Asking yourself these five essential questions when setting up your Channel Partner Incentive Program will help you see the results you want.
Your channel partners are your lifeblood, they are the people who generate your revenue. As such, it's of the utmost importance that you are able to keep them engaged. How can you do this? With a Channel Partner Incentive Program.
Here are the essential questions you need to ask yourself when setting up your program:
1) What Return on Investment (ROI) do you expect?
As with any business initiative, ROI is going to be critical to your Channel Partner Incentive Program. You need to be able to show your finance department exactly what the company is getting in return for its investment in incentives.
To work out what ROI you expect, you first need to think about what you want your program to achieve. Ultimately, this is going to be based on how much revenue your partners are making for you, but there are a lot of elements other than sales that go into this. For example, when your channel partners are engaging with learning materials, they are going to be able to sell your products more effectively. You should therefore also consider learning and skills development when working out what ROI you would like from your program.
When creating a Channel Partner Incentive Program, it's essential you have the right people on board.
2) How are you going to measure ROI?
Whatever you decide, it's important you know how to measure ROI. Sales revenue is relatively easy, but what about engagement with learning materials? For this, you may need to look at how often a channel partner is taking part in product demos or downloading reading materials. Make sure you have specific measures for each aspect of ROI you expect to see - only then will you have solid figures to pass to your finance department and any other stakeholders to show that your incentive program is working.
3) Who do you need to get on board?
There's no point beginning to structure a Channel Partner Incentive Program if you don't have the right people on board. Think about the key business stakeholders who will need to have a say in your plans. This might include your CEO, your Head of Sales, your HR department and your CFO or other key financial decision makers.
Once you know who these people are, think about how you are going to win them over to your plans. You will need a slightly different argument for each person. For example, the CFO will want to see hard statistics about finances, while your HR department may be more interested in engagement and motivation. Meanwhile, your Head of Sales will want to see how an incentive program will increase sales revenue.
4) How are you going to communicate your incentive program?
Once you have everyone on board and are beginning to finalise the program's structure, you need to consider how you are going to communicate your plans to the business' channel partners. Think about who will be your initial point of contact, and how you are going to ensure their employees know about the program. How often are you going to communicate rewards progress or changes to the program? Will it be via email or directly within the program portal?
5) How often are you going to review your program?
All good business initiatives will have factored in regular reviews to ensure they remain on track with the goals that have been set for them. This is no different for your Channel Partner Incentive Program. Set regular intervals to review the scheme's progress, for example quarterly and annually. At each review you can look at the metrics you've set and work out what's performing well and where you need to make changes.
Channel Partner Incentive Programs with Power2Motivate
Ready to give your channel partners the recognition they deserve? Power2Motivate has years of experience creating incentive programs that always get results. Contact the team today for more information.