Partner marketing Archives - The Rubicon Agency

The Rubicon Agency In Insights, Miscellaneous, Partner marketing

Safety in numbers: How and why to leverage partner marketing for startups:

The world of the start-up is an exciting yet daunting place to be. Sandwiched between opportunity and failure the business needs to balance revenue generation with a pragmatic approach to marketing.

Often hamstrung with limited resources, budgets and competing priorities, organisations need to box clever to achieve success via a bootstrapped approach.

In this blog we explore how startups should leverage partner and channel relationships to gain credibility, access new markets, and accelerate growth against a backdrop of limited resources.

Gaining credibility

Partnering with larger and more established companies can lend credibility to a startup. This association can help build trust with potential customers and investors. In addition, it can open doors to opportunities that otherwise would be firmly closed.

These joint initiatives can help enable co-branded marketing materials, such as case studies, use cases and testimonials that add social proof that your brand is credible and reputable.

Accessing new markets

Ensuring your reach doesn’t exceed your grasp is often the limiting factor for many startups. Spreading resources too thinly is one of the reasons many start-ups need to focus on a specific market, buyer or geography. However, with built in scalability, working with a partner can expand your footprint without increasing the associated risk.

Partners with a strong presence in different regions can help startups enter new geographic markets more easily. This removes the need for additional sales, marketing, account and technical staff to be in region for the startup, with the focus being placed on the partner.

The same can be applied to industry specific partners. Certain channel partners have a proven track record and reputation within certain industries. By partnering with industry specialist startups can expand their applications into new markets to unlock new opportunities. Working side-by-side with the partner also provides knowledge transfer opportunities. By understanding some of the subtleties and specific challenges that affect each industry, the startup can tailor propositions, solutions and messaging to help attract more prospects from that market.

Accelerating growth

Similar to the 2 challenges above, growth can also be throttled by limited resources. Expanding your ecosystem by growing your partner network can unlock growth potential and help your business evolve at a faster cadence. This can be achieved through:

Resource sharing: Partners can provide access to resources such as technology, marketing channels, and sales teams, which can help startups scale more quickly whilst mitigating the risk associated with increasing headcount.
Collaborative innovation: Working with partners can lead to collaborative innovation, where both parties contribute to the development of new products or services. This can accelerate the time-to-market for new offerings and capitalise on new opportunities or underserved communities.
Joint ventures and co-development: Engaging in joint ventures or co-development projects with partners can open up new revenue streams and growth opportunities. By partnering with other providers, complimentary solutions can be packaged together that address a particular issue that otherwise would be addressable with your single offering.

Practical steps for startups

So, this all sounds great. Mitigated risk, increased opportunities and access to resource but, there is a flip side of any partnership. Margins are eroded as preferential rates need to be agreed with partners, customer relationships are owned by the partner, and entering into a partnership doesn’t guarantee success. There is still competition for share of wallet, your competitors may have entered into a similar agreement with the same partner.

However, if the opportunities outweigh the risks then there are a few practical steps for entering a partnership agreement.

Identify potential partners: Look for companies that complement your offerings and share similar values and goals.
Build relationships: Attend industry events, join relevant associations, and network to build relationships with potential partners.
Create a partnership proposal: Clearly outline the benefits of the partnership for both parties and propose specific collaboration opportunities.
Establish clear objectives: Set clear, measurable objectives for the partnership to ensure both parties are aligned and can track progress.
Maintain open communication: Regularly communicate with your partners to ensure the partnership remains strong and mutually beneficial.

To help maximise your partner opportunities, speak to The Rubicon Agency. With over 25 years of B2B agency experience working within the tech sector we know what it takes to change market perception, redefine your proposition and expand into new markets.

If you are tasked with partner marketing initiatives then speak to us for a fresh perspective.

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The Rubicon Agency In Account based marketing, Enterprise demand generation, Partner marketing, Programme planning, Proposition development

Aiming for a perfect pitch

The pitch may have moved on from the days when a firm handshake and a set of overhead projector slides might suffice but some fundamentals never change.

With technology marketing dominated by digital ‘distance selling’, the pitch presents a unique opportunity for up-close and personal engagement with an audience sat within the sales funnel.

The pitch is the equivalent of a live stage performance; an opportunity to wow an audience by feeding off the unique energy that only comes from everyone being in the moment.

In the technology world, Steve Jobs was arguably one of the finest exponents of the pitch. For more than three decades, he transformed product launches into an art form. He may have benefitted from expensive minimalist staging and some carefully orchestrated audience anticipation but he still had to single-handedly deliver a winning performance.

Jobs’ pitch method included pen and paper planning; using the rule of three; introducing an antagonist; making numbers meaningful; using zippy words and revealing what he called a ‘Holy Smoke’ moment. But above all, Jobs would ruthlessly and relentlessly distil the essence of every product into simple one-liners such as ‘the world’s thinnest smartphone’.

Of course, it would be interesting to imagine how Steve Jobs might have handled a rainy Monday morning pitch to an un-primed audience of business and technical decision makers in a cramped meeting room somewhere off the M25. However, given the challenge, it’s difficult to imagine him not using some of the techniques that can play just as successfully to an audience in Swindon as they could in San Francisco.

Take a look at our quick guide to discover how content can be more ‘killer’ and less ‘filler’.

The Rubicon Agency In Enterprise demand generation, Event & experiential marketing, Marketing resources, Partner marketing, Proposition development, Sales enablement

When the corporate deck is a wreck

Amongst the many manifestations of content for a technology business there is one asset that can evoke a range of emotions - from frustration to fear.

If content is king, surely the corporate deck should be the jewel in the crown for the field marketing or sales enablement professional. However, more often than not, that jewel simply fails to sparkle. Worse still, it can often be consigned to the equivalent of a ceremonial curiosity cabinet where it gathers dust and rarely sees the light of day – along with a pile of other unused corporate presentations and presenters intended to inspire customers and partners.

On occasions when the corporate deck is revealed by obedient courtiers it tends to be announced with an air of apology. And once revealed to a waiting audience it runs the risk of someone from the assembled crowd exclaiming ‘the king has no clothes!’

The imperative for sales enablement and field marketing

It may sound like a fairy tale but for many technology field marketing and sales professionals the corporate presentation presents a very real challenge. We’ll refer to it as ‘the deck’ because that’s the most common form that it continues to take.

Frequently the problem can be characterised as simply ‘too many hands on deck’. That’s understandable when it’s meant to represent the sum of the parts that a technology company can offer- which means a range of stakeholders find themselves involved in contributing to the content. That can lead to a patchwork assembly that lacks cohesiveness or balance between business propositions and the technicalities of the portfolio. The sales enablement solution requires a level of objectivity that’s unlikely to be found amongst the stakeholders and can’t simply be imposed by the CEO (assuming they are involved).

The solution also requires a hybrid set of skills that blend field marketer experience and sales support mindset with brand sensibilities, in-depth technology knowledge, content expertise and even political astuteness. Together, that can add up to seeking help from a specialist agency with experience in tech sales presenters and marketing presentations.

And as a final thought: in a world where content segmentation is so much easier to achieve perhaps the ambitions of the corporate deck are outdated as it often tries to be all things to all people. Another aspect that a specialist agency can help with.