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“…this idea that if we build it, they will come. And they don’t. We get to look back every year for decades now at what the adoption rates are of different technologies and stuff, and they just don’t. And by the way, when you take the adoption, you actually take the logins and take away the people that are forced to come to your portal to claim money to do a deal registration or to do actual things necessary to maintain their business, the amount of people that walk into your library and go to the Dewey Decimal System and just browse around your portal is zero, literally zero, nobody has the time. – Jay McBain from the podcast Partner Portals Live, Partner Hacker.

Partner Hacker is a relatively new podcast, and the quote was taken from a conversation between Jay McBain  Chief Analyst Canalys, Chip Rodgers Chief Marketing Officer Workspan, Rick Van Den Bosch Founder CEO Channext, and Jimmy Hatzell Director of Marketing Quickpass. The dialogue is among the most relevant I have heard. I highly recommend checking it out.

The question this group discussed is if there is a need for full partner marketing portals and if they should be owned, rented, leased, or maybe it’s a combination. Jay delivers an important point around the need for vendors to qualify to who information is delivered in order to keep it private if needed.  But, organizations need to improve how the partners are drawn into the destination that delivers the relevant content. Keeping the above comment in context, his point was that a field of dreams program doesn’t drive engagement. Vendors need to draw in the partner by offering gateways from destinations at which the partners are actually spending time.  

Chip Rogers introduces the following concept: 

“…how do we all work together, but still have security and still be able to lock down. Like when I’m working with you and I have trust in you, I want to make sure that that is a trusted relationship. But I also want to work with, you know, 10 other people, and they also want to work with other people and manage those trust relationships while you’re able to work with everybody. So I think that’s the architectural that needs to happen…”

To ensure we keep this in context, he is talking about how to create a more collaborative environment, and what that requires. He is not disputing Jay, he is discussing an architecture of a platform where the partner can receive secure information but also engage with others. 

What is most interesting to me, is that through this podcast they define the use case around the challenges of what a vendor needs for their partners. But, less time is focused on partner requirements. Partner useability seems to be the primary challenge all systems have. As Jay says, if you take away the musts-dos to get paid, the usage of these systems is very little to none. 

It is not that a partner or a seller doesn’t want or need the marketing support, it is that they don’t have the time to deploy the campaigns, and the usability of the application tends to not be focused on them. 

Here are examples of how we address needs:

Partner Need and Use Case:

Need: Easy to use solution that can work in line with their workflow.

Use case: Content is updated every Monday so that it works in line with their weekly planning.

Need: Content that is automatically customized and posted.

Use Case: One-time set-up that provides the needed customized fields. 

Need: Leads

Use case: Workflow new opportunities sent to the seller weekly. 

Need: Stay educated and informed.

Use case: Access to content weekly or on-demand that creates a learning track.

Vendor need and use case

Need: Provide messaging to partners regularly.

Use case: Weekly expected emails with targeted messaging to partners about content.

Need: Education

Use case: Educational materials delivered to partners and triggered based on completion of learning track.

Need: Content only for a select audience.

Use case: Partners need to provide qualifying information to receive a content stream.

The podcast really dove into the challenges of the vendor and partner worlds, and as it continues to evolve we will continue to learn more about these challenges.  

“No one ever got fired for buying Cisco” is one of my favorite business quotes. Better Marketing delves into the concept of fear-based marketing and how to effectively use it:

“When using fear-based marketing, it’s best to promote the negative consequences of not using the product than to show the positive outcomes of using it. Marketing in this capacity should not overreach or promote horrific consequences unless a strong position has been established (i.e the “Smoking Kills” campaigns). Be sure to show groups of people and togetherness in fear-based marketing so as to speak to the primal urge to seek comfort in difficult and scary situations.” 

But if you flip the coin on my favorite quote you will also find an element of comfort in the message: if you choose a Cisco product, you are ensured job security. I would argue that combining both fear and comfort into B2B marketing is an even more effective sales tool.

I once had the unique opportunity to use fear to sell a B2B solution. I was in a meeting with the review team who had already selected our service, and the director who was giving the final go-ahead. The salesperson assigned to the account was with me, so they could walk through everything one more time. After the director kept us waiting for 40 minutes in the conference room, she came in and promptly said, “I am thinking about going with this competitor,” who happened to be named after a dinosaur. That was all she said. I was surprised she had us travel to this meeting just to tell us that. As I thought about how to respond, I decided I didn’t want to waste my time explaining point by point why our company was better. 

So, closed my laptop, stood up, and said. “We are the leaders in the industry (and named the top five vendors in the industry who use us), if you want to tell your bosses you chose a company named for a dinosaur over us, go right ahead”. And I walked out to the dismay of everyone, including my salesperson. A week later we had the deal. 

At that moment I provided the director all that she needed, fear of choosing wrong, and comfort in knowing other top vendors use us as well. 

Applying this to our content marketing strategy means we need to think about how to gently express the fear, and then apply the comfort.  For example, would you rather have a channel enablement solution that has 5% usage or 40% usage? By showing 40% engagement rates we offer comfort to potential buyers knowing that others receive high value.  

The reality is we spend a lot of time thinking about awareness in our content marketing, but what is really needed? It is to comfort the fear of choosing wrong. What information can a buyer fall back on to defend a decision that leads to your product? Cyber security solutions have an easy and difficult time with this. The baseline for cyber security is fear of being compromised, but they too need to focus heavily on comfort.  

Let’s look at some of the article titles from PartnerOn that performed the best.

“Don’t let AI Security Risks out weight the benefits”  – The title invokes fear and resolution.

“Hacker Hunting and Built-in Protections” – Similarly, this invokes fear and leads to a resolution that will bring comfort. 

“Thales and Google Cloud taking charge of solving the complexities of your data in the cloud” – While this one is less about fear, it does evoke comfort and provides a resolution to a challenge we all face.

Here are some recommendations for how I would structure messaging around content:

1. Provide information that both addresses a concern and helps solve the problem, such as, “Hybrid work can be challenging, but these five steps will help improve productivity”.
2. Offer recordings or webinars that address the fear. Today we will listen to what keeps top CIOs up at night, and how they ended those sleepless nights.
3. Often B2B sales require meetings. Offer a counseling session: “Share with us your concerns around Hybrid Work, and we can develop the right solution together.” This should lead to an online or 1:1 meeting.

The challenge is consistently sharing so that the morning after the CIO’s sleepless night, your content is right in front of them, grabbing their attention, speaking to their fears, and comforting them with a solution. All you need to do is stay consistent and follow the path, and you will earn the win.

Want to gain comfort in your content marketing program Contact us at sales@contentmx.com