We have a great test case to share -- our client who tried 2 different approaches to recruiting partners:  One with standard collateral and logical case around why to engage in a particular partner program; the OTHER used 5 partners to tell the story of how they started, what resources were involved and how it was actually useful in their business.
 
Guess which one outperformed the other 10:1 in ¼ of the time?  

Telling a story through example is wildly more effective with partners who want to know:  “Who, like me, is using this?”

So here are 3 ways to approach the matter:

1.       Case studies (yawn)  -- but wait, not just ANY case study—SHORT stories of real-world application; opinions; best practices; tips and pitfalls to avoid.  Tell the usual ROI, but ALSO have your partners talk about how they put it into place, how it enabled their business, how customers reacted. Don’t waste more than a page or two of text. 

The Dynamics Best Practice Guide (created by us here at EMM) shows a global set of partner stories.  These partners applied best practices around generating revenue with existing customers and gave tips and guidance on how others could do the same.  We were surprised how generous partners were in their advice to others. 


2.       Partners as spokespeople:  You probably have a pocketful of press-ready partners that you trust to refer for press opportunities(do you over-use them?), but are you REALLY exploiting the chance to enable MANY partners to speak on your behalf to the press?  Your partners want visibility as much as you want them to talk about you.  Make it easy for them to tell your story with their own.  Have a partner in every part of the world that can act as a go-to partner for local reporters.   Give them press announcements they can run and, most importantly, HELP THEM develop their press activities.  (Most partners don’t know how to get started and would love to tap into the press skills you probably have in house). 

EXAMPLE:  Check how many partner press releases RIM has generated this year:  http://press.rim.com/partner/.  This collection of press releases shows relevance in the market no matter how you slice it. 

3.       REAL-WORLD content integration:  Invite partners to speak in your conferences, webinars, use quotes in ALL your collateral (make it a policy that all partner collateral must have at least one partner who has demonstrated use of the product/program).  You cover the what –let the partner talk about how it’s applied. 

EXAMPLE:  “GadgetsRUs announced a new enterprise-class appliance last quarter and in the first quarter, X00 partners sold the new product”  Said early adopters PartnerName and PartnerName2:  We took this new GADGET as a catalyst to our move from SMB and to break into enterprise accounts.  We planned our year to write up our value; sign up enterprise customers for eval units and offered to speak at conferences.  Once we broke through our first 2 deals, we had 13 more in the pipeline!”

The main hurdles to any awareness-building effort are: 
1.       “it’s not for me”
2.       “I don’t know what it takes to get started” 

Once you show how your product/program is applied with others that swim in the same pool, you will grease the skids to success.   Sometimes it means holding an announcement or two until your early adopters have utilized it and can comment, but the payoff is well worth it.    Try it!

Call us if you need any help.

-Kris