Mastering your marketing strategy

Today’s Digital Transformation will be tomorrow’s old news. Last year over 90% of Gamma channel partners declared they’d benefit from marketing support or guidance from Gamma. With a lack of resource and lack of time cited as key hurdles for channel partners in terms of formulating their year-on-year marketing plans, the channel is a prime example of a business environment that is sales rich and marketing poor.

The increased adoption of UC in the working environment, will have a detrimental impact in our market endeavours in 2019, and we’re encouraging channel partners to prepare for increasing demand into next year. Remaining flexible and proactive, while also ensuring we have a hardwired marketing plan at the centre of any business strategy, means we keep ahead of the curve, shaping the sales tactics of our future.

In the channel, where KPIs, leads and conversion numbers become increasingly competitive, a focus on sales numbers is inevitable. In a world where we are all focused on lead nurture, competition and remaining ahead of trends, it’s easy to be reactive, firefighting our way into 2019 with what we believe is a flawless sales strategy, plugging the greatest new technologies and solutions.

But a focus on generating sales and profit margin is great, until the day we run out of leads. It’s important, in this environment of constant change and evolution of technologies, to have a focus on proactive strategy in addition to a flexible and reactive sales approach.

In an increasingly competitive market, it’s becoming more and more important for the channel to embrace key marketing tactics, to work alongside their sales, to make sure that the pool doesn’t run dry.

90%

Last year over 90% of Gamma channel partners declared they’d benefit from marketing support or guidance from Gamma.

Mapping out a clear marketing function is an important part of future-proofing your strategy.

Spring clean your strategy

Having the ability to take a step back from the day-to-day is imperative in giving channel partners the headspace and clarity for a more forward-thinking approach.

With many partners appointing an admin person to look after marketing outside of their day-to-day responsibilities, marketing can often become the neglected younger sibling of sales. Mapping out a clear marketing function is an important part of future-proofing your strategy and while it’s easy for channel partners to continue with the ‘status quo’, the attitude of ‘If it’s not broken why fix it’ can be a damaging one in an industry where constant change is inherent.

Many of our partners have found a quick spring clean of their strategy, taking the time to create a more holistic and streamlined plan of attack can generate incredible success. For example, when was the last time you took a step back and identified new cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, thought about email marketing, awards and branding visibility or press and sponsorship opportuni

35%

According to a recent survey Gamma conducted, 35% of our channel partners have ‘Little or no in-house marketing resource.

We’ve come up with a few ideas to help you make the first steps to mapping out a flawless marketing plan:

Engage your audience

Simply identifying the questions your audience asks on a regular basis, can be an essential step in developing your best marketing plans. In the age of Google, end-users are increasingly self-educating, meaning channel partners can use this as the perfect opportunity for creating gated content. Answering customers most frequently asked questions with an e-guide, webinar or white paper which customers can access after a simple form-fill is a strategy that has proven incredibly successful, giving you fresher leads and a more detailed insight into audience interests and trends.

Create a plan and diarise

The greatest marketing success stories will start with a flawless and comprehensive plan. Due to popular demand, we have done the legwork for you, creating an easy to follow marketing planning guide available in Gamma Accelerate. Using a project management tool, or simply adopting better use of outlook calendars, once your plans are in place can really streamline your team- making delegation and tracking easier and keeping everyone in check with any marketing implementation across the team.

Teamwork makes the dream work

In our industry it’s all about communication – but how often do we make the most of our peers’ expertise? Team brainstorming sessions can be a really valuable way to encourage ‘outside the box’ thinking and share ideas and best practice when it comes to social media tactics or ways to generate new leads organically.

Recruit your best resource

According to a recent survey we conducted, 35% of our channel partners have ‘Little or no in-house marketing resource’. Recruiting a professional marketeer should be a key first step in taking marketing more seriously. Many channel partners have someone whose main role is admin looking after their marketing endeavours. But marketing is a full time job, especially in today’s digital and content-hungry world. Alternatively – if budget will not allow for this outlay, be sure to make the team aware of key marketing campaigns, collateral and social media drafted posts, all available on Gamma’s online marketing portal – Accelerate.