As a marketing and revenue leader in the IT Channel, you’ve likely invested significant time and resources into creating high-value content that aligns with product marketing, customer acquisition, retention, and increasing customer lifetime value (LTV). That’s great!
However, if you don’t have a way to scale distribution of this content to end buyers and your partners aren’t using this content, what’s the point?
The reality is that you need to be reaching potential end buyers at scale with your content to maximize ROI. The good news – you already have a powerful content distribution network at your fingertips – your partners’ websites – and your partners are hungry for marketing support, especially when it’s done for them.
Yes, leveraging your partners’ websites as a content distribution network will require investment. As such, you should anticipate that leadership will ask you, “How will this contribute to revenue?”
It’s a great question and one that can be hard to answer. So let’s jump in!
- Maximizing Through-Partner Visibility
From analyzing thousands of reseller websites (MSPs, MSSPs, ISVs, VARs, etc.), we’ve discovered that 60% of these websites don’t accurately represent the vendors respective partners work with. The most common issue? Severely outdated content about vendor products. It’s not uncommon for us to find that the most recent post about a given vendor’s products dates back as far as 2019. Second to outdated content is the lack of any vendor mentions at all, not even a logo in the logo showcase (though these same sites often reference competitors).
This misrepresentation harms you, your partners and even end buyers. When outdated information makes your products appear irrelevant, end buyers see your solutions as out of touch with their needs. This leads to lost deals for both you and your resellers.
By consistently distributing your content through your partners’ websites, you ensure potential buyers have the most accurate, up-to-date information about your offerings. This enhances your sales potential and empowers your partners with the content they need to become active participants in driving sales.
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- Fueling Partner Conversations
If a reseller’s last content update about your products was in 2019, chances are they’re not actively promoting you on social media, through email campaigns, or even in direct conversations with buyers. Without fresh content, your products are absent from their marketing and sales activities.
Reality Check – You lose 100% of the conversations you’re not part of. So what’s the status quo costing you in terms of lost revenue opportunities every year?
Simply providing updated, sales-enabling content unlocks your partners’ ability to promote your products across their channels. This visibility translates into more conversations and opportunities to win deals.
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- Improving the 80/20 Rule
The Pareto Principle is alive and well in channel sales: a small percentage of active partners drive the majority of revenue.
According to data from Salesforce and Canalys, partner-led sales now drive the majority of revenue for technology organizations. Point in fact, Palo Alto Networks just announced that 95% of their gross revenue comes through their channels. Partner-led and marketplace based sales are critically important to your organizations revenue growth.
Despite the gravity of your channel, chances are only 20% of your partners are active. What if you could achieve just a 5% increase in partner activation? By simplifying content distribution and enabling partners to market your products more consistently and effectively, you’ll activate more partners and boost partner-led revenue.
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- Upselling, Cross-Selling, Feature Adoption & Renewal
Once your partners’ marketing efforts are humming and they’re acquiring new buyers, it’s time to focus on retention and expansion. Through consistent content distribution, you can:
– Educate partners and their customers about additional features and products.
– Drive upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
– Ensure customers fully utilize your offerings, increasing their value and likelihood of renewal.
Active, informed users are more likely to renew and grow with your solutions, directly impacting customer LTV.
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- Content-Driven SEO & Organic Traffic Growth
Organic search is one of the most valuable marketing channels for acquiring high-intent buyers that convert. Ranking on the first page of relevant search results brings in qualified, intent-based traffic—which is far more likely to convert to revenue.
When you scale content distribution through your reseller network, you can expect the following impacts on SEO;
- Exponentially grow high quality backlink volume
- Increase acquisition of high-intent referral traffic
- Increase content indexation
- Strengthen topical authority
- Enhance brand trust and credibility
- Increase competitive advantage
- Higher SERP results compared to competitors across more queries
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- Leveraging GenAI Summary Answers
Search engines increasingly use GenAI to provide summary answers to user queries. GenAI builds these answers based on indexed content. The more relevant, high-quality content you distribute, the greater the likelihood that your information will be included in these summaries.
With buyers trusting and acting on these recommendations, your brand’s inclusion in GenAI-generated answers can drive significant high-intent traffic and revenue.
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- Establishing Thought Leadership & Brand Authority
Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes: Would you trust a cybersecurity vendor discussing outdated threats, or one addressing today’s and tomorrow’s challenges? Multiply this out by 60% of your channel and you’ve got a real problem on your hands.
By consistently distributing relevant, current content through your partners’ websites, you position your brand as a thought leader that brings contemporary, forward-looking solutions to market. This builds trust with partners and end buyers, making your products their first choice.
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- Enabling Partner Sales Teams
To sell your solutions effectively, resellers need the right tools and knowledge. If the information they’re working with is from 2019, they’re not selling your products—they’re selling your competitors’.
Consistent content distribution ensures that partners’ sales teams have up-to-date information to confidently position your products to buyers.
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Summary
Investing in scaling content distribution through your partners’ websites positively impacts revenue by:
– Ensuring reselling partners and end buyers have access to accurate, relevant product information.
– Enabling partners to market your products and include you in more sales conversations.
– Increasing partner activation rates and resulting revenue.
– Driving upselling, cross-selling, and feature adoption, increasing customer LTV.
– Boosting organic search performance and acquiring high-intent traffic.
– Enhancing visibility in GenAI summary answers, seeding your solutions earlier in the buyer journey.
– Establishing thought leadership and trust in your brand.
– Equipping partner sales teams with the tools they need to succeed.
Take Action with ChannelBridge!
ChannelBridge was built with one purpose in mind – fully automate through-partner content distribution for both vendors and resellers.
With ChannelBridge:
– Your content is automatically indexed and distributed to partner websites following Google’s SEO best practices.
– The process is infinitely scalable and cost-effective, with an average monthly cost of just $35 per reseller.
– ChannelBridge is zero code for vendors and easy for resellers to integrate, taking only minutes to set up.
– Once in place, ChannelBridge is 100% automated for both vendors and partners.
Ready to scale your content distribution and drive revenue growth? Reach out today to get started with ChannelBridge!