Amanda Fitzgerald Head of Channel Partner Marketing Red Hat Global Partner Ecosystem Marketing (GPEM)
Recording of presentation by Amanda Fitzgerald - Head of Channel Marketing Red Hat
So What are some of the channel sales & marketing alignment challenges?
Well for starters, we speak a different language. Channel sales want Sales Qualified Oppty (SQO’s), Marketing deliver Marketing qualified leads (MQL’s) Channel sales focus on sales plays and promotions to help partners close business vs marketing focus on partner awareness and engagement programs and demand gen campaigns.
We have different ROI timelines: Channel sales are looking to close oppty’s in current qtr to meet sale targets.
Channel marketing are executing in current qtr, generating leads which may close 6-12 months later.
We have different KPI’s: Channel sales are measured on pipeline progression and closure vs Channel marketing who are measured on program and campaign engagement, MDF execution within quarter + planning next quarter marketing execution. Marketing measure which leads have been marketing touched/influenced vs sales wants to see revenue attribution from channel marketing programs + pipeline visibility from partner campaigns.
We also have different channel coverage : sales have 1:1 or 1:few partner coverage whereas marketing often has 1:many coverage.
Different language, different timelines, different measurements, different coverage = plenty of scope for mis-alignment, which is a common problem in many companies.
You’ve heard the saying “Give a man a fish and they eat for a day” “Teach a man to fish and they eat for life”
Should we give partners leads or do we enable them to create their own opportunities?
This is another possible alignment challenge and a long ongoing conversation between sales & marketing.
We all know that our direct sales teams do not have the bandwidth to close all the opportunities from our direct marketing, so why not give some of those qualified opportunities to our Partners?
By doing so we increase sales coverage of pipeline and increase revenue closure from our DM efforts.
Accelerate scale in the Commercial segment
Drive distributor-led marketing Awareness & Demand Gen to/through downstream resellers/VAR’s/solution providers Content Syndication program
Audience
Disti Internal
Disti to Partners
Partner to End Customer
Sales Conversation guide
Social Banners
T&Cs
White Space
Under 5k spent
Free to Fee Competitive
Digital Campaign:
Targeted Database (Global distis)
✓ Global Commercial Sales ✓ Global Channel Marketing ✓ Global Product BU
✓ Global Distributors ✓ Global Commercial Sales ✓ Global Partner Sales ✓ Global Channel Marketing
✓ Global Distributors / Partners ✓ Global Partner Sales ✓ Global Channel Marketing
So what are the key takeaways: ….. If you do not already have a seat at the sales table, give yourself permission to invite yourself. If that does not work, ask your marketing director or VP of marketing to ask on your behalf. That normally works!