Channel Leadership - What You Said

First, I wanted to thank everyone for replying to my previous post. I received a good deal of input via LinkedIn groups, email, and conversations so I wanted to summarize what you said about the qualities of a great channel leader. Instead of a laundry list of responses, here is a summary with some added commentary:

VISION & THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
This was interesting to me not because I was surprised to see so many responses regarding vision and thought leadership, but because of the lack of responses related to tactical execution. You identified the more strategic qualities of a channel leader much more frequently than the qualities related to the ability to deliver on the vision.

CREDIBILITY
I was pleased to see this quality mentioned a few times. It is not uncommon for companies to have a rotating door of channel leadership. It seems, especially in larger organizations, that there is a fair amount of churn in the channel leadership ranks. Solution Providers typically adapt pretty well to the changes, but they want credible leadership – someone that truly understands the channel model and how to best partner with their channels.

CURIOSITY
This is perhaps related to “credibility”. You want a leader that has a natural curiosity to the business. I have often used the phrase, “relentless discomfort with the status quo” as a quality of a great channel leader. Curiosity is just that; a desire to learn and implement innovative solutions to the channel challenge.

COLLABORATIVE
I wanted to highlight this quality because nobody mentioned it in their responses. I believe that a great channel leader must be collaborative with both their internal and external constituencies. As we all know, executing and delivering on a channel vision requires the active participation of virtually every functional team. If the channel leader cannot or will not collaborate with sales, marketing, customer service, operations, engineering, finance, etc… they will find themselves with a poorly developed channel initiative. I believe this is a critical quality and I was surprised this wasn’t mentioned…am I missing the boat on this one?

INTEGRITY, TRANSPARENCY & AUTHENTICITY
These are absolutely the most critical qualities of a great channel leader in your eyes. Almost every single response had at least one of these mentioned. Interestingly, the cover story of the latest issue of Business Week is dedicated to Trust. I am sure that the recent corporate bailouts, unethical business behavior, and irresponsible compensation practices have contributed to integrity, transparency, and authenticity being the most important qualities of leadership. This is clearly not reserved for channel leadership, but rather for leadership in general. I also believe that with the increasing power of consumers and their ability to organize and communicate quickly and effectively, companies and leaders must engage in open conversations. If they are transparent and authentic, then trust can become a great asset and improve for their brand. Interesting article…you should check it out.

Thanks again…keep the ideas coming!

E + A = P

Every once in a while we find ourselves surprised by a small nugget of wisdom that comes from the least expected sources. It might be an observation from a child, a suggestion from a new hire, or inspiration from a middle school soccer coach. The later is what happened to me just this past week. One of my kids plays soccer on his middle school team. This is a relatively small school (only 100 kids per grade) and the soccer team only has twelve players. Basically that means that most of the kids play the entire game, usually against much larger competitors in terms of physical size and number of players. Our boys are not particularly skilled and there is not a single standout player; you know, the kid that can take over a game singlehandedly. Our team is 5-3 half way through the season. Not bad.

After every game, our coach sends out a game recap. Usually these are fun, because each of the boys typically gets a mention about something they did well during the course of the game. After their most lopsided loss (7-3), the coach sent an email that took a decidedly different tone. He wanted to share with the team and us parents his E + A = P philosophy. He believes that regardless of how big or strong the opponent, our kids can win through a combination of Energy and Attitude.

Energy + Attitude = Performance

The team has not lost a single game since that email was sent. The boys are first to the ball, they play physical, and they can be relentless when the game is tight. Most impressive is the positive attitude and unselfish play of the entire team. There are no hidden agendas, if you will. High energy and a positive attitude have translated into an elevated level of performance.

I think that E + A = P translates nicely to relationship management. Without effort and the right attitude, it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to maximize the benefit of a great relationship. Have you ever been part of a relationship that was so good that it seemed effortless, only to see them turn over time? Unfortunately, even the best relationships require effort…you have to continue to foster and grow the partnership. I have also seen great relationships turn sour when a new party is introduced into the association. Maybe this individual has their own agenda, a chip on their shoulder, or something to prove. Regardless of the reason, the attitude takes a different tone and the relationship suffers.

Here is the lesson. Even the smallest of companies can build strong relationships within their channel. The product, however, is not enough. It takes energy and attitude. Sometimes…not always, but sometimes…larger companies can get complacent with their channel relationships. I had one executive once tell me that he expected the channel to deliver “unaided” business. This is complacency and a perfect opportunity for another vendor to win the heart, mind, and soul of that partner simply by using this basic equation…E + A = P.

We have another game tonight…GO CHARGERS!!! With a some energy and attitude we should do just fine.

When Relationships Change

Relationships ebb and flow. They are never static and, as such, need to be monitored and managed. The “highs” will inevitably give way to “lows”…and back to highs. Most of the swings are small and don’t necessarily mean that the relationship is changed forever. But even with the small shifts, opportunities present themselves to either mitigate the lows or exploit the highs. Frankly, I think that is what makes channel management fun. It is the opportunities to gain channel loyalty and strengthen relationships through the ebbs and flows that create the potential to grow the business.

Sometimes the shifts are more profound.

Remember last summer when Cisco was sued by Infra-Comm (a Silver designated Cisco VAR) for poaching a customer and giving the business to another reseller (AT&T Business). This was big shift…a fundamental change in the relationship between Cisco and Infra-Comm. Irreparable.

Then there are the waves of change that indicate a big relationship shift, but one in which the relationship can be salvaged with some savvy marketing and relationship management.

Over the past year, Red Hat has made investments in their channel. They have hired experienced channel leadership and started to roll out new channel programs that are creative and well conceived. Just today, they announced their Catalyst Program which is designed to provide the channel with an integrated open source solution. So instead of sourcing the individual piece parts of an open source solution, VARs can potentially use the Catalyst Program to provide a single, integrated solution to their customers. The program is designed to compete directly with Microsoft and Oracle. Cool.

The VAR Guy pointed out that right in the middle of the announcement today sit Tech Data and Synnex. Two Red Hat channel partners, both vying for a big chunk of the open source pie. Tech Data has partnered with HP, IBM, Fujitsu, Dell, and others to bring an open source ecosystem solution to the channel. Conspicuously absent from the discussion is Red Hat. Perhaps that is because Red Hat has partnered with Synnex to launch the Open Source Channel Alliance.

There is a lot of jockeying and it is certainly possible that a collaborative solution to the open source channel opportunity can be reached. It does, however, look like the relationship between Red Hat and Tech Data is in one of those relationship “lows”. The questions are, “Can the relationship survive?” “If not, what are the residual effects to the channel?” “What has happened to the balance of power in the Synnex/Red Hat relationship?”

This should be fun to watch…

Is All of This Talk About Social Media Real?

Yesterday I had a conversation with a like minded channel professional about social networking. There seems to be a pretty large number of company leaders that view social networking as business tool to be somewhat of a fad. It seems pretty clear to me that the data indicates that it is certainly not a fad. While there remains kinks to be worked out and business models to be developed, social networking is rapidly becoming an integral part of marketing and customer relationship management.

Just this morning I stumbled across blog post (and subsequent research) from the Gilwell Group that you should check out. This research not only addresses the premise in the previous paragraph, but it is also directly related to B2B channel management. I highly recommend that you check it out here. Take a look at the SlideShare presentation as well.

Lighting The Fuse

The key to effectively build a string of mini-explosions is to reach the individuals that have reach and influence beyond your own. Actually, it is more than just reach and influence. They also have to be willing, able, and motivated to share your message with others that they think will benefit from what you have to say. No problem, then. All you have to do is find those people that find your content so compelling that they are willing to share your information (sometimes at a risk to their personal and/or professional reputation) with other people in which they have some level of influence.

Piece of cake, right?

Not exactly.

These people are often called “Sneezers” because they help spread your content/message...creating the viral effects of social media. They are hard to identify and reach. Even if you could identify them, their attention would be very difficult to get as there would be significant competition.

The BIG question, then, is how do we reach and motivate these Sneezers and get them to help spread your content. First, and foremost, you have to have something they care about. For example, my Mom would not be a Sneezer for this post about social media, but if I was writing about cooking a Bundt cake, she would be a great Sneezer. So you have to target your content to the right communities of individuals. The key is to not be too narrow. Since you may not know who the Sneezer will be, you will have to cast a big net.

The next step is motivation. Why would a Sneezer feel compelled to share your content? This really comes down to being part of communities that share a common purpose. LinkedIn Groups are wonderful examples of these types of communities. I belong to some very large groups, as well as some pretty small groups. The smaller groups are more narrowly focused, but tend to be more passionate about the topic. The larger groups have a smaller percentage of active participants, but those that are active tend to have broader sphere of influence.

The graphic below shows how this would work. The mini-explosions occur within each community as a Sneezer reaches another community…one in which he/she has some influence. In turn, another Sneezer reaches another community. The process continues as long as the content has some value to the next community. The mini-explosions create the viral effect of social media because you have successful caught the attention of the Sneezer who is motivated to share.

TNT

Still working on this idea, but I wanted to get some reaction to the thought. It seems that social media offers a unique blend of Trust, Network, and Time (TNT). Using micro-blogging as an example, one would have a trusted group of followers. Those followers would have their own trusted group, etc. This is where the network comes in. In theory, even with a small group of followers, you would have exponetial reach through your network. LinkedIn works the same way. Because of the asychronous nature of micro-blogging, time to communicate and engage is greatly reduced, especially when compared to traditional media.

Social Media = TNT

As a stand alone strategy, social media will offer the benefits of trust, network, and time. Unfortunately, this will not necessarily translate into sales and revenue. Other channel sales and marketing tools are required to bring the benefits of social media to a revenue producing strategy. It is absolutely necessary to have fully-integrated channel marketing plan. Because of the benefits of trust, network, and time that social media offers, it can/should be a critical executional element of the plan.

Aligning Your Channel Plans

There is a lot to accomplish when managing a robust channel ecosystem. The interesting part of being a channel leader (at least for me) is that you have to work across a broad set of both internal and external constituencies. It is our job to make sure that we are implementing a suite of initiatives that satisfy the needs of all. This is not easy to accomplish, especially if you do not have a plan. I have previously discussed on this blog (and in greater detail on the Channel Connexions website) the process to use when developing and managing programs. But where do you start? How do you know which efforts are the right ones…the programs that will meet the needs of both your internal and external partners?

I think there is a simple, yet effective, way to identify opportunities by using an assessment process. It is really quite simple:

Over the next week or so, I will provide some additional details into each of the stages of this process. The 90-Day Process is really a guideline, but as you will see as we dive deeper into the processes, there are a fair number of considerations, none of which should be ignored.

I know that I spend a lot of time talking about channel management processes. I do this because it is important. Too often people assume that processes inhibit creativity and slow down implementation. This does not necessarily have to be the case. An effective process will ensure diligence and a focus on delivering results that matter to your company, as well as the various contingencies that rely on your success.

Celebrate Good Times...Come On!!!

We ask a lot from our channel partners and they demand a lot from us. It can be a challenge for each of us, but the benefit we receive from working together to get that additional contract or satisfied customer is worth the effort. I think it is ok, in fact necessary, to celebrate our mutual successes. Here are some ideas about how to celebrate with your channel partners:

The Big Incentive: Often there is a “big” reward for a channel partner achieving a certain goal. Some examples:

Growth: Many companies choose to offer a Growth Incentive for partners achieving an annual revenue target. The most common is the growth rebate where a vendor offers a percentage rebate for a channel partner reaching a specific revenue target. Let’s say a vendor challenges a partner to grow revenue 20% year-over-year. In exchange for the growth, the vendor offers a 10% rebate on that growth. The resulting 2% goes straight to the channel bottom line. In some cases, this can be quite substantial. Please note that some industries (ie. Insurance) frown on these types of contingent payouts, while other industries are more accepting.

Recognition Trip: Companies may choose an exciting location for an annual celebration with top partners. While considered by some to be a “boondoggle”, these events can be quite productive. While it is nice to get away and enjoy a nice destination, I recommend that you take this time, with your captive audience, to engage in a learning opportunity. It is a perfect opportunity for executive teams to discuss the status of the market, new business opportunities, and potential issues to address.

The Sales Incentive: The Big Incentives are nice, but they are typically only beneficial to the most senior levels of the organization. For example, few channels will distribute the gains from a growth incentive to their sales teams, preferring to take profit instead. As such, it is important to recognize the outstanding individual efforts of your extended sales force. There are countless ways to accomplish this with gift cards, redeemable points, and cash. Remember, these are the folks that make it happen for your every day.

Public Recognition: I mentioned in my previous post about the Hierarchy of Motivations, that channel partners have a social need that you need to address. Recognizing extraordinary accomplishments in service excellence, innovation, and program execution in a public forum is a great way to celebrate your channel partnerships. A small token (like a plaque) coupled with a press release satisfies the social need and demonstrates your commitment to the partnership, for example.

The Little Things: These are really the biggest things because they matter most. A well written and sincere Thank You note is almost a thing of the past, and yet is perhaps the best way to recognize your partner. Everybody likes to be recognized for the long hours, hard work, and commitment we put into a project or relationship. It is shameful to not share your appreciation. You can also send a quick email to “the boss” letting him/her know how much you appreciate the efforts of an individual or team. Don't forget the little things.

These are just a few ideas and frankly, the more creative you can get with your "Celebration Programs" the better.

Hierarchy of Motivations - Channel Actualization

Sorry for the somewhat academic sounding title, but channel motivation is something very few companies truly incorporate into their plans. The expectation seems to be for channel marketing to develop marketing “programs” that will motivate the channel and the channel sales teams to sell more stuff. Not a bad goal and certainly selling more stuff is a good thing. Creating a truly motivated channel, however, requires more than a few incentive programs. Maslow created the Hierarchy of Needs to demonstrate that in order to get to “self-actualization” the individual must pass through a series of stages. Apparently you cannot just decide one day to be self-actualized. Who knew?

It got me thinking about channel motivation and wondering if a channel relationship can just become “actualized” or if there were stages that the relationship must go through to reach Nirvana. Not being a trained psychologist, I thought of the two motivations we often see in the workplace; the carrot and the stick. Certainly, Donald Trump has used this approach for his reality show, The Apprentice. I think there is more, though. What truly motivates a channel partner is not too different than what motivates an individual:

Survival: Channels (like people) will do what it takes to survive. This often leads to a “path of least resistance” behavior. Channels will behave in a way that helps them survive. This why effective lead generation and deal registration programs are embraced by the channel. Incentive programs and channel ramp initiatives will also help satisfy the “survival” motivation.

Social Need: This is an emotional need. Channel partners want to be recognized in their communities and business circles as successful and thriving business practices. Their success is directly related to the perception of their customers and partners. Channels have a social motivation. Channel designation programs, for example, offer a recognition brand for their excellence. The reason many companies offer a tiered designation structure is to motivate their partners to invest in the relationship and gain the next level of designation.

Need to be Valued: As I have mentioned previously, channel partners want to be engaged and involved. They want their input on product and solution development, marketing programs, and service level agreements to be heard and valued by the vendor. The community of Linux developers and contributors to Wikipedia are emotionally connected to these products and services because they feel valued. Companies that embrace this “need to be valued” motivation through engagement programs (similar to the trends in channel education), will benefit by creating an emotional connection with their partners; ultimately creating switching costs.

Channel-Actualization: The Utopian channel relationship is one in which there is mutual commitment, mutual growth, mutual profitability, and brand between the channel and the vendor. As Maslow would describe it…the relationship is everything that is can be. Of course, this is a state where there is perfect communication, action, and results.

The Channel Hierarchy of Motivations would look something like this:



The goal in building channel motivation campaigns should be to reach the top by building a suite of programs and initiatives designed to move your partners up the hierarchy. Focusing exclusively on the lower stages is table stakes as this is where your competitors are also focusing their efforts.

Disclaimer: I apologize for the psycho-babble in this post. Perhaps it sounds a bit “too fluffy”, but I do think that you have to go beyond incentive programs and lead generation to truly motivate your partner community. Would welcome your thoughts…

Engaged Channel Education

Educators are successful when they engage their students.

Politicians win elections when they engage their constituents.

Companies profit when they engage their customers.

The discipline of channel education should be focused on engagement. If we, as channel marketers, are able to better engage our channel partners in our educational programs, we will be successful. Certainly, products and services with better quality and more market demand will have a leg up on their competitors. But all things being equal, companies that better engage their channels will gain mindshare, commitment, and loyalty.

The most exciting aspect of building an engaged channel education program is that technology is enabling new approaches, which in turn is changing the landscape. Organizations that embrace these new "engagement" tools will benefit. While traditional channel education methods are still prevalent, these newer methodologies are rapidly becoming the standard.

The "old/traditional" educational methods all share two common traits; they are "pushed" on the audience, and the content is one size fits all. Perhaps one can argue that webinars and brown bag sessions are more interactive and not necessarily just "pushed", but they do not allow for joint content development and customization. As such, there is a limitation on the engagement value of these tactics. True engagement occurs with the active participation of the student, not just during the delivery of the content, but in the content development, as well.

I am not suggesting that we should abandon the traditional approach as there is still value in many of these approaches. What I do recommend is that we implement the engaged methodologies. The balance is definitely shifting as our customers (students) demand the value of participation.

Educate, Motivate and Celebrate

I have blogged about this before (http://channelconnexions.blogspot.com/2008/05/educate-motivate-celebrate.html), but I felt that a little more detail is in order.

Channel Marketing is in the business of educating, motivating, and celebrating. Some describe the function a bit differently (Attract, Enable, and Drive, for example), but I think if you can be innovative and disciplined in your approach to channel education, channel motivation, and channel celebration, you can create differentiation in your relationships. The important thing to recognize is the need for INNOVATION and DISCIPLINE.

Too often, I see channel marketing that still uses the same programs and tools over and over. Not only does this fail to motivate your partners, it does not create any competitive advantage or switching costs. The most successful channel marketing initiatives are new and create and build buzz. It is very difficult to compete with the Cisco's and Microsoft's of the world, especially in their ability to engage the channel. Copying their programs absolutely will not get it done. Try new ways to educate, motivate, and celebrate.

While it is critical that you innovate, you should not do it at the expense of discipline. You need a strategy and a process and you need to stick with them.

If you don't have a strategy...any campaign will get you there!

Whether you use a process similar to the one I have used (http://channelconnexions.blogspot.com/2009/07/connexions-process.html) or you have your own, it is very important to stick with it. The discipline won't guarantee success, but a lack of discipline will likely end in failure.

Over the next few days I will offer up some thoughts on each of education, motivation, and celebration.

Pyramid vs. Diamond

Channel designation structures often follow a pyramid structure like the picture on the left. It makes sense that at the highest level of the structure there is more exclusivity...only the best of the best sit at the top of the pyramid. In this case, the Platinum partners make up only about 10% of the total channel population. Next is the Gold designation and finally, almost 60% of the designated partners fall into the Silver level. Companies that are just building their channel ecosystem should follow this structure, especially if they have limited geographic coverage. Unfortunately, too many companies stop here...with the pyramid. I think there is a better way.

One of the goals of channel management should be to move lower designated partners up the pyramid to higher designations. Isn't it better if your Silver partners increase their level of competency and capabilities to the Gold level. Of course it is...they become more invested and loyal as they move up the designation hierarchy and are better able to serve your mutual customers. If that is the case, however, and you want to maintain the pyramid structure, you will need to be constantly recruiting new partners at the lower levels. Again, this is fine if you are just building your channel ecosystem, but what about for an established channel structure? More recruitment means more channels, which very likely will cause channel conflict, over distribution, price erosion, and decreased channel satisfaction. Not good.

I think that over time the structure has to change to more of a diamond shape. The highest levels maintain their exclusivity, but there becomes a smaller number of designated partners at the lowest level because you are helping them move into the middle (Gold) tier. There is no need to over distribute and continue to recruit partners. The form simply takes the shape of a diamond. At this point, recruitment is reserved for replacing poor performance partners enabling you to manage channel conflict.

How you manage your structure will depend on where you are with your channel coverage model and the optimal number of partners you need to be successful. Don't get stuck in the pyramid, when a diamond may be all you need.

Different Types of Channel Relationships

There are two different relationships that require your attention. OK...there are more than that, but two major categories of relationships that every channel leader must constantly consider.

The first is the relationship between you (and your channel partner) and your end user. The second is between you and your channel partner. How you manage and market within these relationships is very different and requires very different approaches.

In the first case, companies typically establish a designation structure...usually with multiple tiers. For the sake of argument, let's say they use precious metals (platinum, gold, silver). The end user can choose their solution provider and understand that the vendor/manufacturer has recognized the channel based on some sort of achievement. In theory, a Platinum partner has achieved a greater standing with the vendor/manufacturer than a Silver partner, and therefore, offers some additional value to the end user.

Channel managers will work to build a channel ecosystem based on these designations. It is not uncommon for their to be a greater number of Silver partners than Gold partner, and, likewise, a greater number of Gold partners than Platinum partners. The result is a pyramid of designations:

(more on this strategy later...there might be a better way to think of the Pyramid)

The second category of relationships that require the attention of the channel leader is between you and your channel community. I don't think that same designation structure is useful in this category because it really says nothing about loyalty and the change in relationship over time. As such, you might have an extremely loyal Gold partner whose relationship is getting stronger over time versus a Platinum partner whose relationship (for whatever reason) is fading. How you market to these channel partners should be very different and really has very little to do with their external designation brand.

Channel Managers should consider another way to classify their partner community when managing this category of relationship. It should be based on loyalty, and more importantly, on the change of loyalty over time. The relationship map would look like this:

Very different than the traditional pyramid structure used in managing relationships with the end user. The basic concept is that how you sell and market to a Fader should be very different than how you sell and market to an Up & Comer...regardless of their external designation.

Most companies tend to focus on the pyramid and do not have the infrastructure and data to effectively manage "the curve".

Learning

The last step in the Channel Connexions Process is "learning", which is really based on the measurements used to gauge the relative success of each channel campaign. I think it is important to understand that the ways in which marketing measured is changing. It used to be that we used "Awareness, Consideration, and Purchase" as the success measurements in a marketing campaign. The approach is fine with a mass marketing campaign, but with a true, targeted 1:1 relationship management initiative, we should be focused on customer attraction, retention, extension, and loyalty. This holds true from a channel perspective, as well.

Today, it is fairly common practice to use SEO measurments and targeted advertising to "attract" new business. Retention (engagement) and extension require newer metrics and involve the examination of data over a period of time. For example, revenue growth is good know, but it is more useful to understand the change in revenue growth velocity. This information offers additional insight into each customer/channel, and enables you to make better decision about future marketing campaigns. By managing channel attraction, engagement, and extension, you will increase channel loyalty and accelerate the positive rate of change in loyalty.

ACT

It is pretty evident that mass marketing is rapidly being replaced by more targeted communications. As discussed in the previous blog post, the application of "active" data analytics is enabling companies to focus their messaging to a very well defined community. There are many benefits to this, not the least of which is a better ROI on your marketing spend. This is extremely important especially when dealing with a large channel ecosystem which potentially thousands of indirect sales representatives.

While some of your channel partners might be exclusively sell your products or services, it is more likely that will multi-source from a number of vendors. Your challenge is to position your portfolio effectively as the lead solution. To accomplish this you will need to win the mindshare battle. Mass marketing (spray & pray) will not provide you with the mindshare needed.

The hierarchy in the image is a great way to look at your communication strategy. Your goal should be to establish a unique relationship with each of your channel partners and, even, each of the channel sales representatives. By engaging each of them in interactive conversations with your channel marketing programs you can build an emotional connection with the individuals. This, in turn, creates loyalty and switching costs, well beyond what can be accomplished with mass marketing.

While this is difficult and will take time to develop, the emergence of new technologies is making Stage 5 communications much more realistic, even for smaller organizations. Social networking is enabling new business relationship management applications and variable data management techniques for email and print-on-demand solutions are more readily available.

The channel management reality is that you have to be better and more creative in your channel marketing strategy. A "me-too" approach will not adequately differentiate you from your competitors and make winning mindshare very challenging. Channel executives should be willing to push the envelop with a focus on building relationships through unique communication strategies.

Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning seems like a logical place to start, but it is too often limited to just a few key stakeholders, and often does not consider the full suite of available data.

Channel Connexions looks at strategic planning as a holistic cycle that starts with the application of market analytics. By continuously examining the data (quantitative and qualitative), you will be able to proactively identify new opportunities.

I think the most common mistake that channel marketing managers make is that once an opportunity is identified there is an immediate push to develop a campaign and execute. While the intent is correct, there are other considerations. Ensuring that back-end business processes are in place to support the campaign is extremely important. Can we track and measure the campaign? How will we deliver training and customer/channel communications? There are countless other considerations, but establishing the business processes is an important next step.

Considering and selecting the appropriate financial performance goals is extremely important. Your goals can revenue growth, profitability, product/service attachment, share of wallet gains, or some other measurement. Make sure you select the right goal and have the business process to measure.

As you review your business process needs, it is likely that you will identify technology needs to support your campaign. For example, call center queues may need to be established or you might need a variable data management system for your multi-channel needs. This should be coordinated and established before the campaign launch.

After all of these considerations, you will now be ready to launch and manage your campaign. A strong channel marketing team is required to coordinate the strategic planning process and provide continuous oversight and management of the program(s). It should be noted that it is common for multiple campaigns to be in different stages of the planning process at any one time. Adherence to the process will help with the overall coordination of the efforts.

As you may have guessed, the effective planning of channel marketing requires the active participation of many different functional teams including Sales, Marketing, Finance, Product Management, Service, Operations, and the Executive team. You must be willing and able to engage each of these functional teams and build a collaborative effort to execute effectively.