Partner Marketing OS · Strategy
Before recruiting a single partner, decide why you are building a program and what partners get in return. Strategy first; tactics follow. This SOP defines the foundations and the tier and lifecycle model the rest of the OS runs on.
Name your primary reason: reach (new segments or geographies), credibility (co-sell with a trusted brand), capability (delivery you do not staff), or economics (lower cost of acquisition). The primary reason dictates which partner types matter and how you invest.
Partners invest their time only where they see margin, stickiness, differentiation, or leads. Write a partner-facing value proposition — in the partner’s terms, separate from your customer value proposition — for each type you pursue. This single asset is the most-skipped one, and the reason recruited partners go dormant.
Does the partner source demand, influence the decision, deliver the solution, or retain and expand the customer? Each position needs different marketing support. Map it before you build campaigns.
Document who owns which accounts and segments, and how direct and partner motions coexist. Marketing must know the rules before running any co-campaign, or the program breeds distrust with your own sales team and with partners.
Tiers concentrate investment where it pays back. A common shape: Registered/Authorized (self-serve portal, assets, referral rewards), Select/Silver (co-branded campaigns, some MDF, lead sharing), and Premier/Strategic (joint business plan, dedicated MDF, co-sell, flagship events, exec sponsorship). Tiers must be earned and measurable, benefits must escalate meaningfully, and demotion must be real — or tiers mean nothing. Publish the criteria.
Every partner flows through the same spine — Recruit → Onboard → Enable → Co-market → Co-sell → Grow/Retain, with measurement and re-tiering at quarterly reviews. The intensity of each stage varies by partner type and tier; the sequence does not. The remaining modules are the SOPs for each stage.
Set a small number of measurable 12-month targets: partner-sourced pipeline as a percent of total, number of productive partners, and co-marketing ROI. Write them into the Operator Brief so every partner activity ladders to a goal.