In a recent Partners GTM Survey, 73% of companies with a partner program reported that they rely on partners for over 25% of their revenue. However, partner marketing teams are often lean, managing the entire partner lifecycle. This creates significant pressure for partner marketers, who must juggle multiple priorities to enable partners in accelerating sales, building pipelines, and achieving revenue goals. As revenue targets for 2025 continue to rise, the challenges for partner marketers are more pronounced than ever.
Recently, Marketing Vogue sat down with partner marketing leaders Pooja Golechha from Pegasystems and Tonya Vincent from CyberArk to discuss the realities of limited resources in partner marketing during the episode “What’s Keeping You Up at Night? Overcoming Common Partner Marketing Challenges.” Both leaders emphasized the need for efficiency and creativity in the face of resource constraints and shifting priorities.
Pooja stated, “Top of mind for me is to do more with less. We’re focused on driving growth, whether through accelerating deals or new business. When budgets are tight, we’re always looking for ways to speed up our programs.”
While doing more with less can be challenging, our speakers recommend three key strategies for enhancing efficiency in partner marketing.
1. Align with Broader Teams
In 2024, all marketing teams are feeling the strain of limited time, resources, and budgets. Collaboration can help everyone achieve their goals more effectively.
Pooja suggests, “We can align with other teams to see how we can work together. As partner marketers, we’re always crafting strategies with our partners, but we can also collaborate with field teams to execute campaigns more efficiently.”
In addition to partnering with field marketing teams, aligning partner marketing efforts with other marketing teams can enhance effectiveness. For instance, Pooja is scheduled to speak at an upcoming summit, where she will provide insights on integrating account-based marketing (ABM) into partner marketing. If ABM aligns with your strategy, collaborating with your ABM teams can streamline partner campaign execution.
Moreover, joint campaigns don’t have to be complex. Leveraging product marketing teams from partner organizations can help ensure that messaging is consistent and aligned.
Tonya shared her positive experiences working with campaign strategy teams, stating, “We collaborate with our campaign strategy team to create partner campaign kits, ensuring message consistency and alignment. When a partner wants to run a campaign, we utilize a campaign strategist for their expertise.”
There are many opportunities to collaborate across different teams within partner organizations, whether focused on sales, marketing, or product.
2. Leverage Specialized Partner Marketing Agencies
Small partner marketing teams often face challenges due to the effort required to launch joint campaigns. In these cases, our speakers recommend engaging specialized partner marketing agencies to scale programs effectively.
Marketing Vogue offers various ways to enhance partner marketing efforts through our Partner Marketing Services, which include strategy, content creation, demand generation, and channel solutions. Whether you need campaign-in-a-box solutions for joint campaigns, assistance with joint messaging, or high-quality lead generation, we can help.
3. Create Repeatable and Scalable Programs
Pooja posed an important question: “If we’ve had success with one partner in a particular region or industry, how can we replicate that success in other areas?”
Developing repeatable and scalable programs can enable partners to go to market more efficiently, facilitating quicker demand generation. These programs also promote brand consistency and sustainability.
Partner marketing campaigns, especially those relying on MDF funding, typically last one fiscal quarter (three months). By establishing repeatable and scalable programs, partners can implement proven strategies that lead to sustained success over multiple quarters.
Anita Covelli from Marketing Vogue, who moderated the discussion, emphasized the importance of repeatability in partner marketing. “Finding a campaign structure that works and repurposing it is key. Duplicating successful campaigns across partners to drive demand creation is highly effective,” she noted.
Additionally, Tonya recommended, “Utilize a campaign strategist to ensure that partners are effectively using the right channels throughout the customer journey, from awareness to purchase.” Integrating teams to create scalable campaigns while allowing for differentiation across partners may be the essential strategy for partner marketers.
In our Partner Marketing Visionaries Community, we are always exploring ways for partner marketers to enhance their effectiveness and innovation. If you have insights on how to achieve more with less in partner marketing, consider joining our community to share your best practices.
