Content Strategy in Partnerships: How to Build Customer Heroes
Crafting a content strategy is an often-overlooked facet of alliances, and with the right content strategy, your partner’s lead generation and sales funnel can become part of yours. You may be surprised to learn that you’re sitting on a goldmine of opportunity, you just need to understand how to harness it.
We’re lucky enough to have had Justin Zimmerman join us for a Content Strategy in Partnerships fireside chat where he explored precisely how you can make use of the resources at your fingertips. Justin spent over a decade in content creation before becoming the Director of Partnerships at Salesmsg.
Today, we’ll dig into the top takeaways from Justin’s presentation that you can use when creating a content strategy for your partner program.
Aligning Your Content Strategy with Organization-wide Goals
Justin recommended thinking about your content strategy in the same way you approach your product — not everything you create will have measurable direct outcomes. Still, you know everything has a positive indirect impact. “Content makes people smarter and more effective at using your product. Consider which features you’re developing for your product and how you can improve the use of those features through content,” Justin explained.
In our SaaS-driven world, product drives everything. Your products should match your ideal partner profile, marketing strategy, and partnerships strategy. If you have alignment internally, then everything else can work in harmony. From Justin’s perspective, “Paying attention to the product roadmap is the perfect way to align your content efforts.”
Essential Resources for a Strong Content Strategy
A partner relationship management tool and a content management system are both great, but Justin’s number one resource for a strong content strategy is your team’s mindset. He stressed, “The company’s goals aren’t as important as the customer’s. Dive into partnership content with a customer success mindset to have the most success.”
Justin also highlighted the power of consistency and dedication in seeing a strategy through. “When you do things enough times, you see ways to improve. Repetition allows you to find the best possible way to begin a project.”
Prioritizing Content Opportunities
When prioritizing partnership content, Justin heads up the funnel. He shared, “You should have already established your ideal customers. Go into your customer base and look at your top paying customers. Utilize your best success stories to create powerful client-centric content.”
Justin also recommends looking into industry leaders or tech partner managers outside of your existing client base. He explained, “There is a whole set of things you do to activate partnerships through native integrations, APIs, or webhook systems. We can achieve a faster time to value when we can develop an app quickly — we always consider how fast implementation will be.”
Justin’s content strategy has been effective for forging new partnerships. “As we’ve talked to customers and published customer interviews, we’ve found that they almost always mention another tech they use. The webinars, podcasts, and case studies I create from those customer interviews are powerful tools I can leverage when entering a new partner conversation.”
Discover More Powerful Insights for Growing Your Partner Program
Now is the perfect time to develop your content strategy for the new year. Take the time to plan how you’ll harness the power of your partners and customers to create engaging content. Your investment in content today will pay off in spades tomorrow.
Thanks again to Justin Zimmerman for sharing his insights on partner content strategy. You can connect with Justin on LinkedIn. If you missed Justin’s presentation and want to watch the entire fireside chat, you can access it here by submitting the form.
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