At last week’s Content2Conversion Conference and Demand Gen Summit, hundreds of B2B marketers gathered to learn everything they could about the latest marketing trends and tactics, from blueprints for content strategy to content audits and gap analysis, campaign reporting metrics and segmentation strategies. And while no singular session was geared toward marketing through or enabling partnerships, and the words “your indirect channel” were not uttered by a single speaker, every single marketer I spoke to that week had one — a channel, that is. And what shocked me most was that not one of the marketers I spoke to at this forward-thinking event had even considered that the strategies they were there to learn might have any relevance in their company’s channel marketing efforts. A fellow marketer saw my name badge in the expo hall, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I saw your name badge as you walked by, and I absolutely have to know what your company does because I’m so curious about the name Allbound.” With pleasure I explained that Allbound is a SaaS platform that helps companies empower their resellers and distributors to be more customer-focused through content and collaboration, and I shared that far too often we forget that sales and marketing is more than just inbound and outbound (although as sales and marketing professionals we love that debate of how much you need of each, don’t we?). Partnerships — VARs and distributors, agents and franchisees — these…
Read More: Channel Marketing, Content Marketing and Demand Gen — A Wicked Kool-Aid Combination
