Introduction

Effective partner communications are critical to any successful channel sales program. Unfortunately, maintaining strong lines of communication isn’t always easy, especially as your program scales. The more partners you work with, the more time communicating with all of them will consume.

Allbound has a surplus of features that will help you take your partner communications to the next level. Discover the top features you should leverage, along with best practices for taking advantage of all the resources at your fingertips.

Why Strong Partner Communications are Invaluable

No matter how large your partner program is, strong communication is imperative. Through effective partner outreach, you can cultivate an engaged and committed ecosystem. Additionally, good communication will improve partner loyalty and help you reach your goals with partners.

Strong partner communications are invaluable across your channel organization. Infosec was able to improve numbers across the board thanks to enhanced communications. “Infosec’s deal registration has grown almost 100%, our channel business has grown 200% YoY, and our communication to partners has grown 100%+ YoY with the help of our Allbound portal,” shared Donna Turgeon of Infosec.

Effective partner communication is a two-way street. When you equip your partner users with robust messaging tools, they can share more insightful information with you and, thus, can grow your business revenue.

How to Supercharge Partner Communications with Allbound

“Our partner engagement has increased significantly since we started using the Allbound platform,” shared Cary Snowden, Strategic Director Partner Marketing at SwipeClock. “Our internal programs are all built around our new ability to communicate more effectively and efficiently with our partners through Allbound.”

As your program scales, it will become more challenging to stay in close contact with all of your partners while ensuring outreach feels personalized. Leveraging Allbound’s powerful features will allow you to take your partner communications to the next level without overloading your team.

Implement Partner Segmentation

Not all of your partners need the same kind of outreach. However, there are many partners that overlap in their needs. When maintaining manual communication, it can be tedious to stay in touch with everyone in your ecosystem.

Partner segmentation is a powerful tool for grouping your portal users by specific attributes. By leveraging partner segmentation, you can communicate with a group of users who all share a particular quality, allowing you to personalize messaging at scale

Static vs. Dynamic Groups

You can build two types of groups in Allbound: static and dynamic. A static group is one you build manually — you add users yourself. Static groups can be used for testing content and dashboard segmentation. 

Dynamic groups allow you to automatically add users and group them based on defined rules. The rules you develop may require users to meet one requirement out of a list of options or all prerequisites.

For example, a dynamic group may include users who joined the portal in the last 60 days or haven’t completed onboarding. Alternatively, a dynamic group could include users who are in your top tier and have an active deal.

Improve User Experience by Segmenting Your Portal

Using the groups you’ve established, you can segment your portal for user experience. For example, Partner A can see one dashboard, and Partner B can see a completely different dashboard. Content to display works the same way.

Discover more best practices for enhancing your partner experience with your portal dashboard.

Sample Partner Segments to Get Started

If you’re struggling to get started with partner segmentation, there are a few standard ways to group your partners you may consider.

1. 1. 1. Partner tier — Segment partners by their current partner tier.
      2. New users — Group users by how new they are to the platform. New users should be in their own segment to ensure they receive key onboarding and training resources. Meanwhile, more mature users can receive advanced assets.
      3. User role — Group users by their role within an organization. Whether users are focused on sales, marketing, customer success, or product, they will benefit from different resources.
      4. Partner location — Segment your partners based on their location so you can share geographic-specific resources.
      5. Native language — Group partners based on their native language to ensure all communications shared are in their primary language.
      6. Form submission — Segment partners based on whether they’ve submitted a specific form. This will allow you to send targeted updates based on the form submitted.

Learn more about how to optimally segment your partners.

Leverage Partner Journey Automation

Even the best, most engaged partners need reminders and support to stay on track with next steps. With partner journey automation through Allbound, you can build workflows to automatically remind your partners to take action based on predetermined triggers.

“Since introducing Allbound, we are able to keep our partners updated without contacting them all personally or sending manual emails, saving time,” explained a ​​Business Analyst at a Small Business Internet Software & Services Company. “Additionally, we now have more insights into partner opportunities and how they convert. Partner Journey Automation (PJA) is a great feature that can automate a lot of our processes and communications where partners are included.”

Through partner journey automation, you can be more proactive in your partner communications, ensuring your channel stays engaged and continues to drive results. Triggers can include actions (such as registering a deal) or inactions (such as failing to log in within a specific time frame). With workflows, you can either send an email notification or use advanced webhooks to guide your partners on an onboarding or educational journey within your portal.

If you’re unsure where to start with partner journey automation, there are a few standard workflows you can consider.

New User Registration

Anytime a new user registers, you can set an automatic welcome email to go out with clear next steps. This outreach will help your new users get started on the right foot, knowing exactly which tasks to tackle first.

New User Drip Marketing Campaigns

After a new user is fully registered, you can create an automation that adds them to a drip marketing campaign, informing them how to use the portal best. Through a drip marketing campaign, you can highlight all the key features of your portal while staying in touch with new users over the course of a few weeks.

Training Reminders

While training is critical to you, your partners will likely need some reminding to complete it. Set up a workflow to ping partners and their managers if they fail to complete specific learning tracks within a certain timeframe.

Training Suggestions

It isn’t always clear what a partner’s next step should be. Leverage a workflow to automatically suggest the next learning track to begin when a partner completes one. This will ensure they stay on track and engaged.

Custom Deal Emails

Instead of manually nudging partners to take action on their deals, create a workflow with customized emails for each deal stage telling the partner what to do next.

Deal Update Reminders

Often, deal updates can fall by the wayside for partners. Leverage workflows to send reminder emails when a partner fails to update an open deal.

Login Reminders

Workflows are a great tool to remind partners (and their partner managers) if they have not logged in within a certain time frame. The email reminder can include strategic call-to-action links to relevant, enticing new content. 

Action Reminders

Use a workflow to notify your partners if they have yet to co-brand content, view specific assets, or create a prospect page. In the outreach, include links to how-to documentation for reference, making it even easier for your partner to take action.

Co/Labs

Often, your partners’ email inboxes and Slack workspaces can get bogged down with tons of messages. As a result, communicating via email or Slack tends to be slow, tedious, and ineffective. Co/Labs in Allbound is a one-stop communication center. Essentially, Co/Labs is an instant messaging tool, housed right in your partner portal. 

You can assign Co/Labs with deals from your pipeline and Co/Labs with content, allowing you to collaborate with each other. Additionally, your partners can create Co/Labs on their end, allowing their team to communicate on a deal without bogging your team down with unnecessary notifications.

Notifications

If you are in a package that does not have partner journey automation, you can still send email notifications to your partners based on form fills, whether you’re integrated with the CRM or not. 

For example, after filling out a deal registration form, your partner will be able to receive a notification thanking them for the submission and outlining the next steps.

Improve Your Partner Communications with Allbound PRM

Strong partner communication is critical. Allbound makes it easier than ever to stay in close contact with all of your partners with tailored outreach. By leveraging features like Segmentation, Partner Journey Automation, Co/Labs, and Notifications, you can supercharge your partner communications without overloading your team.

Request a demo to see precisely how Allbound can help you take your partner communications to the next level.

Already an Allbound customer? Reach out to your CSM for help implementing these strategies.