a lot in the B2 C world, of course, where we get loads of newsletters, but at first you start opening and reading them, but then if relevancy gets lower and lower, then you just stop reading them and then everything goes into the spam filter or to the bin.
• 5:39
  Yeah, I think I've got 24,000 unread emails, much to my embarrassment, but, yeah, my personal email is just full of nonsense I'm never going to read and it's great.
• 5:47
  You go, oh, yeah, I've got an email subscriber list of 100,000 people.
• 5:51
  Yeah, but if your click through rate is like 0.1%, it's actually just a waste of time.
• 5:57
  You're better off targeting the 0.01% with really, really specific information, advice, call to action that's going to generate a response, rather than just doing macro posting like the one I always see.
• 6:11
  There's a shout out to a guy called Austin Belcak on LinkedIn and he helps people find new jobs and he talks a lot about it's much better to send three applications that you spent really, really detailed, customize your CV, customize your cover letter, than just send to 100 applications that are general.
• 6:29
  Take that same philosophy to partner communication, because it's the same thing if you want to target IT partners in London who target entry to finance and you want to give them really specific sales information to help target that, that's going to resonate really well with those salespeople.
• 6:44
  Yes, it takes more time to do and it takes more effort, and that's sometimes why vendors don't do it.
• 6:50
  But the return isn't two or three x, it's ten x, because suddenly you're going to get the right level of buy in from your partner and ultimately the right level of ROI.
• 6:59
  Yeah, you're correct there, because indeed, if you look at it from that perspective, it seems like more work.
• 7:03
  So let's take the example of that.
• 7:05
  You have multiple types of users within a partner technical, operational, sales, marketing.
• 7:10
  You would have to draft four emails in such a way, but oftentimes it's not that you have to draft a completely new email, but the nuances just need to be different.
• 7:19
  So, for example, if you do a product introduction announcement, a lot of it can be similar, but where you want to go deeper is when it's like, hey, what are the benefits for your specific role?
• 7:28
  Or how can you implement this towards your customers or towards the end-user in such a way?
• 7:33
  And I think that's where you make it super relevant by creating communication and then making small tweaks to make it fit for that specific segment.
• 7:42
  Yeah, I think that word nuance is a great word because we see it in marketing all the time, right?
• 7:48
  They'll create a verticalized piece of content and then they just change the vertical because actually the product fits in lots of different verticals.
• 7:56
  But the sheer process of just naming that vertical means that, oh, you've got my buy in, I'm interested in this.
• 8:02
  So, yeah, if you've got a marketing, sales and technical team and you go new product launch, here's why.
• 8:08
  For technical, it's great, for marketing it's great, and for sales it's great.
• 8:12
  It's not a huge amount, it's not 300% of the work, it might be 50% more work, but you're much more likely to get the buy in from the individual teams within those partners.
• 8:21
  And really that's what you're driving.
• 8:21
  Right?
• 8:24
  When we send out cold emails and we check the data and we're able to see click through rates, what you're really trying to do is not just shove loads of emails down, you're trying to drive up the click through percentage.
• 8:36
  And we've got to bring that same philosophy to to-partner marketing and targeting very specific communication flows is the way to make that happen.
• 8:45
  Eventually it's all about engagement and that's what you want to drive.
• 8:48
  Indeed, you can do mass emails and then it can seem like views are going up and stuff like that, but you want to see, based on the amount of emails I've sent, how much was it opened, how many times did people click to the actual call to action?
• 9:01
  And that's when you start to see, is there a to-partner communication actually resonating with partners?
• 9:06
  Yeah.
• 9:06
  And go and get feedback, right?
• 9:08
  I think it's always the key step that people miss where they go, oh, we're doing this and we're trying to improve over time and yet we've taken click through from 1% to 3% and I go, oh, awesome.
• 9:18
  You speak to your partners.
• 9:19
  You got channel account managers and partner success managers there who speak to those partners all the time.
• 9:25
  When was the last time they went round and asked the salespeople, hey, do you read our newsletter?
• 9:29
  Okay, why not?
• 9:30
  What would you like to see into it?
• 9:32
  And feed that back?
• 9:33
  You've got to make the sort of partner marketing team and the partner programs team life easier.
• 9:38
  So it's also incumbent on the salespeople that are doing floor walks in those partners to really use that as an arrow in their quiver to say, right, how else can I drip feed information into my partners and give them that two way flow?
• 9:53
  Yeah.
• 9:53
  I think right now we touched upon product introduction a lot, or product feature introduction.
• 9:58
  Do you have any other examples of types of to-partner communication that's important within the channel?
• 10:03
  Yeah.
• 10:03
  So what I'm a really big fan of is celebrating wins because what I think it can do is help drive value to your vendor and also help give partners ideas.
• 10:13
  So if you've suddenly closed a massive end-user, I'm going to pick my favorite football team, Man United.
• 10:19
  Say you've just closed Manchester United as a huge contract and you then build a case study.
• 10:25
  What I would then be doing is sending that case study out because one, you get to tie really big brand in, so it's going to get a lot of people's attention.
• 10:32
  And the second is, here's how you can position this type of sale into like minded endusers.
• 10:39
  So go and target sports team, athletic clubs, whatever it is.
• 10:43
  And that's a really great to-partner communication because if you put subject line Manchester United Win or something like that, people are going to click it and then they say, oh wow, this deal was closed.
• 10:57
  Great product.
• 10:57
  Oh my God.
• 10:58
  And you suddenly get that cachet of we're tying these two really strong brands together and then all your partners go, oh, there's an opportunity that I've never thought about in that way.
• 11:09
  What sports clubs do we work with?
• 11:11
  How can I implement it in that way?
• 11:12
  And that's one of my favorite things to do to send into salespeople specifically, because suddenly it's like, oh, that's really exciting and I want to be involved in that process.
• 11:22
  So it helps to boost their creativity a little bit as well.
• 11:25
  Yeah, the engagement is the right word, right?
• 11:28
  And that's what you're always trying to do.
• 11:30
  You're trying to generate your to-partner communication to generate an action.
• 11:34
  And usually that action is, can you position us in more deals?
• 11:38
  Can you introduce us into more end-users?
• 11:40
  Ultimately, that's what you're trying to do.
• 11:43
  And so you want to make sure you're building messages around brand, around what's in it for the partner and driving that in so high profitability, we've changed our pricing structure.
• 11:53
  Does it benefit you more?
• 11:54
  Whatever that looks like, we're going to give you marketing support.
• 11:57
  Generate and drive the action so that the partner goes, god, I actually really like working with this vendor because they're always on our side, they're trying to make us successful.
• 12:07
  That's the image and the engagement level you're after.
• 12:10
  Yeah, I like this one because how I look at to-partner communication, it's all about getting the attention of your partners.
• 12:16
  And this is actually an excellent way, especially with types of brands like this.
• 12:20
  Indeed.
• 12:20
  Like how do you get their attention but also spark something in them to actually drive them to action.
• 12:26
  Yeah, exactly.
• 12:27
  Go and do the same thing.
• 12:28
  Profile your partners, especially if you're dealing with large It partners where there's hundreds of people.
• 12:33
  Profile your partners into departments.
• 12:33
  Right.
• 12:35
  So sales, marketing and technical.
• 12:37
  And people will laugh when they listen to the podcast internally, but yeah, get a whiteboard map out exactly what level of communication you want to drive into those departments.
• 12:47
  What's the objective you're trying to get for them?
• 12:49
  From sales, it's drive more opportunities.
• 12:51
  From marketing, it's drive more end-user marketing.
• 12:54
  So what information can I provide them that makes their life easy.
• 12:58
  Did you know we can do this?
• 13:00
  And this is some of the problems that we see with the partner portal because we're just so reliant on people logging in and looking and instead the to-partner communication allows you to drive messaging in, but less frequent and more direct and clear call to actions.
• 13:15
  That's really what's going to drive the behavior you need.
• 13:18
  I agree and I think next to the examples we just gave, you have other types of to-partner communication like events, webinars training that they can follow, et cetera, everywhere.
• 13:29
  It's like, okay, how can you make it as specific as possible and bring it to the right partnerships there?
• 13:34
  And I think another thing that I would really like to address is how important it is to shift from vendor focus within your to-partner communication to partner focus.
• 13:43
  So what I always advise to people is with every type of to-partner communication you write, first write down what's in it for the partner question mark.
• 13:53
  If you have that at the top of your Word document or your Google Doc and then you start writing your email or your to-partner communication, you really get into the groove of where you look with everything I'm writing at the moment, I explain what's happening from our behalf, but then immediately what's in it for you?
• 14:09
  From our behalf?
• 14:09
  What's in it for you?
• 14:11
  And I think there you really get into to-partner communication on a quality level that they actually love reading because every time they think, yeah, whenever I open the emails or the to-partner communication of this vendor, I always get something out of it.
• 14:24
  And that's the cool thing.
• 14:25
  I think if you are able to make that shift that you will drive a lot more engagement with your to-partner engagement.
• 14:31
  Yeah, it sounds like you've had nicer mentors than me because I think early on in my sales career I was doing a sort of pitch training and I had an old manager who just used to shout who cares?
• 14:42
  Because that was it.
• 14:42
  It was like, oh, this is all the clever things we do.
• 14:44
  Who cares?
• 14:44
  This is what we're winning.
• 14:47
  Who cares?
• 14:48
  Because if you're not making it about the person you're talking to, no one cares.
• 14:52
  I can go, I've got a really nice car, massive house, who cares?
• 14:56
  Oh, but I want to work with you so that you make more money.
• 14:59
  Oh, now I care.
• 14:59
  And so you've got to frame the conversation around what you want the partner to do.
• 15:04
  Sometimes I do think we overcomplicate partner management, partner success to partner communication.
• 15:09
  We sometimes forget to say sales process and the engagement factor is the same thing you would do with customer success.
• 15:16
  You've got to build it around the partner's priority.
• 15:19
  So make sure you're orientating your marketing messaging too if you want to enable the marketing team.
• 15:25
  Why would they care?
• 15:27
  Oh, because this is going to drive this much engagement.
• 15:29
  This is what we've learned in the US.
• 15:30
  Now we're bringing it to Europe.
• 15:32
  We're going to make your life easier.
• 15:33
  We're going to make you more money.
• 15:34
  How do you frame the action, but not just explain how to do the action, but explain why the action is important.
• 15:42
  I agree there, maybe it's nice to repeat your three questions to always think about in terms of what's in it for the partner.
• 15:49
  Yeah.
• 15:49
  So whenever we talk about partner recruitment, the three things that I always make sure I build my strategy around is who should the partner target?
• 15:59
  So what's their ICP, how much money will they make, and how easy is it to sell?
• 16:03
  If you effectively answer those three questions, most partners will care because then they're suddenly like, right, we deal with those types of end-users or we have existing end-users on our book.
• 16:14
  It's very easy to sell and we're going to make this much money.
• 16:16
  As long as those ratio is correct, then you're going to be bought in.
• 16:20
  But you're absolutely right.
• 16:21
  There's no reason that should just be a recruitment message, should also be a reminder message.
• 16:26
  So if you're building new product, well, let's gear it around this or are we launching new feature?
• 16:32
  We're trying to attack this type of vertical.
• 16:34
  Let's build that story around what the partnerships priorities are.
• 16:39
  Yeah, and it perfectly fits.
• 16:40
  Like, for example, if we take the example of a product introduction, again, you start with what type of customer is the best fit for this product?
• 16:48
  So you help your partners with that, who's the ICP?
• 16:50
  Then you explain very explicitly what's in it for you, partner?
• 16:53
  Like how indeed, how much money can you make?
• 16:55
  What's the margin?
• 16:57
  And then eventually, how easy is it to sell?
• 16:59
  How am I going to enable you?
• 17:01
  What kind of training can you follow?
• 17:02
  What kind of marketing support are we going to give?
• 17:04
  And if you make sure within your to-partner communication that you hit all three of them, then you have a perfect message for your partner.
• 17:12
  And it's completely around the partner versus, hey, we have a new product.
• 17:15
  It's amazing and good luck with it.
• 17:17
  So I think I would say that's a nine out of ten message.
• 17:20
  The way I turn that into a ten out of ten message.
• 17:22
  Talk about a case study where you've won in that vertical.
• 17:24
  So if we're talking about product feature ad, here's how we won HSBC or, you know, in finance.
• 17:30
  So we're targeting sales with a particular finance message and then you end with a call to action, which is loop us into three opportunities and win X Voucher or whatever it is.
• 17:40
  Because suddenly you're like, oh, I very clearly understand what you've done.
• 17:44
  You've given me new product information.
• 17:46
  You've told me where I should target.
• 17:47
  You've told me that I should target.
• 17:49
  And you've also put an extra carrot at the end of the thing, which is win X Prize.
• 17:53
  Suddenly it's like, I'm really bought in to this strategy.
• 17:57
  Now you're never going to get 100% engagement, right?
• 18:00
  But that's far more likely than we've built a sales, marketing and technical newsletter around all the great innovations that we've done.
• 18:08
  We think we're really clever, we think we're really smart.
• 18:10
  That's boring, right?
• 18:12
  How can we drive it into the partner?
• 18:13
  How can we make this interesting and have fun with it?
• 18:16
  Right?
• 18:16
  I think that's the thing that sometimes people forget is we work in a corporate environment.
• 18:22
  Oh, we've got to be really serious.
• 18:23
  No, you don't make it enjoyable for them and for you and everyone's going to be more engaged.
• 18:30
  I think you've touched upon something interesting with incentives.
• 18:33
  What role do you think incentives play within your to-partner communication and also to bring that fun element into your partner engagement?
• 18:40
  Yeah.
• 18:41
  So look, at the end of the day, I think the reason we love partnerships and channels so much is people buy from people, right?
• 18:47
  And it's the epitome of that business model.
• 18:49
  And usually what people buy from people means is if products basically the same and if go to market is basically the same, I'm going to choose the person that I enjoy working with the most.
• 19:01
  And so, yeah, you've got to ensure that your product design is close.
• 19:05
  But from my expectations, most products, most leading products are about parity with their competitors.
• 19:12
  And then it's the job of the partner programs team to make sure that go to markets offering the same is the partner, is it just as easy to sell and am I going to make just as much money?
• 19:21
  If you're winning, if you're equal or close there, then it's who do I enjoy working with the most?
• 19:27
  And that's where the incentives play the difference.
• 19:29
  And I think sometimes people overvalue incentives because if your products nowhere near as good or if you go to markets worse, doesn't matter how good the incentive is, you will not win.
• 19:39
  However, they can also undervalue incentives because if those first two pieces are close, incentives and enjoying working with someone is going to be the differentiating factor.
• 19:49
  And so that's where you really want to double down and drive incentives and try and drive a macro level with a very clear call to action in a school board because then it becomes very fun.
• 20:01
  And that's also where you can get creative because incentives shouldn't only be monetary, but also definitely in terms of activities, in terms of nice things to get.
• 20:10
  And that's also where I think to-partner marketing incentives play a crucial role there as well.
• 20:14
  Like how can we position things that people can have great experiences with us as a vendor versus just a monetary or financial relationship?
• 20:23
  Yeah, there's actually great data to say money is less of a motivator than most people think.
• 20:29
  So people.
• 20:30
  I tell people I'm very money motivated.
• 20:30
  Right?
• 20:32
  And I think lots of people say that they're very money motivated.
• 20:36
  And then there's a really key question that you can ask people, and I do it a lot in an interview process when you're trying to work out how money motivated someone is, which is, what if I paid you 20% more?
• 20:45
  You'd be a cleaner rather than the job you're coming in for.
• 20:50
  And almost always they'll say no.
• 20:52
  And it's because they're not money motivated, they're status motivated.
• 20:56
  And money is very correlated tightly to status.
• 20:59
  And so that's why when I run incentives, there's a leaderboard because it's not just about the money.
• 21:05
  It's about, oh, I'm beating the guy next to me.
• 21:07
  Oh, I'm the top salesperson in the office.
• 21:10
  Oh, I'm winning.
• 21:11
  And sometimes you can even do partner versus partner.
• 21:13
  And that's awesome because then you say, oh, we're beating them, and it becomes this rivalry.
• 21:18
  And that's really what drives action over and above.
• 21:22
  Oh, every referral you get 50 quid.
• 21:25
  That's not as tight as running a leaderboard.
• 21:27
  Sometimes you even need the leaderboard, even if it's a financial thing, because you want people to be competing.
• 21:34
  Yeah.
• 21:34
  And I think as long as it's in a fun way, then that can be really successful in your channel.
• 21:38
  So I need leaderboard, but then also position it in such a way like, hey, if you're on top, then these are the rewards.
• 21:44
  Or make a little joke about it, for example.
• 21:46
  I think that's really the way forward.
• 21:48
  But I fully agree it's very good to get that competitiveness within your channel as well.
• 21:52
  Yeah.
• 21:53
  And the way I like it, right, partners things, we've done a lot of like race days where you go down to a track and you suddenly see the team come together in a really different way because you're all trying to beat each other's times.
• 22:05
  And that competitive, friendly rivalry is actually really what builds teams, especially in a good sales culture.
• 22:13
  And so, yeah, you want to make sure that people, when they think of your brand, they don't just think about how great your product is, they don't just think about how much money they make.
• 22:21
  But if you get those two things right, you're really going well.
• 22:23
  But if they also tie you into, god, I actually just love when that Cam is in the office and it always invites us around and yeah, it's really good fun and yeah, we've gone out for beers and there's this great incentive.
• 22:34
  That's really the job of sort of partner success managers or channel account managers.
• 22:39
  But I much prefer the term partner success managers because we're driving the behavior that makes them win, makes them happy, and in turn we win.
• 22:48
  Yeah.
• 22:48
  And then you really get to like a 360 partner program where you have everything sorted.
• 22:54
  Yeah.
• 22:54
  And it's about having those very divisible lines in terms of who is responsible for what?
• 22:59
  And that's why I always like breaking it down into technologies responsible for product programs are responsible for go to market.
• 23:05
  But then your channel account manager and your sales teams, they're responsible for engagement, right?
• 23:10
  And what they're responsible for is making sure that the partner, whether they're getting a newsletter or whether I'm walking into their office and buying everyone pizzas, they're engaged into us as a brand and getting that feedback into the partner program or the partner marketing team so that they can improve that two.
• 23:27
  Partner communication is incredibly important for channel account managers to do and something I don't see enough of.
• 23:34
  Yeah, I agreed there.
• 23:35
  And I think if I look at to-partner communication, one of the crucial things to get right is that partner segmentation.
• 23:41
  And the only way to do this is by knowing your partners extremely well.
• 23:45
  And I think if you look at it from that perspective, there are many variables to segment your partnerships on.
• 23:51
  Of course.
• 23:51
  I think in the last episode, episode 14, we touched upon almost all of them.
• 23:56
  What type of vertical, what type of region, what type of user within the partner, et cetera.
• 24:01
  And before you really get that very specific messaging and the to-partner communication to the right stakeholders within your partners, you first need to make sure that you have that in place.
• 24:11
  So make sure within your database, whether it's in your CRM, your marketing automation, your partner platform, that you have everything together, that you know exactly what type of verticals are they targeting on and what is their service region.
• 24:23
  Are they communicating in French with their end-users or in English?
• 24:27
  Because if you know that, then you can start making list and segmenting your communication and bring it specifically to them.
• 24:34
  Yeah, exactly.
• 24:35
  And it's funny, I was smiling then when you talk about language, the amount of global newsletters I see go out in English and you just think you're miles away, that no one in Germany is reading it, no one in France is reading it.
• 24:48
  Most of Europe aren't reading it.
• 24:49
  They're going to see English.
• 24:50
  They're going to see a boring newsletter and go, what's the point?
• 24:54
  And so when we talk about impact my favorite word, when we talk about impact, it's just a waste of time doing that newsletter.
• 25:01
  You're better off not doing it or you're better off just redefining it and just making it a sales information update with a clean call to action and just going, we're going to get more impacts from this more defined piece of work than just macro update, macro update.
• 25:17
  And I think that can differ per vendor what the success is of English communication to those type of regions.
• 25:23
  But again, that's why partner segmentation is so crucial because then you can actually measure per segment, let's say indeed France or Germany in this example, is the engagement lower there with our to-partner communication than.
• 25:36
  It is in the English speaking countries.
• 25:37
  If we communicate in English, if the answer is very clear yes, you know that it's a very good investment to translate it.
• 25:44
  If the answer is no, then it's fine to continue.
• 25:46
  But again, segmentation is crucial there.
• 25:46
  Yeah.
• 25:49
  And you've got to measure, right.
• 25:51
  You've got to be measuring constantly.
• 25:52
  And I would very much, if I'm running those teams, I would very much be setting strategic goals, probably in an OKR format, given that I love OKRs around, how do we generate significant improvements in engagement and I would be benchmarking to partner communication more often.
• 26:08
  And if we need, if we see it as a viable communication tool that's driving viable engagement in some territories and not others, what does the partner team need to do?
• 26:18
  What does the content team need to do to really drive the engagement in those areas as well?
• 26:23
  Yeah.
• 26:23
  And then I think finally as well, the email is getting more and more crowded.
• 26:29
  Not really, sorry.
• 26:33
  I understand.
• 26:36
  Luckily your Dutch is improving.
• 26:40
  We'll be doing this podcast in Dutch. Don't worry.
• 26:44
  What we see more and more as well, of course, is that Mail is getting more and more crowded, actually.
• 26:50
  But what are ways that channel account managers and channel teams can think about?
• 26:55
  And what other ways of communication is there besides, of course, visiting your partner to communicate with your partner?
• 27:01
  Sure.
• 27:02
  So I think, yes, there's quite a few ways in which you can communicate, right.
• 27:06
  There's obviously face to face and there's email that are within your partner platform.
• 27:11
  Targeted messaging, you can do that.
• 27:13
  Some partner platforms have chat and message drops in there.
• 27:17
  But then realistically, again, putting the partner at the center, I'd be asking them how they communicate internally.
• 27:25
  Now, I don't know about you, but my last company, I worked at Zoom and now I work here and we use Slack.
• 27:30
  I use almost no email.
• 27:33
  The only time I write an email is if I'm putting detailed content together that I want to save later.
• 27:38
  So an action plan, a really detailed summary, and then I will send one email.
• 27:43
  So I maybe send less than ten emails a day and I really keep that really tight because we use Slack and that's how I would like to communicate.
• 27:51
  It's far more effective, far more engaging.
• 27:53
  And so then putting the partner first, you want to follow them down that same train.
• 27:57
  Most partners are using teams, most partners are using Slack.
• 28:00
  And so you want to be able to segment and use the communication format that's most valuable to them.
• 28:06
  So stop using your portal where no one logs in and no one reads and instead go, well, actually, this entire office uses teams.
• 28:13
  That's how they communicate everything.
• 28:16
  We should be tying into that strategy, not deciding how we want to communicate because it's easier for us.
• 28:22
  Attention is the most wanted resources in the channel and you should go there where the attention of your partners is, and that's 100% in the workspaces.
• 28:30
  Whether they are using slack team.
• 28:32
  Zoom, Cisco, Webex doesn't matter.
• 28:35
  You just need to find out where are they in need, what do they use.
• 28:37
  And I think if you have Slack and Team, probably you got most of it sorted in terms of chat communication internally nowadays, and then bring your to-partner communication to those channels, because if you bring it there, you are 100% sure that the opening rate is going to massively increase.
• 28:54
  Just as we see with WhatsApp, for example, where the opening rates are often 90% plus versus 20% ish in email.
• 29:02
  Yeah.
• 29:02
  And what's great as well, if you use those chat functions, you can actually slimline your content down to like two or three sentences, which means people are going to read it.
• 29:12
  The reason WhatsApp is so good is because people will just write two sentences.
• 29:16
  Hey, need a meeting?
• 29:16
  When are you free?
• 29:18
  Awesome.
• 29:18
  Right?
• 29:19
  If I open a WhatsApp message and I see a page, there's just no chance I'm reading it.
• 29:22
  Right.
• 29:22
  And so the same goes for Teams and Slack.
• 29:25
  If you just want to talk about like, hey, we've just done this really cool thing with Man United, or, we want to give you an update on where you are in the leaderboard.
• 29:35
  Cool.
• 29:35
  You can just drop, like, a really quick chat, then you can up the frequency, but you've just got to make sure it's always interesting.
• 29:42
  Yeah.
• 29:42
  The relevancy and I think less is more like you can better send a few very specific messages to the right users and then segment a little bit more and create multiple types of communication there, then do it all the time because it's with every type of channel.
• 29:56
  It doesn't matter where we are heading in the future.
• 29:59
  Communication channel.
• 30:00
  I mean, with this one, by the way, is it's always like as soon as you start flooding it, then people start losing attention there.
• 30:07
  So the more delicate you work with it, the better it is.
• 30:12
  Yeah.
• 30:12
  And keep it engaging, right.
• 30:13
  I know so many people who've stopped using Twitter because they just can't log onto it because it causes depression.
• 30:19
  They're so bored of having it, whereas they use other platforms.
• 30:23
  I know we love LinkedIn because it's like, oh, his optimistic post.
• 30:26
  He's a really engaging thing.
• 30:27
  He's really thoughtful thing.
• 30:29
  Okay, well, that means I want to spend time you've got to treat your to-partner communication the same way.
• 30:34
  I think that's a beautiful ending of this episode today.
• 30:38
  Maybe to summarize briefly for the listeners, we've spoken a lot about to-partner communication today, starting with what's the objective?
• 30:46
  And that you always need a very clear call to action within your to-partner communication.
• 30:51
  We've touched upon the types of to-partner communication there, and then I forgot about it.
• 30:57
  Park and focus communication.
• 30:59
  Wait, I'm going to do this one again, please say I think that's a beautiful ending of today's episode.
• 31:11
  Yeah, and I think that's a beautiful ending of today's episode there.
• 31:16
  Maybe to briefly summarize for our listeners today, we've talked about to-partner communication and that you need a very clear objective for every type of to-partner communication that you send to your partners, but also one very specific call to action.
• 31:31
  We've spoken about what types of to-partner communication should you use, how do you make it relevant for your partners?
• 31:37
  And most specifically, how do you shift from vendor focus to partner focus to partner communication?
• 31:42
  And then finally, that it's crucial to really look for a multichannel approach.
• 31:46
  So not just email, but what type of communication channels can you use to drive engagement towards your partners?
• 31:53
  I really hope you enjoyed today's episode.
• 31:56
  We definitely did, and I hope to see you next time.
• 31:58
  If you liked it, please share it with your colleagues.
• 32:01
  Send me or Alex LinkedIn DM we're very active there and see you next next week.