In the second blog of our series on Dan’s Top 5 Lead Gen Tips to Help Simplify Lead Gen Complexities, we’re looking at overcoming red tape and admin hurdles.
Paperwork. Paperwork. And more paperwork!
For some of our clients who have recently moved into the IT industry from other sectors, it may come as a surprise that there is often a long process involved in initiating lead gen campaigns due to the additional administrative hurdles needed to secure funding – where many campaigns are jointly funded by an alliance of two or more partners.
Co-funding, of course, can give your project bigger scope and potentially better results. But you’ll need to follow the terms of your partnership to the letter, or risk not receiving the funding that makes your project financially viable.
The administration side of co-funded campaigns adds a lot of complexity to campaigns.Partners will set rules about the cost per lead, messaging in the campaign content, and the proof of execution you need to provide. Co-funded campaigns also introduce creative challenges for content creators, around how to combine each partner’s message and brand.
Given the complexities, it may be tempting to consider whether there are more direct routes to being able to initiate campaigns. However, according to a 2023 Report by PartnerPath, 30% of surveyed vendors indicated that more than half of their revenues were driven by partners. So, for many vendors, the process of co-funding to initiate lead gen campaigns, is an increasingly important component of effective lead gen marketing.
What you would need to do to secure co-funding for a lead gen campaign
Hopefully you already have a developed partner ecosystem and so this advice is more geared towards securing funding from existing partners. If you’re working for an organisation where your partner ecosystem is nascent – you’ll need to carefully evaluate potential new partners based on several criteria where there is likely to be synergy with your products and solutions. (That’s a whole other subject which we’ll cover in a later blog.)
For now, let’s assume you have developed multiple longer-term partnerships, and you have the right alliance contacts working for each partner to maximise the value of the partnership.
Broadly, there are several steps that need to be considered to secure co-funding from an existing partner:
- Long-term planning. Before getting into the weeds of funding requirements, you need to have a strong relationship with your partner alliance manager. This may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised with how regularly we see some clients having the need to execute in-quarter activity in a hurry because they have suddenly uncovered funds to spend that will be relinquished if not claimed within a few weeks. Whilst there will always be some short-term needs to execute lead gen campaigns quickly, it’s far more preferable to gain visibility into your funding partner’s long-term plans – e.g. when they’re likely to release funds, what are the likely budgets, does the funding partner have a product roadmap that can give you insights into where you can support with embedded or value-add opportunities? What does mutual success look like? The closer you can get to your partner alliance manager, the better the overall outcomes for running repeatable, longer-term lead gen programs.
- Understand the parameters of co-funding from the partner. Part of staying close to your funding partner is understanding the financial parameters. i.e. what’s permissible, what’s considered ‘acceptable leads’, what POE requirements will be needed to release funding, and the other stipulations that will help your lead gen program to be successful. Some of these requirements can be a little complex so a deep dive may be necessary!
- Anticipate the build of joint messaging. Let’s assume you’ve got a plan, you know the Ts and Cs, and you’re ready to initiate a lead gen request. But before kicking off any lead gen campaign, you’ve got to build out the joint messaging – properly. To avoid multiple rounds of messaging amends, it’s worth spending the time. Whilst looking to secure co-funding, finding out examples of where joint messaging has been applied to lead gen deliverables (from call scripts to whitepapers and other relevant nurture assets). Sometimes the partner requirements may be a paragraph of copy near to the end of the document but other times there will be an expectation that the joint messaging is interwoven throughout the assets – increasing the complexity.
Let’s make things easier.
It’s quite a process, isn’t it?! Of course, handling these challenges is part of the value TBT Marketing adds to our clients. We have been successfully orchestrating lead gen campaigns for 24 years now and we’re continuing to see a lot of demand for getting joint partner campaigns into market to meet stringent KPIs and prove ROI, building the case for repeatable and scalable programs.
At TBT Marketing, we are experts at facilitating partnerships, looking after Proof of Execution, and we can even help you negotiate better rates with preferred lead gen partners.
If that sounds interesting, drop us a line and let’s see how we can assist your business to maximise the impact of lead gen opportunities.
