Are you missing out on partner marketing opportunities?

Whether you sell a product or a service, chances are you have supplier partners who could be a resource for your marketing.  Some suppliers develop marketing assets to make available to their partners – like Microsoft for MSPs for example.  But even if your suppliers don’t have a formal partner marketing program, you can still integrate them into your marketing tactics.

But why do you want to talk about your supplier partners as part of your marketing?  There are a two big reasons:

1. I assume you vetted your suppliers and work with the ones that provide the best option for your business. They might offer the highest quality, the most efficient option, or are the most cost effective.  That translates into the product or service you offer your customers.  Telling your customers who you choose as your suppliers and WHY tells them about your company and what you offer.

An example message: “We get our electronics hardware from XYZCo because they achieve the best quality testing scores in the industry every year.  Check them out www.XYZCo.xyz”

2. Associating yourself with a recognized, well-respected brand extends that supplier partner brand to yours.

An example message: “When you work with us, you get the best of XYZCo built right in.”

Game day tips to get started with partner marketing assets

1. If your partner gives you marketing assets like brochures, videos, ads, social media, landing pages etc., remember that all your competitors who use that supplier also have access to those resources. Try to use them better than your competitor.

• • Customize them if you can with your logo, brand colours, branding styles. Make an effort to make it look like everything else you publish.
  • Customize the language so it’s specific to your audience. This can be as simple as changing a reference to “company” to “SMB” or “construction company” or whatever your niche is.  It can also be as complex as adding whole sentences or paragraphs to a blog or whitepaper.
  • Make sure the Call to Action (CTA) makes sense for your audience. If the ad copy they provide has a CTA to “Call us today” and your leads almost always come in via a form on your website, change it to “Contact us today” with a link to your site.

2. If your supplier doesn’t have dedicated resources for you, it just means you might have to look elsewhere.

• • Check out their website and brochures for language you can borrow and customize.
  • Monitor their social media feeds for content you can share along with your own comments
  • Share their blog content when it’s applicable to your audience. You can share it on social media, add it to your newsletter, or send it off to a client or prospect with a personal note in an email.
  • Talk to them. Tell them what kind of info you’d like to have and maybe you can work together to develop it.
  • Some companies offer cash in proportion to your purchases of their products (often called co-op marketing funds). Most of these companies are waiting for ideas from their customers and rarely spend all the allocated funds.  The companies that come to them with great ideas often receive more than their allocation.  This also builds a closer relationship with suppliers when they know you want to partner with them.

3. Check back with your partners frequently to see what’s new and what’s available.

4. Don’t use it just because it’s available. Not everything your partners publish or make available is relevant to your business. Also, not everything will be consistent with your brand.  If you think something sounds or looks cheesy for example and that’s not consistent with the brand you’re building, don’t use it.

5. Keep track of this content. A year from now you might not remember where everything came from.

6. A word about duplicate content.

• • If you’re putting something on your website that potentially exists elsewhere – which is the case for all the content available through a partner marketing program – don’t index it. Google doesn’t like duplicate content and can penalize you.
  • If you want to benefit from SEO efforts, create a landing page for that partner content. The landing page is unique and can be indexed.  For example, if your supplier provides a data sheet that you want to share, the data sheet is duplicate content.  But if you create a page introducing that data sheet with a link to download etc, then you’re creating unique content that can help your SEO.