Hey…remember me?

One of the biggest challenges facing a channel organization is your ability to effectively reach your channel audience in a consistent manner. Consider a company that has 2,000 channel partners spanning all 50 states. They have 30 “relationship managers” all centrally located (no branch offices). This sounds like an extreme example, but my guess is that this describes many midsized companies.

We should all agree that face-to-face interaction is the best. There is really no substitute for meeting with your partner on a regular basis. The challenge is that with 30 relationship managers, each would be responsible for 67 channel partners on average. It is time and cost prohibitive to have face-to-face meetings as often as necessary to build more meaningful relationships.

Thank goodness for technology. Many companies are using technology to enable other, less costly, vehicles to communicate with their channel partners. You need to overcome the fact that there are indeed many companies already doing webinars, newsletters, and blogs. Somehow, you need to stand out. You need to be different, but equally effective. You need to challenge the status quo.

Recently, I was faced with this same challenge. We chose to use personalization to differentiate ourselves. Our goal is to make each of our channels feel special. Receiving a standard corporate email wasn’t going to accomplish that goal. Instead, we chose to send each individual their own newsletter, personalized from their relationship manager. As we learn more about these channels, we will employ variable content capabilities, so that every newsletter is different.

The nice thing about face-to-face interaction is that it is uniquely personal. I believe that if you cannot meet directly with your partner as often as you would like, you should not forego the personal aspect of your communication. It is a little thing that makes a big difference.