Partner marketing
Make your partner programme part of the growth work
Built the growth engine that took cnvrg.io to its acquisition by Intel.
I lead partner marketing strategy and personally build and run the agreed programme. Connect partner fit, recruitment, onboarding, joint campaigns and sales handoffs to commercial evidence your team can use.
Give the partnership a commercial job
Use this service when you have partner interest but no shared way to turn it into useful work. You may need to launch an integration partnership, activate a referral programme or improve an existing channel. The first decision is which customer problem the partnership solves and why each side should invest.
As your Fractional CMO & Head of Growth, I connect that decision to campaign and operational execution. I can build the partner proposition, outreach material, onboarding journey, joint content and CRM workflows included in your scope. Your team keeps the operating materials and the decisions behind them.
Partner work, connected
Illustrative programme workflow. Your agreed scope defines the activities, owners and review points.
Agree the economics before recruiting partners
Start with the partner type, customer overlap, offer and route to purchase. Assess the effort required from each side, available margin, implementation capacity and how a partner earns value. A technology integration, referral relationship and reseller arrangement need different programmes.
Your commercial, finance and legal owners approve commissions, discounts, agreements and commitments. I translate the approved model into partner-facing messages and a practical activation plan. The programme can sit alongside account-based marketing and wider campaign management.
Build the programme people will actually use
The agreed deliverables connect partner recruitment to customer work:
- Programme brief: target partners, customer fit, mutual value, commercial assumptions and acceptance criteria
- Prospecting and intake: researched partner shortlist, outreach assets, qualification questions and a review process
- Enablement and onboarding: partner story, product-approved materials, activation checklist and named contacts
- Joint execution: co-marketing content, launch pages, event or email campaigns and co-selling handoffs
- Operating system: CRM fields, intake and routing workflows, opportunity evidence register and review cadence
Keep ownership visible through execution
I personally implement the agreed marketing assets and workflows, coordinate approvals and review partner activity with the people doing the work. Your sellers own opportunity qualification and closing. Product owners confirm integration capabilities, while designated client owners approve spend and commercial terms.
For an existing programme, I examine where partners stop participating before proposing another recruitment campaign. The fix may be a clearer proposition, missing enablement, slow intake or an unclear sales handoff. Agreed CRM automation can support those handoffs.
Worked decision: an introduction to an open opportunity
This is a hypothetical decision example. Your seller has already opened an opportunity when a partner introduces another stakeholder at that account. The introduction may help the deal, but it does not establish that the partner sourced it.
Keep one opportunity record. Preserve the original source and attach the dated partner action as possible influence. Review the action against your agreed definition before awarding credit. If another partner later helps the same deal, record that contribution against the same opportunity rather than adding the deal value again.
Measure partner contribution without counting the same deal twice
Agree the partner cohort, activation definition, opportunity rules and observation window before reviewing performance. Partner-sourced means the evidence meets your agreed origin rule. Partner-influenced means a documented contribution meets your influence rule. An opportunity can have both kinds of evidence, while its business value appears once in the reconciled total.
Review partner activation, usable introductions, qualified progression and observed revenue alongside programme cost and effort. Keep immature opportunities pending and unsupported contribution unknown. The evidence informs whether to improve onboarding, change the partner proposition or expand a working activity.
Download the blank partner opportunity evidence CSV. This header-only UTF-8 CSV contains no example results or formulas. Copy it into the tool your team uses.
Build creator collaborations around buyer fit
A creator partnership needs more than a follower count. Compare who listens, why the creator is credible for this product and what the audience should be able to do next. I research the agreed creator shortlist, develop the collaboration brief and personally coordinate the selected content and campaign work.
- Selection notes covering audience relevance, content fit, previous work available for review and the proposed collaboration.
- A creator brief with the product story, factual support, creative room, deliverables and review process.
- An agreed commercial and usage record: fees, disclosure responsibilities, content rights, reuse and any paid amplification are settled with the responsible business owners.
Illustrative example: a niche creator demonstrates a setup workflow to buyers who struggle with that task. Review whether the demonstration explains the product accurately and sends people to a suitable destination. If the same customer uses a creator code and later arrives through search, reconcile the customer once; neither the code nor the last click establishes the full causal contribution.
Connect the brief to creative testing when there is a specific message to compare, and to campaign management when the collaboration needs a coordinated launch and follow-up. Review the full collaboration cost, eligible response and customer evidence before extending it.
Bring the current programme and the people who own it
Bring your offer, customer profile, partner list, approved commercial model, current assets and CRM definitions. Identify the people who can approve claims, agreements, access and sales handoffs. I use the available evidence to agree deliverables, personal implementation responsibilities and review points.
The scope can include a programme build, a focused repair or ongoing ownership of the agreed marketing and operations work. Discuss your partner programme and connect it to your wider revenue operations.
Questions before starting
Can you build the programme and run the campaigns?
Yes. I lead the strategy and personally deliver the assets, campaigns and workflows agreed in scope. We identify client approvers and any dependencies before implementation.
Can you work with partners we already have?
Yes. I can review partner fit, onboarding, enablement and live handoffs before recommending more recruitment. Existing activity and commercial records help identify the useful next change.
Do you negotiate or approve partner commissions?
Your authorised commercial, finance and legal owners approve agreements, commissions and commitments. I can prepare the business questions and implement the marketing and operational model they approve.
How do you handle a deal involving several partners?
Keep one opportunity identifier and attach each evidenced contribution to it. Apply your agreed source and influence rules, reconcile the opportunity once and retain disputed or missing evidence for review.