Channel Partnerships: Or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb.
I’m a little bit of a control freak, especially when it comes to data. I’m a huge believer in leveraging insights that we can gain from customers in order to go out and find more customers. As a marketer, part of living that mantra is measuring everything, and utilizing that data to find more data. A huge factor in my success in utilizing this sort of system is the inordinate amount of control you need to exercise over your funnel. Ad tech is quite powerful, but it isn’t perfect, so this sort of control is very necessary if you’re going to be as accurate as possible.
As you can tell, I’m a blast at parties.
I wanted to tell you this to give you the context so that you understand that when I was presented with channel sales, the whole thing kind of freaked me out. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of working with partners to multiply your efforts was appealing, but giving up that level of control was kind of a scary proposition. How was I supposed to measure ROI or ROAS when I can’t have full access to our partners’ pipeline? How was I supposed to hit users with cookies, or track user behavior? Where will my precious customer journey funnels come from? Half way into my miniature panic attacks I realized something.
I need to learn to love the bomb.
I can control for the top of the marketing funnel by informing it with the end result, and trusting the people we work with to do the right thing in the middle. I can’t micro manage how people move customers through their funnels in a channel model, but I can measure how well they do. When I see the results, I can then refine who is being successful and utilize that to pursue new channels in the future. With myself at least half reassured, I embraced the channel growth strategy, and you know what happened?
It worked.
Our partners are smart, driven, and very successful companies filled with talented individuals. Our goals are aligned, in that we really only win together, so of course they’re going to pursue growth paths that make sense. I write this not as some sort of public self reflection, but rather to encourage you. If you’re in the payments industry, I strongly recommend that you pursue channel partnership opportunities with trusted and complimentary products and services. I know that when I did, the only regret I had was that I hadn’t done it sooner.
