TPM Best Practice Series – Content is King

This is Part #5 of our Through-Partner Marketing (TPM) Best Practice Series. In this blog, we discuss the importance of a content strategy, and how to maintain consistent, current, and compliant content that powers your Through-Partner Marketing program.

This blog is all about the content you will need and how to manage it for Through-Partner Marketing success. It’s not as easy as you may think, and it’s even more difficult to maintain. But if you do the work upfront, and build a plan, calendar, and cadence, you can be extremely successful.

It starts with mapping out a content strategy, then building the content elements, and creating an ongoing calendar and cadence that keeps content fresh and customers and partners engaged.

1. Start with a content strategy map.

Answer these questions:

Which products/services/solutions do you want to promote through your partners?

• How many categories?
• How will you organize them?
• How will they drill down?
• Will every partner take all of the content? If not, are the categories segmented logically for partial participation?

2. Determine the content you need for each key category.

Which specific content pieces do you have/need to promote your products/services/solutions through your partners to potential customers? 

• To whom are you marketing the products/solutions?
• Who will be on your partner pages?
• Will they be technical people, business unit leaders, purchasing managers, or executives?

Then, map out each of the 4 Content Elements: Showcase Landing Pages (SLPs), Assets, Email Marketing, and Social Media Marketing.

2.1 Showcase Landing Pages

Showcase Landing Pages (SLPs) will be syndicated onto your partner sites.

• Which products/services/solutions to promote on each page.
• Lay out each page for optimal engagement.
• Have content/information that will keep customers on and engaged with your pages, including video.
• They should have good copy and eye-catching, relevant images.
• Have converting calls to action.

2.2 Assets

Your pages should have high-value assets to keep potential customers on the pages. These will also be the targets of your Email and Social Media marketing.

• Assets should be educational, and engaging (white papers, research reports, industry analyst reports, technical guides, brochures, solution guides, and case studies)
• Your assets may need some edits as they will be seen through the site of your partners.
• Which are high-value pieces to gate?
• All of your assets need to be housed in a content library for partner use and co-branding.

2.3 Email Marketing

• What are the key products/services that you want to promote on your SLP?
• What is the email journey you want to launch?
• What is the compelling value proposition and call to action?
• How often do you want to send out emails? Monthly? More/less often?
• Ensure you have a resource who can build the HTML content for the TCM system.

2.4 Social Media Marketing  

• Social media works when it’s consistent. Social channel algorithms reward consistency. It keeps you in feeds and your potential customers are more likely to remember you/your partners.
• Social media enables you and your partners to share your/their knowledge and build credibility.
• Do the math… For a month’s worth of content, you will need at least 21 social posts. In a quarter, that’s 65 unique posts. And if you are on multiple channels, you may need more than one version of each post (different character limits, image requirements, etc.)
• Your posts should be written in the tone of voice of your partners, and include relevant, high-quality images.

3. Keep it fresh

Once you build the content, you must ensure you have the resources to keep it fresh. Stale content won’t convert. You don’t need to change everything every month or quarter, but you should have some new content each quarter. Plus – the new content will give you something new to talk about in your emails and on social media. (You’ll be thankful you have it!) 

4. Build a calendar and a cadence  

Now that you have the content mapped out, build yourself a calendar. Think about when content is due, but also make it easy on yourself. When you are building an email and social messages for a particular document/asset – do several at once. You will save yourself a ton of time and effort.

Make sure you build key product launches and events into your calendar. If you have new products launching, those are great events to include in your content plan. 

And think about lead times. Who is providing you the content and when do you need it so that you have enough time to build it into your SLPs, and your social calendar? Make sure your cross-functional teams (See Part 1) know your lead times and are committed to providing you content on time (See Part 4).  You may need to tweak the content so that it makes sense to be seen through your partners.

What about AI?

AI can absolutely play a role in content development for through-partner marketing. But beware. We have seen far too much content out there that looks like it’s been written by a non-human. Your readers/customers/consumers will spot that a mile away. AI is great for consolidating information and providing outlines and structures for content. It can also be a good tool to get started. But please – whatever you do – don’t publish anything that talks about a “beacon of something in the realm of something else.” Just don’t.

Setting strategy and planning ahead yields success.

Once you have your strategy laid out, and a content calendar built, you are well on your way. There is a lot of content to gather, tweak, create, and post. Thinking you can figure it out as you go along just won’t work, and you’ll almost certainly fall behind. But when you plan ahead, identify resources, and agree on expectations, you’ll find that your Through-Partner Marketing program will run smoothly, and you and your partners will get the results you want.

Trust us to help.

At AscendX Digital, all the planning, content, and calendar management are built into our partner marketing services. Our Managed Service offering includes all of the development around the Content Elements. We build out the Showcase Landing Pages, upload assets and videos, and help define the CTAs. Our designers create and code the Emails, and we create all the social marketing content you’ll need every day/month/year.  We rely on our Vendors to provide the assets, but we’ll ensure they are co-brandable and available to your partners. And we’ll manage the calendar so that you and your partners always have current, compliant content that keeps customers coming back.