5 Tools You Need to Segment Your Channel

“Study your partners’ performance to gain insight into their potential.”

1. Why Segmentation is Important

The pressure to move faster and produce growth within your business is the key to scaling at a higher rate and your ultimate success. If your company has been experiencing the pressures of tight margins, hiring shortages, and growth targets – it’s time to think about the many ways there are to utilize your indirect channel.

The previous methods for segmenting partners was limiting and involved very little customization. Through witnessing trends first-hand and extensive research we have been able to identify four major components to segmenting your channel in the smartest way possible.

2. Ensure a Balanced Strategy

Instead of bucketing partners into categories from a mechanical level, we recommend analyzing a few components. Study your partners’ performance to gain insight into their potential. Be sure to determine which stage of the lifecycle the partner is in, within your company, are they new to your company? Are they still engaging? This will help you design groups around several different stages of the lifecycle. Include basic taxonomy into your strategy and do not forget to base a portion of your strategy on both the company and individual level.

3. Ditch the Tiers and Level Up With a Plan

Traditional gold, silver, and platinum can devalue and demotivate partners unless it is based on an individualized plan. Don’t make the mistake of focusing only on your high tier partners, when your smaller tier partners could potentially be turning out a higher ROI per dollar invested.

4. Be Dynamic

Launching a partner program without being able to dynamical adjust gives you little room for error and course correction. In today’s hypercompetitive channel environment, it is important to determine what a good partner looks like to your company. Once you have measured and analyzed your ideal partners, it’s time to optimize and monitor your actual results and continue to adjust accordingly.

5. Tool Up and Drive a Segmented Experience

Tools are the critical component to the success of segmentation. You are now able to determine the best way to use your new tools to customize the experience each partner has with your program.

As your company expands and develops relationships with several types of channel partners, strategizing a segmentation process will allow your company to reach results that will balance and focus your partner programs for a more profitable future.

This content originally appeared as part of Impartner’s ‘Build a Better Channel’ series. To watch the full webinar click here.