Growth Hacking for B2B - Part 2 - Indirect Sales

Growth Hacking for B2B - Part 2 - Indirect Sales

Following my last blog on “growth hacking” I received a few messages on LinkedIn requesting some tactics specifically for indirect sales.

First of all, it is important to state that channel management goes through a major shift, companies are starting to replace the traditional, compliance-based program with a new performance-based program designed to reward all types of partners, business models, and various customer technology consumption preferences. 

According to Forrester, 68% of all deals are not signed through the IT department and technology buyers are bringing in channels directly without asking IT or procurement. So vendors are starting to use an ecosystem that wraps partners around a customer’s need instead of a revenue model. 

So what can we do to create a systemic growth engine through indirect channels?

Here a few examples amongst many possible.

1-    Build your end-customers and partners buyer personas

If the marketing department or the direct sales organisation have not done it yet, the indirect channel department needs to build the buyer persona (end-customers) – this important information will be shared with our partners in order to adapt the go-to-market strategy.

Building such personas help partners to understand the pains, gains and key questions customers face daily.

Of course, the channel department needs to do the same exercise in relation to their partners. Who are the people they need to talk within the channel partners’ organisation – what are their needs, pains etc.

If the former activity will help your partners to sell, the later will help you define a successful partner strategy making sure you are doing the right activities with the right people.

2-    Define the role of partners in your customer journey

In clear, wherein the selling process and product lifecycle your partners bring added value to the customers. Do they have an impact on awareness, product consideration, decision making, delivery or deployment, daily operation, support, loyalty…

Once you have defined the customer journey, then identify where partners play an active role in the customers experience.

Remember that being customer-oriented also means you’re helping your partners reach their customers and enable them to identify opportunities and offer your growth expertise to reach customers.

3-    Execute part of the growth engine for your partners

Like for all of us, and it is also probably true for your partners, the main challenge is generating leads – so how can you help them?

Create a partner section:

• Create a section on your website that talks about them and where your partner’s presences add value – create a link to their website.
• Create videos where partners explain their expertise (not selling) and positioned themselves as subject matter expert.
• Share success stories – add pictures (no stock pictures) make the effort to take real pictures (with smartphones is so easy nowadays).

Encourage your partners to participate in your company blog

• Let them aware of your blog’s calendar and encourage and plan for them to respond to your articles with quality content.
• Create a join-marketing blog on important customer’s issues or needs.

Think outside the box

• Create YouTube videos
• Create Podcast and audio content
• Quora – answer questions regarding your market with your partners  

4-    Build a community around your partner solution which includes your product

Start small by writing blog articles (you and your partner) and see what kind of response they get from the readers. If some of them generated more buzz than others, expand on it and write eBook or white papers. (the key is for your partners to be engaged and create content themselves eventually)

Focus your partner online community on the interests of their target customers. 

You are here to produce buzz and interest and above all engaged customers.  An engaged customer reacts to your product or solution. They participate in its evolution by connecting with peers and conversing with brand representatives. They integrate your product and its values into their daily routine.

The forum is a way for customers to share experiences and best practices.

5- Interact with your Audience – Be real and be Live

With the ever-increasing use of chat-bots ready to answer your every question, there is no shortage of popups when you are browsing online. However,  you can utilize these tools along with real life people to improve your customer experience.

The key is to ensure that your partners’ colleagues embrace speaking directly to your customers as much as possible. Engagement with your customer base will allow you to understand more about their specific needs, request and of course their issues so you can incorporate them into your road map and evolve your product or service to take this into consideration and pivot where required.  

6 – Incorporate LinkedIn in your Hacking strategy

Posting relevant content, sharing information, connecting with people who you see as opportunities or partners who can lead you to new opportunities are paramount as a B2B hack.

Adding in content to your LinkedIn page that followers actively access and share is a key opportunity to build your profile and your perceived value within the network.  

Comment and be part of the groups. Comment on Influencers posts.

The signs that you are truly hacking demand generation are visible when your customers start seeing you as a trusted advisor. 

7 – Repurpose Great Content

Use LinkedIn groups or Post to re-use some great content you created.

A blog post could be re-purposed into a white-paper. An info-graphic can grow into an article. It’s much easier to re-purpose than to create from scratch. Recycle your content, and always remember to make it easy for your readers to consume.

Let’s wrap it up - for now

Nowadays, building a growth strategy is a must-do for any successful organization. It’s the foundation that helps start-ups build traction and become scale-ups. It’s also becoming the ‘bible’ that helps young companies to scale-ups stay dynamic and create systemic growth.

Large System Integrators or Value-added reseller should learn quickly from these successes and you as Channel Managers could be the catalyst for change within your partners eco-system.

Good luck