WHY do you grant MDF to your partners?

Why do you give partners Market Development Funds (MDF)?  Why does one partner get more than another? What is the ultimate goal of granting MDF?

While these may seem like easy questions to answer, we would argue that they are not so obvious.   

Many vendors grant MDF to their “best partners”.  Most of the time this refers to the partners who have the highest revenue sales of the vendor’s products and services. Most of those partners are large resellers. The bigger they are, the more they sell. 

When we asked vendors about their small and mid-sized partners, the answer was – “Well, they don’t sell as much of our stuff. If they want MDF, they have to sell more.”  

In these cases, MDF is given as a reward for past revenue performance, rather than an investment to drive future growth. 

If you want to grow, you need more partners, and you need more partners that are growing with you. Jay McBain, Chief Analyst at Canalys says that a vendor needs “to be visible and appeal to upwards of 10 times the partners it is engaging with today.” 

How do you get more partners to be top-performing? How do you get more partners to be high revenue generators? 

We would argue that MDF programs should take a more strategic approach. While there will always be some element of revenue performance, an MDF program should also be used to help develop the next level of partners who are positioned to be your next “best partners.”  

How do you make MDF programs more strategic and growth-focused?

“Recognizing (and rewarding) partner-assist across the different  points of value requires new thinking around legacy channel programs and  gross-to-net investments.”

We work with vendors who have recognized this need for growth-focused investments and are leveraging through-channel marketing MDF programs.  These programs benefit the vendors with expanded marketing through their partners, and, they help to develop and support their partners’ overall growth. 

AscendX Digital’s through-channel marketing services help to elevate partners so that they are found online and build their own credibility around the vendor products and solutions. 

Partners get content they would never be able to create on their own, an active social media presence, and integrated email marketing campaigns.  Monthly sales tips and ongoing partner education enable the vendors to connect more often with partners, and the investments build real partner loyalty.  

Because most of these partners are in growth mode, they aren’t the biggest partners – yet. They often don’t have large internal marketing teams, and the low/no-touch features of through-channel marketing make it easy for partners to opt-in while the automation does all of the work for them.

So ask yourself – Why do you give your partners MDF? Is a reward for a lagging indicator?  Or, is it an investment in future growth?

If you want to take a strategic, forward-looking approach with your MDF program, and use it to build your next “best partners”, talk to us about through-channel marketing MDF packages. They are flexible, easy to implement, and future-ready.  

Having your partners participate in the digital customer journey is a simply a requirement. 

If your partners are not online, neither are you.