ADOBE PARTNER ENABLEMENT
ENABLEMENT THAT ACTUALLY DOES ENABLE PARTNERS
We’re all familiar with the need to provide channel partners with information, assets and the tools to encourage them to fulfil
their role in the marketing and sales mix.
However, all too often, the enthusiasm to load up a portal or send out bulletins and information can often take over from thinking about what partners may need, what challenges or questions they may have and what they actually need to do more business or do business better and more effectively.
Background:
Adobe have supported their partners through the provision of a number of assets via a central partner portal – with each new marketing campaign spawning a set of partner focussed elements and activities for their use. However, it had been noted that uptake and use of these has been varied – with the usual split between those who do and those who don’t.
As our audience consisted of resellers and disties confident in their approach to IT decision makers and creative studios and departments, but less so when trying to engage new personas, we additionally had to assist with opportunities to expand existing or create new business within Marketing and Sales teams.
Insight from recent direct partner discussions had indicated that in many cases the ‘Adobe first’ nature and sheer volume of assets has proven to be a little daunting for partners to embrace and use them effectively. In some cases, the new uploads and messages were not even looked at – ‘seen it all before, not for us’ and the like being the reaction.
This was unfortunate as there was and continues to be value in the assets and content that existed. All that was needed was to think like communication people, engage the creative thinking our clients love us for, and create a new way to engage the partners so they recognised a difference that was useful and relevant to them.
Our Strategy:
To proactively support partners and help them sell more Adobe solutions through providing relevant and valuable advice on how to increase the effectiveness of their marketing activity – both through new accounts as well as expansion within existing ones.
We would provide useful, simple-to-follow ‘how to’ guides to encourage and enable partners to run pro-active marketing activity using Adobe created communications elements, by developing useful, thoughtful and relevant advice as to how to approach various scenarios all in packaged and ready-to-use formats.
Our Approach:
Develop a distinctive, inspiring new format to share communication executions with useful advice/hints and tips on how they may be used to best effect. Perhaps even more importantly, ensure we demonstrate we actually understand the partner’s needs, have thought about them and that this new approach is ‘partner first’ – relevant to them and driven by what they can actually use.
We developed an overarching idea or theme that was clearly different to previous rounds of ‘marketing noise’ from Adobe and pulled together only what a partner needs to drive new business.
Avoid the usual product information overload, rather focus on the value and benefits to a business, with helpful advice and tips for partners on how to use various assets – to include infographics, emails, copy blocks, possibly web banners & social posts in a ‘how to guide’ to give the partners an ‘angle’ to approach real business opportunities.
This was applied across three key business opportunity areas: more business from existing customers, creating new business with new customers and making the most of remote working as Covid-19 struck. There are plans to expand this series to include other similar guides on key topics in the future. And the first three guides are now being translated and rolled out across Europe.
Our idea:
A new themed series with a distinctive design format that answered the questions partners had about business growth:
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What can I do to expand new business within my existing accounts?
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How can I drive sales from new customers?
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What can I offer customers to support remote working?
Each guide shared useable advice, hints and tips and assets around all the potential communication channels a partner could use, whilst also providing anecdotes, deep dive info sources and additional examples of successful tactics that a partner could not only activate but also learn to think differently about how to set up and run their own activity.
Reaction
One delighted new channel manager and a campaign approach that is being extended into other European markets and languages, plus the creation of additional channel partner questions that need Adobe answers.