Channel content creation is often the Achilles heel of a partner program. Providing partners the right content is a key program foundation piece, but partner content needs to be just that; PARTNER CONTENT. Partners need content focused on helping them understand and sell your solutions. When creating content put yourself in your partners' shoes. Think about their sales activities and customer interaction. Develop content that aligns with their processes, not yours.
Planning & Strategy
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Start with a formal partner content plan. If you haven’t already created a content plan, start it today. You must have a regular cadence for your partner content that includes:
- consistent partner communication
- product updates
- partner training
- technical updates
- marketing materials
- announcements
- support detail
- other pertinent content updates
Determine your content groups early by thinking through your partner audiences for your content. Remember that in Channeltivity you can segment out who sees what content so you can deliver the right message to the right audience. (See Segment section below for more on that.) Creating a solid content strategy will help your program meet your partner content needs. Don’t let your Channeltivity investment go to waste or become inefficient because you failed to fill it with applicable partner content.
Analyze the Data
Analyze your current partner usage for the partner content you have in place today. To run this report, simply go to Library > Reports > Library Usage Report within Channeltivity. You are likely to find valuable information that will help you as you create your content plans moving forward.
Look for trends and use the data to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.
Remove out of date or stale, unused content. Listen to your partners when they tell you what they need, watch for trends, and use data to create more effective content.
Segment, Segment, Segment
No one likes hunting around for content. It is important to make sure that you structure your Channeltivity content groups properly upfront. Group your content so partners can easily find what they need. Consider grouping your content by product, content type (training, whitepaper, datasheet, infographic, social media), content audience (marketing, sales, technical, customer), and alignment to the sales cycle. Proper content segmentation will increase content usage and decrease partner frustration.
Get Visual
We live in a 140-character world, and it is important to keep communication and content concise. Use imagery and infographics to communicate your points to your partners. Leverage videos, charts, presentations, and data visualizations when possible. Well done visual content can be incredibly engaging and utilized, and with the tools available today it shouldn’t be intimidating to create. Even Word and Powerpoint, or sites like Canva.com can help. Consider throwing in a little humor with your partners. Unsplash.com is a great source of license free images to have fun with. It never hurts to lighten things up, and everyone loves cute animal pictures. After all, partners are people too.
The bottom line? Content is key.
Unfortunately, your content strategy cannot be to only leverage your existing content. Partner’s need more than what you have on your corporate website. Create a content plan and see it through, segment your content so it is easy for partners to access, make your content digestible and visual and analyze the data to identify gaps and opportunities.
These things will set you on the right path for partner content success with Channeltivity.