5 Strategies for Strengthening Dealer Marketing & Relationships
By Two Rivers Marketing
Your channel is more than your B2B distribution arm; it’s a customer you need to win and keep. How? By being the most profitable, lowest-hassle line they carry.
B2B corporate leaders, you should view your channel partners as customers rather than as simply a captive extension of your own business.
When you work to understand the day-to-day realities and challenges of your channel partners, prove the value you provide to their business, and make it easy for them to work with you, you earn their respect and repeat business, just as those same efforts pay off with customers.
And just as there’s a competitive environment for winning customers, B2B companies are also competing for channel partners’ loyalty and attention — especially if you work with dealers and distributors that sell multiple brands.
The only way to make sure your voice isn’t drowned out by the plethora of other brands jockeying for the dealer or distributor’s attention is to be their preferred partner — the one they want to work with more than anyone else. The one they look forward to doing business with and referring their customers to.
In short: Be the line your channel partners lead with by treating them less like a route to market and more like a customer segment.
Most common types of B2B channel partners
The route to market for B2B companies tends to follow one of the four paths outlined below. Regardless of the distribution channel, all share an important common thread: It’s up to the channel employee to recommend, persuade, and sell the brand to buyers.
Retail: Commercial businesses that sell goods directly to end consumers for personal or professional use. Retail distribution generally operates via one of two models. One where a brand competes for shelf space and foot traffic at retail stores (e.g., Milwaukee tools at Home Depot), and one that is direct-to-consumer (DTC) where a manufacturer owns physical locations to sell its wares (e.g., Sherwin Williams paint centers).
Distributors or wholesalers: Intermediaries that purchase large volumes of inventory directly from manufacturers, warehouse the products, and resell them to retailers, contractors, or secondary businesses. Within this channel, a manufacturer's product is one of hundreds or thousands of stock-keeping units (SKUs) in a distributor or wholesale catalog (e.g., plumbing and HVAC products sold through Ferguson, electrical products sold through Graybar).
Sales reps at independent sales agencies: Third-party sales firms contracted on a commission basis to represent multiple complementary, non-competing product lines within a specific industry or geographic territory. Unlike distributors, these agencies generally do not take title to or warehouse physical inventory; instead, they function as an outsourced field sales force to secure purchase specifications and drive channel demand (e.g., electronic component reps or commercial food-service equipment agencies).
Dealers: Independent commercial businesses legally authorized and contracted by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to sell, distribute, and service specific branded machinery, vehicles, or high-value capital goods (e.g., franchised construction, agricultural machinery, or commercial trucking dealerships).
How to support channel partners and be the brand line they prefer
There’s a certain tension between the corporate side of B2B companies and their channel partners. The corporate side wants all the focus to be on their brand and for the channel to execute exclusively on their behalf. Meanwhile, channel partners want flexibility. They carry multiple brands because it diversifies their risk, it supports growth, and their customers demand it. This very real tension plays out every day between B2B companies and their channel partners around the world.
But that tension doesn’t need to be harmful. There are countless situations where a healthy tension is good for not only relationships and businesses, but strategy and product development as well. A publicly-traded B2B company faces different risks and opportunities than a local dealership. You’re united with your channel partners in selling and servicing products to shared customers, but your businesses also need different things.
That’s OK.
The key is to make the points where you do intersect as enjoyable, friction-free, and mutually beneficial as possible. This helps ensure that your channel partners prefer to do business with you more than any other B2B brand they carry.
Here’s how to make sure you’re the brand your B2B channel partners prefer:
Be a safe bet: Build trust with consistency and stability
Retailers have finite shelf space, distributors have a crowded catalog, sales reps have a limited team, dealerships have one showroom. Like any other business, your channel partner doesn’t want to take their chances on an iffy bet; they’re looking for a sure win.
This is a blind spot for many B2B corporate leaders. There’s a tendency to assume that if you provide the brand strategy, campaigns, and programs to your channel partners, the work is done. But what CMOs and CSOs don’t see is that the channel isn’t just receiving these materials and directives from you; they’re receiving the same things from every brand they carry. And this is on top of the very real work of running a successful business, likely with multiple locations, and all the attending risks, opportunities, and challenges.
The last thing your channel partners need is another set of demands, or to try to keep up with the latest rebrand or reorganization coming out of corporate. Instability makes you a bad business bet. When things feel shaky with one supplier, the channel will hedge their bets and shift their efforts and attention elsewhere. Instead, be the most dependable, lowest-hassle line they carry.
What to do: Show you’re a company that invests in its channel partners. Communicate clearly and openly with your reps, retailers, dealers, and distributors as the business partners they are. Provide a consistent brand story and a stable sales and marketing plan that lets the channel know they can rely on you. Keep your promises and follow through. If you’ve been losing trust with your channel partners, it’s time to earn it back.
Be easy to sell: Channel sales enablement that removes friction
Many channel partners have been in business for decades, and they have a long memory. Unfortunately, they have watched the personal support from B2B companies erode over time. Often the shift is driven by very real economic expectations of being publicly traded and answering to demanding shareholders. But from the channel’s perspective, the impact of corporate downsizing on channel support hasn’t been positive.
Where there used to be dozens of corporate field staff consistently supporting channel locations, there’s now one per region with a territory that spans half a dozen states. What used to be simple sales goal-focused incentive programs are now complex and multi-layered with pages of rules. Where a quick call to “their guy” at HQ would get a part or service issue resolved quickly now goes through chatbots and call centers.
What’s been lost is presence and personal attention from corporate. B2B is still built on relationships. Without meaningful human touchpoints, interactions between channel partners and corporate become shallow, reactive, and transactional. And in that situation, if you’re not easy to do business with, you’re already on the channel’s hit list.
What to do: Take care of your channel partners. Remove as much friction as possible from their sales process. Make sure they have the resources, education, training, and support needed to sell your brand effectively. Resolve issues quickly, restock parts fast, and answer questions personally and immediately. Reestablish personal connections, whether through visits to their location, bringing them to your offices, or inviting them to trade shows and conferences (better yet: all of the above). Show them with your words and actions that you value their partnership.
Fit them: Segment channel partners like customers
Just as you would never blast out a one-size-fits-all message to your customers, you shouldn’t treat all channel partners the same. Channel partner segmentation is just as valuable as customer segmentation.
The businesses that sell your products and services come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and sophistication levels. Your channel partners may be independent, family-owned and operated storefronts, multi-location dealerships with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, or anything in between. Marketing and sales support that excels with one partner can flop spectacularly with another.
Segment your channel like you do for customers, calibrating your outreach and requirements to best suit their sophistication, size, territory, and target buyers. Successfully marketing and selling through the channel means understanding and supporting the range of businesses driving the frontline; then tailoring your programs, training, support, and incentives accordingly. The goal is to minimize the operational burden they feel while maximizing their ability to sell for you.
What to do: Customize your programs to meet your channel partners at their current marketing maturity level, taking their local factors into consideration. Then, as they engage further, go deeper with them, matching their level of interest and elevating both of your businesses at the same time. See how 2RM transformed channel partner engagement for an agricultural B2B client.
Losing your channel partners’ attention and affection
As B2B companies have shifted to more transactional, program-driven relationships with channel partners, there’s been a corresponding decrease in engagement. According to an often-cited Borrell Associates study, 40% of co-op funds go unspent and 55% of dealers question whether co-op is worth their time. Companies see low program adoption of their channel partner programs and find their brand showing up inconsistently in the market. Seventy-one percent of channel partners struggle with the complexity of the marketing and sales programs they’re provided. These are concerning figures. And they are also symptoms of how thinly spread channel partners are. Unless B2B companies make an effort to improve the relationship with their channel partners, they’ll continue to lose the channel’s attention and affection.
Make them money: Be the most profitable line they carry
Last on this list but first on your channel partners’ minds: running a profitable business. It’s the whole reason you’re working together, and there wouldn’t be a relationship without it. Sadly B2B companies can sometimes take a myopic view of the P&L — seeing only what their products/services are generating and missing the channel partners’ perspective of that revenue or total ROI.
Each brand that a channel carries is a line item on their balance sheet with expected revenue attached. There’s a constant evaluation underway: Is each brand carrying its weight? Is it time to try a new supplier that might sell better?
Your channel partners don’t have to do business with you; they can switch to another brand. The best way to hold a spot in their lineup is to earn your keep and then some; to make them money in a way no other brand can match, direct as that may sound. Choosing you should be an obvious business decision for the channel.
What to do: Be the most valuable line carried by your channel partners. Do all you can with your own marketing efforts to drive demand, gain affinity and preference with customers, and keep your brand top of mind. Use your marketing to persuade target customers and bring them in the door as ready leads. On the back end, provide a seamless, omnichannel experience that connects customer data and behavior with services the channel is well-equipped to deliver. Pay out channel partner incentives quickly, and keep the terms easy to understand.
Be the brand channel partners prefer to do business with
In B2B, your business strategy depends on your channel partners choosing to spend their scarce resources on you. Fail to support the channel, and your best marketing and business growth efforts die at the door. While your competitors reach for another tool or another quick-solve program, do the work to become the brand your channel partners choose. Invest in them as you would invest in winning a customer. Build a solid relationship with them, and make trust and partnership the foundation of your work together.
At Two Rivers Marketing, our B2B channel marketing strategy centers on deepening relationships with channel partners to help our B2B clients improve the sales enablement skills of their local dealers and sales partners. Contact our team today to see how we can help you take your channel to the next level.
FAQs
How do you improve dealer relationships?
To improve relationships with B2B dealers, recognize dealers’ local markets and unique business needs, as well as their challenges and pain points. Provide them with the right tools and resources to strengthen their business, enhance their ability to drive sales, and increase customer satisfaction. Check out these five strategies for strengthening dealer marketing and relationships to learn more.
How do you become a preferred supplier for B2B channel partners?
Become a preferred supplier for your B2B channel partners by offering a strong dealer training program. Effective training empowers your network to deliver top-tier service, improves your relationship with channel partners and drives sales. Here are three ways to make sure your dealers have the training necessary to succeed.
How do you support channel partners in B2B?
The best way to support B2B channel partners is to provide a strategic and supportive marketing approach that mirrors the dedication your company shows to end customers. This involves building robust channel marketing programs that are not only effective but also easy for channel partners to leverage, backed by dedicated support and a keen understanding of the evolving digital landscape. Here are five ways to upgrade your channel marketing program to maximize results and minimize the marketing burden for your channel partners.
Why do channel partners drop brands?
This can include everything from lack of marketing and training support to inventory lags, product quality issues, pricing shifts, and overly restrictive brand requirements. The most effective way to prevent being dropped is to maintain a strong relationship with your channel and communicate openly and often with them as true business partners. Get more tips for dealer and B2B channel growth in our insights collection.
