Today’s channel partners are stronger and more informed than ever before. This has resulted in more collaboration between vendors and partners working together toward success – and who doesn’t love mutual success in a partner program?Puzzle

To keep this momentum, our team is bringing you the most important channel trends we’ve seen thus far in 2017.

Utilize LinkedIn to its Fullest Potential

When you receive a lead, where is the first place you go to learn more about that prospect? That answer should be always LinkedIn. Connect with that individual and begin interacting. This facilitates to more familiarity and makes a potential sale more likely. Social media has become part of our daily lives, and that’s not changing any time soon. With that said, the most successful partners are leveraging “social selling” – particularly on LinkedIn. It’s all about your brand and nurturing those relationships so that they ultimately evolve into long-term customers.

Hyper-Focused Content:

Luckily for us it’s no longer 2005, when marketers would blast out the same offer to everybody on their email list and pray for hits. Instead, prospects today expect communication – and especially marketing – to be personalized and relevant. Now is the time to do your research and tailor your messaging based upon your prospects’ industry, role, pain points and needs.

IT Check – Mobility:

How often would you say you’re on your phone throughout the day? Pretty often, right? This year, we’re bound to see more mobility device management opportunities. In fact, according to Tech Target, managed mobility tops the list of practice areas channel partners plan to add in the next year. During the next five years this market is predicted to reach nearly $20 billion.

Supported Partnership:

Here at FirstLight, we live by the golden rule – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That’s why our Partner Program is tailored to meet the needs of agents and partners, to help drive that mutual success. Our partners have access to a full suite of FirstLight’s award-winning product offerings. So whether you are a VAR, a Systems Integrator or referral partner, we have a program designed to meet your needs.

The take away? There is no “right way” to tailor your partner program. But by choosing to work for mutual success, the possibilities are endless.

Interested in learning more about our program? Click here to apply online.

Sources:

https://blogs.vmware.com/partner/2017/01/channeltrends2017.html

http://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/blog/Channel-Marker/Distributor-moves-point-to-2017-channel-trends