Now let's be honest, building a channel plan can be an extremely complex process. Results are dependent on many permutations and combinations that need to be right before you commit a number to your boss. Dependencies such as type of business, end products / solutions, your current ecosystem, on-boarding plans, etc can make or break your yearly targets drastically.

Considering we have been in the IT B2B channel marketing space for some time, we kept asking many channel managers across the B2B space on what a perfect channel marketing readiness program would look like. There were 3 very consistent answers from them on where their top priorities lie.

So here are the 3 areas IT Channel Managers would love to spend more time throughout the year.

1. Refresh and grow your Channel Ecosystem.

So your business partners come in all shapes and sizes? Some are pretty active and switched on, some are quite opportunistic while some are pretty dormant. Some are brand new while some are pros with your solutions and processes. Each of them will need different ways to be managed. As per the 80-20 rule, would you end up spending more time getting the new partners with on-boarding and self-enabling?

However, this task is easier said than done. Having to continuously build engagement with new relevant businesses to on-board and train while you make your current number is quite a task and a challenge. The 3 major challenges in doing so are understanding what your true partner profile looks like, a recruitment plan and finally a strong on-boarding plan and all this is even before you can expect them to start transacting for you.

2. Nurture and Engage with your existing channel partners.

Second on the list is to keep your current partner ecosystem active. To keep engaging and nurturing with your entire portfolio on educaion, enablement, announcement can get pretty hectic. And, all this while you are driving business, quoting, billing and working at the backend to meet deadlines.

Channel managers are continuously looking for ways in helping your partner base with timely delivery of information. There are various ways to build such control. A great way to nurture or engage channel partners is by designing a strong nurture strategy per channel rep, for a very targeted partner base to keep it relevant and informative. In our brainstorms, we often help channel reps with their simple weekly tasks like having personalised touchpoints with their active, opportunistic and new partners.

 3. Keep building transactional pipeline for your partners.

Now this is where it gets really tricky. You basically have a massive partner base and very finite marketing dollars to spend on them. What your are trying to do is help them grow while continuously looking for new partners. Many at time, you get your marketing development funds (MDF) and you wonder if it's worthwhile doing a one-off campaign for a partner or on the other hand you may also think whether to have partners invest in a whole year marketing program where all have a skin in the game. Both options need to be considered, based on the solution, average deal size and target audience. Most of our strategy meetings with partners help us define this very dilemma.

To summarise the blog, I think most of the channel managers would love to optimise their MDF.
All this while pursuing the above 3 challenges in a more streamlined program for them. The key finally is how your are able to stitch your defined channel strategy with an aligned marketing program.