Latest / Partnerships Unraveled / 057 - Martin Whitehead of SAP - Navigating the Noise: Managing Communication in the Partner Ecosystem

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057 - Martin Whitehead of SAP - Navigating the Noise: Managing Communication in the Partner Ecosystem · Partnerships Unraveled

• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Parking Ships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of parking ships and channel on a weekly basis.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: My name is Rick van der Bosch and I'm the CEO and founder at Chennex, and I'm here together with Martin Whitehead, senior Director Global Marketing at SAP.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Martin, how are you doing today?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Very well, rick, it's great to be here.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Likewise, I'm excited for today.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: With your experience, martin, in the channel actually for so long already, but also definitely in, specifically, the parking marketing area, I think we're going to have a very interesting conversation.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I hope so.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to be good.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Let's get this, let's get right in right.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Martin.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I was looking at your LinkedIn profile, actually, and what really interested me was that you made quite some big changes and we had a bit of a discussion already together prior to recording, which is around that actually there's a lot of noise at the moment, right now, right in the channel.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: How have you experienced that lately and what are you seeing there?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's not a, I don't think it's necessarily a challenge, it's just exclusively in the partner world and the ecosystem space.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I think you know, I think, as it relates to getting to your audience, the amount of noise that everyone is experiencing us and our partners and our customers and everyone experiencing a very high level of background noise and getting information coming at them from multiple directions at all times.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So I think it's a big challenge for everyone to figure out how do we get through that noise in an effective way.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: And, as it relates specifically to the partner space, I think it's amplified.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Actually, I think you know any vendor that has an ecosystem of a certain level of maturity likely has a central, managed communications portfolio comprising of a central partner website portal where there's self-service to get information, and around that portfolio will be, around that central website will be a number of globally managed communication vehicles, whether that be newsletters, hopefully profile driven right and customized One offer, emails to partner social media channels, podcasts, right events.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So you know partners are hearing information from those trusted sources, but outside of that, they might also be hearing in a less managed way from regions and market units or solution areas, online business areas in the business.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: They're probably getting system notifications as it relates to their partner relationship legal notifications, programmatic emails and notifications about administrating their MDF, reimbursement or system access to certain things and requesting license keys and so they're getting a lot of information outside of that central resource of communications they receive from the vendor.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: And maybe the partner attends an event, a customer event, and so then they're on a different, maybe a different list of resources that they're getting communicated that through, and maybe the partner is a customer of the vendor as well, so they have a multi-layer relationship with the vendor as a partner, maybe multiple types of partner.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: They might be building or selling, or building and selling and implementing, and then they might be a customer of the vendor as well.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: So they receive communications in that arena as their customer, as it relates to their customer relationship with the vendor and then the partner.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: If you take all of that information that a partner might be receiving and then you can multiply that situation by having many number of different vendor relationships they have right, how many you know?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Partners are not just one stop shops anymore.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: They're not just working with one vendor, they have multiple relationships.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I think the noise is deafening and I think, as it relates to the partner space specifically, I think a lot of the times our partners feel like they're drinking from a fire hose and they're struggling to figure out where to focus their efforts and their very limited time resources.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: It's a big challenge for everyone.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like the way you phrase that actually, and also what I like here and read also from like all the marketing gurus, et cetera, et cetera, is that nowadays, attention is the most valuable asset there is, and I think that that's really what you see, both in the consumer world, but also in B2B and specifically for us in partner.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Of course, there is so much more like content being pushed out like all the time, and everyone is creating it, and partners as well, specifically, then, but also as consumers, we see more and more content, and that's really the big question, right, like, how do we stand out from the crowd and make sure that our message is resonating but also actually receive by our partners?
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: I think that's that's something very interesting.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: There's one thing you touched upon which I find very interesting actually, which is also indeed like that is not just the global brand communicating to the partner, you as the global team, but you also have the regions, different lines of business.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: How do you make sure you find the right balance there?
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: But also, is there a way you track that, for example, that you make sure that it's actually or orchestrated in such a manner?
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think you know, I think we will have a responsibility to do things responsibly right, as there's organizations, I think there's, you know.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I think there's one specific answer to the problem.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's a very rounded approach to try and address this issue.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: You know, I think we have to.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: We have to establish what are our trusted sources of information, that the partner should be trusting, and optimize those to their full extent and continue to evaluate them and continue to make sure that they're working in an ineffective way.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And yes, clearly we measure the impact of our variety of different vehicles as it relates to, you know, the partner portal, or our newsletters, or our social channels, or our events or our webinars, our podcasts, etc.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Etc.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: We continue to evaluate and look at those to make sure that having a measurable impact on the business and that there is there's content consumption happening there and that we're helping to activate our partners.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: But I mean, as it relates to that, you know, we have to continually look at that.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: But also we need to make sure that when we're measuring these things, that we're listening to the results and making adjustments along the way.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: And, importantly, we don't want to get you know, some things will always perform better than others, and that's okay, and some mechanisms just simply work better and perform better than others.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: And, you know, I think we have to make sure that we're turning up in the places and the ways that partners are consuming content and if that means that means having a very on the channel approach to it and knowing that some things will work better than others and the things that work really well, how we use those selectively so that we don't, you know, sort of oversaturate those or oversort of emphasize those at the expense of everything else.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: So it's a very much a rounded approach and we, you know, we continue to talk in this into our partners in terms of what we're doing and how we can make improvements.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think that omnichannel as a piece, specifically, is very crucial there because, I mean, that's what you see, certain channels can get saturated and that's why it works so good to have like that multi channel or omnichannel approach to your partners, because you trigger them in different types of areas with the right communication at that at that time.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: And I think that, indeed, is the only way and I like how he phrased it like find out where your partners are, get what their trusted sources are to get their information.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: That's where you want to continuously bring your message as well and then in different areas.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: So every time you say top of mind with the partners there, I was just thinking while you were saying that, like, are there certain metrics that you are tracking, for example, or things that are extra important when you are tracking the consumption of your content or the messaging to the partners?
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we obviously have pretty deep measurements as it relates to usage of our various vehicles, whether it be newsletters and kick-throughs, etc.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Whether it be content that resides on the portal where we're typically driving people to get the information.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: And it's also important to say that the performance of some of those vehicles and some of the assets that reside in them will also vary by partner type.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: As it relates to how we are engaging with some of our larger strategic partners in a more white-blab, high-touch approach is different than how we might be engaging and what we would do with a larger volume of partners that may be experiencing more of a self-service given gap situation in terms of getting the information that they need.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: So I mean there are definitely differences within the segments of our audiences in terms of what we're doing with them and what works best and what we're able to do at scale with those different relationships.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, I mean we continue to look at, obviously, the performance of our different campaigns that we might be rolling out, our different communications that we might be rolling out, and what is working with the partners in terms of asset consumption and types of consumption.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I think we're seeing a lot like everyone is nowadays is time is everything.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Time is of the essence and so netting things down and condensing things for our audience in a consumer way is critical, and also having real discipline in the business in terms of identifying what's working and doubling down on those things.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: In terms of, maybe, assets, this set of assets works really well, Then don't go outside and beyond that.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Necessarily you don't want to have a situation where you have a sales guide and then you have a guide for sales.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Same thing for something different.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Share content.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Be very explicit with what you're delivering and have efficiency and discipline in that definitely.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: What we at Chenix always love to talk about with interactions with our customers or partners is moments that matter, and that's something I really like to think about.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Within your partner communication as well, like with everything you send to the partners, is it the moment that matter?
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Are you providing value?
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Is it an important thing for the partner?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: And, indeed, with every type of partner communication going out, what's in it for the partner that can really help us?
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I think the problem of getting those moments and making those moments memorable and sticky and valuable is going to become even more important.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think you can have a conversation with anyone today without the topic of AI coming up and as you look at it as it relates to this situation in terms of information delivery, information overload and those kinds of things, I think.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: AI is going to be a huge generational change and it's still very much in its infancy.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I think we're already starting to see the impact of thinking.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: The early phases AI is going to give people efficiencies and the level of automation that will increase that volume of content.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: That ability to create content becomes quicker and easier for everyone, and so that noise volume is instantly getting dialed up from 10 to 12.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: And then in the second phase, hopefully, as the AI or people figure out how to embrace it in a more less of a content volume creation standpoint.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: But I think the second phase will be that personalization, that automation of personalization and making things even more relevant using AI.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: That would be, I think, the second phase.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: It will maybe help alleviate some of that content volume issue and I think those that are successful in adopting AI to do that for them will be more adept at rising above the noise that is generally out then.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: I think you're spot on with your analysis there and I expect exactly the same.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: That the first, we really see a bump in more and more content, so it's even going to be hard and you really need to prepare for that as a partner marketer, because there will be more noise.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: But then, once we get grip on it and also find out how can we actually leverage gen generative AI to make our content even more localized, even more verticalized, etc.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: And more segmented on our partners, that's where we can make it even more relevant as well, and that's when you'll see the attention of the partners increasing again.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, and I think there is always a pressure to keep moving forward.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: As it should be keep moving forward, keep growing more successful, more of everything.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: But I think there's actually like a nuance within that Moving forward isn't always moving on to the next thing.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I think if the business has patience and discipline to evaluate and really scrutinize what you're doing today and optimize those things to their full extent, there's a huge amount of value in that.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: What's working, what's not working, and double down and see if you can extract maximum returns from those existing tactics that we have today.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: I'll give you an example, and this is not my example.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I heard of this thing probably a year ago, and that proves how sticky it was for me.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: But there was a CMO in a company called MyTag, which is a digital identity solutions company, and they looked at something in terms of like, not moving on, but looking at what you're doing and scrutinizing and seeing what maximum value you can extract from this one thing.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: They were looking at personas.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Companies have personas as a way to identify who their targets are, create their optimal journeys and what is an optimal content for those personas.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Well, this particular company, the CMO and this company they had a persona for their business and they gave their persona a personality, which is brilliant, it's absolutely genius.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: And they gave the persona a name.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: They called him Pete, and then they gave the persona an acronym and it was WWPD.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: What would Pete do?
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: And so what they?
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: did with this thing is they took personas and they just looked at this one thing and said this is valuable to us, but we're really extracting the maximum returns, but parallel, that is this persona sort of tactic and initiative.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: So it gave them a personality and a name and an acronym what would Pete do?
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: So now, everyone in them, they proliferated through the business and everyone in the business, from the front to the back office, from HR to payrolls, marketing to sales, to pre-sales, to development, all thinking what would Pete do?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And that's a very powerful thing.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: All of a sudden, that persona is working for the business at all levels and allowing and empowering all of the employees across the organisation to question what would Pete do and what am I doing to help Pete?
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: And that's massive.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I mean it's huge.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's honestly, it's genius and I think there is a lot to be said about that is looking at something and really scrutinizing it, and that not always moving forward is moving on.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: We have to look at our individual things that we're doing and make sure that we are extracting the maximum value.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: You know, if we continue to move on, I think there's a situation whereby, you know, if we're constantly moving on to the next thing and there isn't the longevity and we're not optimizing, then the things that we're trying to get into our audiences tend to sort of hit the ice and skid off, as opposed to hit the ice and melt and kind of seep in, which is what we want.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I mean that's.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I think again, it's just an example that I heard of and I thought it was truly brilliant, but I think there is a lot of value in terms of, you know, moving forward isn't always moving on.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: It's looking at what we're doing today and really trying to bring every ounce of value out of those individual things before we add and move on.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, first of all, I love the persona example indeed.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: I already want to think of that also in terms of, let's say, translating that to your partner organization.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe for our listeners, your influence is only in the partner organization Such a good mindset to what would be to or what would partner do Like give it a nice name and need them, what would he find out, he or she find about it, et cetera and I think that's indeed a brilliant way of really, within everything you create whether it's winning your program, whether it's communication, marketing campaigns, et cetera all the time think about that perspective and that it will really drive your whole organization towards driving value for the partner in such a case.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, and the team that I'm in now at SAP, we're responsible for the communications to our partners, enabling them and activating them on monetizing.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Ip, creating demand, accelerating their business, driving cloud revenue.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: We're responsible for communication, too, and activating those partners.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: And in SAP there's 25,000 customers.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: It's a huge partner ecosystem.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: We're also responsible for advocating and amplifying the importance of partners inside and outside of SAP.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: And arguably you could say that, you know, advocating internally is equally as important, because the proximity of partner and vendor and in terms of their alignment and strategic alignment and their collaboration together, the closer the vendor and partner are aligned, so it's going to benefit both parties and ultimately to the benefit of the customer at the end of the day.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: So I think yeah, I mean that, for example, is interesting because it just rallies the entire organization around this one objective and it puts the customer at the center of everything that you do, whether that be yourselves or with partners or partners with you and that kind of thing.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: So you know very interesting.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes it very visual and alive indeed.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I think, if you position it like that and I think the other thing you touched upon was also interesting and that's also a discussion I have with a lot of positive discussion, I would say with a lot of channel marketers and partner marketers which is around indeed, making sure you continue and optimizing the things you're already doing I think what's in our minds a lot is that, oh, we've sent this already to a partner sometimes so we can't use it again, or the partner knows it already.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: But I think, going back to your point around the noise we can promise to the listeners, I think the power really is in the repetition.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And don't shy away of refurbishing and utilizing content again, because probably your partner has received 20 other different types of communication that day and it's going back and forth.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: So I really like that point as well, because that's very true.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: It's like both keep focusing on what's working and optimizing it, but therefore also don't throw away, so to say, your old communication or marketing too soon, because probably it's still super useful to make sure to keep that top of mind with your partners.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah you know, patience against the backdrop of business, which by nature is very impatient, is a real skill.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Having that patience and discipline on topics, you know, I think it's very easy on the vendor side to have impatience.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: We've talked about that topic for quite a significant amount of time now.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Everyone knows about it.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: People are tired of hearing about it.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's a trap.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: We can't assume that they've even heard about it once yet and yet we're exhausted by it.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: So there is definitely value to be had in being patient and being selective with what you're communicating and potentially, you know, identifying and being very selective and identifying those maybe three to five things that are really going to move the needle for the partners they're really going to move the needle for their customers and doubling down on those for the long haul, consistently and, like you say repeatedly, there's a lot of value to be had in that as it relates to getting through the noise and getting traction.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: So I was like find a couple of things you can say in 1000 ways.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: That's indeed the marketing lesson I always learned and also actually I'm implementing myself on my own LinkedIn, in the podcast, et cetera.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: There's a couple of messages and we're talking about it in very different ways, but that's the way you really get recognition, but also from your partners, that they understand your message but also start to like, attach your message, that message through your brand, and I think that's what you want eventually with the communication towards the partners.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you need to establish that sort of thread that's through everything.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: We're talking about noise and there's a lot of noise, but you also need to have that sort of background noise that's always there.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: It's very comforting that it gives that baseline.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So when a partner is coming to the table to maybe take advantage of a benefit that you're pushing to them or an opportunity that you're presenting to them, if they have that background noise and understanding about what it is and they come to the table at a higher level or able to execute, then if they haven't heard it, there's definitely value in those things and creating that continual drum beat around some of those top strategic topics in a very consistent way.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: I like the word drum beat there.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Indeed, like making sure that there's a continuous and a consistent communication to the partners, One of the things that struck me.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Indeed, 25,000 partners, that's a lot.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: And then also, indeed, how do you make sure you keep the content relevant for a specific segment of partners?
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: It's a question I got a lot from both listeners and from customers and vendors we're speaking with.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: What type of things do you utilize for segmentation when you send out communication, etc?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: What do you find most important to personalize content for partners?
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we have a variety of different capabilities.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I think there's obviously a lot of with an ecosystem of over 25,000 partners.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of maturity there, a lot of longevity there in terms of how long it's got taken to get to that point.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: People that are starting out are still operationalizing.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: They're very much at scale.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: So some of those things in terms of personalization have to be done at the partner.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: We provide the capabilities to put the onus on the partner to complete the profile and profile themselves to ensure that we're giving them the information that fits their profile.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: So some of that stuff happens as part of the technology stack.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I mean some of that happens as a capability of the stack that we're using to communicate to partners and obviously some of those things will be decided by their relationship with the vendor, with us.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: So there will be certain things that will determine what they see because they are a partner of a particular type.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe they're a sales, value-added reseller, or maybe they're a development partner, or maybe they're a service partner, maybe they are one of those partners in the program at a different level.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: So there are different things that they get based on their level within the program, against their type.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: So some things are determined by their relationship with us as to what they'll see.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: So I mean, if we have a body of a thousand things that anyone could see, based on their relationship with SAP, they might see 300 of those because they're a value-added reseller.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: They may see 350 of those because they're a gold value-added reseller, for example.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: So there are some things that are profile-driven at the organizational level and then we will ask that are defined by their contractual relationship with the vendor, with SAP.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: And then there are other things that will be determined by the user.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: So an individual within that partner organization will be able to come in and say I'm in development, I'm in sales, I am the CEO of the company, I am, you know, and so, based on their profile in terms of their role, they'll see another subset, if that helps us filter, and then they will be able to select preferences as well, you know.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: So I might be in sales and we're authorized in.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: You know a particular solution set that I'm just focused on this subset of relationships.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: So I want to see that information.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: So that's how we do it at that level.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: You know there's different levels of filtering, based on profile completion at the organization or at the individual level, and that helps us get the right information to the right people in the right way in multiple ways, like we were saying earlier in the on-mich hand approach.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And then there are other things that we obviously have at our disposal in more of a white glove scenario, and I think a very powerful mechanism that continues to get traction in terms of getting the right information to the right people and segmenting to a certain point is using events.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: It's still a mechanism that I think industry-wide whether that be in-person, virtual hybrid you know high-end, you know productions and low-rater webinars a good way of getting the information into your audience in a targeted way.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was actually something that really struck to me, when reading through your LinkedIn as well, around how you actually converted the annual event into first a digital event, but then even further.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Could you elaborate a bit more, because I think there's some very interesting learnings there.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think everyone was forced to change their event strategy right 2020.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: No one had a choice.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: You know, the pandemic hit and everyone had to pivot and everyone did and I think people were somewhat surprised by the results of making question a little bit of what they were doing.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I think people continue to question okay, well, we had to make that pivot.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: The real, the old world is coming back a little bit, but I think it's changed the event landscape forever.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: 2020, you know, people saw great engagement rates because the workforce at large found themselves sitting at home wondering what to do initially.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: So, you know, an event was a great way to to to, you know, use up a little bit of time as people were sort of navigating that new working environment from home.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And I think in 2021, we started to see the market obviously flooded with virtual events.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Event fatigue was real and it kicked in quickly.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: And I think in 2021, we had a you know, we had a global in-person event every year called SAP Global Partner Summit 2020 happened.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: We basically converted that to an online version of that, that in-person event.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: And in 2021, we sort of repeated that annual event virtual event again, because obviously the world was still very much shut down.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: But I think in 2021, a lot of people were struggling.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people were seeing that because it's a long roof, virtual events that were happening, the fact that people were now very much second in their virtual working environment.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Grabbing people's attention as far as difficult, maintaining it even more difficult, and I think I kind of call 2021 the year of throwing money at the problem.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of companies, through productive production, quality and platform interface functionality, is a way of solving the problem, and I don't think I did.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I think people were like we're still not seeing the engagement rates that we want.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: We're still seeing things fall.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: So when 2020 came around, as it relates to events, everyone pivoted.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: By the time 22 came, I think everyone again started to reevaluate and say, okay, what are we doing with our events?
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Some stuff's opening back up, but virtual is definitely still a lot of value to be had then, and so we pivoted again and again.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I think it comes back to that topic of look at what you're doing and is it working for you?
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Is there a way to extract more value from it?
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: And don't be afraid to change it without maybe trying to do the next new thing.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: So we took our annual virtual global event and and switched it out with a series, a virtual series of events that were we did for in 2022, we reached a larger audience cumulatively over those four events and we did in that one time event.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: We had much higher satisfaction ratings, as we would obviously ask you know and poll our attendees.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: We saw higher retention and I think we reacted to what the partners were telling us.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: They said don't the broad-based, large-scale year event is great, but there's so much information and in some instances it doesn't go deep enough on the topic to help me, you know, take a capitalise and take advantage of it.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: So we went to a series and each of our episodes was one topic, one high-value, strategically important topic, and that way we knew that we were never going to attract a massive audience for that, because it's a subset, but we knew that the people that were coming, it was relevant to them, and then it was always had a live component really live.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: This is another thing that's interesting that the new audience might like Don't ask your attendees to register for a live event that isn't actually live, it's simulated life.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: They don't like that.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: It's a funny thing.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: It's a nuance, because we tend to do selfishly from a marketing standpoint to get a massive people there in a given time and day.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: But if it's not live I don't really like doing that and it's a little bit insensitive to their time and resources.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: But we this series single topic, live, live component, but married with a set of curated resources that would help the partner you know assets, tools, steps that they could take, training, whatever it might have been.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Here's the opportunity we tell it about, tell you about it in approximately an hour live, and here is a set of resources to immediately help you capitalise and take advantage of it.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: That's worked very well and it just keeps it very focused for the audience and we've seen great success there and that now continues and now the in-person stuff starts to come into it.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: So it's very much a hybrid model.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: But if we continue to look at that and we continue to scrutinise it as well, the nice thing of a series, an ongoing series, is you can continue to scrutinise, you can continue to ask is this good, is it bad?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Let's look at it again, let's try something new, let's try something different, let's adjust it here.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: So there's a good way to optimise and measure along the way.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think indeed, that's where there's massive possibility within doing series Indeed.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: It's continuous optimisation instead of when you host a completely new event, you're doing a lot of things completely different as well.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: So I really like that.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Looking at those series, how did you determine what kind of teams and where the teams geared around the specific solution set of SAP, or how were they categorised?
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: when we think a bit in terms of partner segmentation as well, so we would choose the topics that were that we felt that the partners maybe were telling us as well through various channels, whether that be the way that we survey partners consistently and the way that we get interaction with partners on a one-to-one basis, maybe through their account managers and stuff.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: But you know, there's certainly signals in the business that help us identify what we believe the topics that we're going to be of most importance and most we're going to move the needle for the partner.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Again, it comes back to that question that the partners continually ask is where do I focus my limited resources?
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Where am I going to get the biggest bang for my buck?
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: And so we would identify those topics and they could, you know, they ranged from anything from a very solution-specific topic that might be around something like literally an episode that's about a solution and the opportunity it represents and how partners could, you know, sell, build, service, develop on top of that solution and build opportunity for themselves and their customers.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Or it could be more broader-based, around a sort of a topic area like, you know, driving demand or building pipeline, you know, qualifying, creating pipeline of qualified leads and that kind of stuff, so marketing topics.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Or it could be programmatic stuff around.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: You know new features of the program that helps them differentiate themselves within the market.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: So it could be.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: You know the topics are pretty broad-reaching but they could be very specific as it relates to a solution and in terms of the segmentation as to who would attend, it just varied by the topic.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: So some were more broad-based, the hotter topics, would you know there was maybe more noise happening around it.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Like you know, if we did one on AI now we would get great traction because it's just a hot topic and so the partners want to know.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what's you know?
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: You know I want to learn more about what SAP strategy is as it relates to AI and what's my opportunity within that strategy.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: You know it's clear that that's a big topic and that's probably one that will hit the series at some point very soon.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, so who attends depends really on the topic.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: But, like I say we, you know we.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I think we definitely reached a different type of audience with a lot of the episodes that maybe we didn't always reach.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: So it's an interesting model.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: We continue to refine it as well.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really like to hear it and it's also one of the first times I'm hearing it in this forum actually and I think that's where the strength is you go from a very big, let's say, bit of a one-size-fits-all event to way small, to maybe way smaller events with a smaller audience, but then way more engaged, way more satisfied and therefore also more likeability of them coming back to other events, and I think that's exactly the loop you want to get into.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to get to the point where they want to attend, right, they're looking for the next episode and you know you will have your.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: You'll have your sort of hardcore fans, I think, in your partner ecosystem.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: I think everyone experiences that right, there's a core of a partner ecosystem that is highly engaged, that probably delivering a significant percentage of the values to the business and to your customers.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: But if you're able to pick up some of the other stragglers as well along the way, that's kind of the situation you want to get into and you know we.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I'll give you one example of how we continue to adapt to it as well, because you know we would have a planning meeting.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: You know we're going to do a new episode.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it's this topic.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the live components and hour.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, wait, is it Like we would?
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: We would.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: We started to question.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: We were like is it an hour?
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Do we need to do it for an hour?
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: If we do and we can justify an hour we really need that hour to deliver our message live, with speakers and maybe a paneler, maybe a partner that's giving it time for whatever it might be.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Let's use the full hour, absolutely definitely no more than an hour.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: But we started to condemn it even further.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: We were like can we get our message across in half an hour?
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: No one's going to, no one's going to be angry with us if we do.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: You know the audience is, you know, and I think it comes down to that thing again, like being very empathetic to your audience, being very sympathetic to the limited time and resources that your partners have, and if you can optimize for them on your side, everyone reaps the rewards of that.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, we've definitely continued to look at that and we will.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I think it's very easy to get into a habit and say, well, it's a given that this event is a series and this event has a live component and the live component is always an hour and I think, again, it comes back to really scrutinizing what you're doing and seeing where you can make it better for your audience.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: And I think when you make it better for the audience and you have empathy for your audience, you will see all of your metrics go up and everyone is a little bit happier and a little bit more activated.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: I think that's a beautiful conclusion to this episode, Martin.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: I learned a lot myself personally around two partner marketing events and parking segmentation as well.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for sharing.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: If one of our listeners would like to learn more about you or about the company, where could they best find you?
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: You can definitely find me on LinkedIn.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, find me over there, I'm always happy to chat Awesome.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Martin.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Look forward to our next conversation.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Rick.