In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had conversations with a number of different vendors around MDF for our One Little Seed clients. And a post from Glenn Robertson of Pure Channels prompted me to put my thoughts down on virtual paper. Having been on both sides of the MDF tide lines, managing and dishing out allocations in vendor land, requesting, executing, and claiming on the partner side, I understand the challenges on all lines. However, after nearly (god forbid) 30 years of having the same arguments, how do we collectively come together to make this programme work for everyone?
The vendor conversations I’ve had recently include:
- That activity wasn’t successful, so we’re not going to pay what we originally agreed to fund
- Unless you do a webinar or event as part of this activity, we can’t fund it
- I need this to generate pipeline this quarter (halfway through the first month of said quarter)
- Our vendor logo needs to be more prominent
Marketing is about experimentation. Some things we just aren’t going to get right, but more often than not, the bold choices do come off. So, you need to take the good with the bad.
Events are only part of the cycle, and you need to build brand, trust and demand to be able to get those bums on seats.
We all love a bluebird, but we all know that in complex B2B purchasing when a buyer reaches out to you, they’re already 70% through their buying process. All the work you’ve done prior is what’s important. The lifecycle of that buying cycle can be anywhere from 6-24 months!
So where does this leave us?
In my humble opinion, everyone wants more revenue. Everyone wants growth. So, why are we not measuring the overall growth of the share of revenue between the partner and the vendor? If the partner is growing their business, then why are we behest to quarterly pipeline measurements and client/touch trackers? (Especially when all the data shows that you can’t TRULY influence pipeline generation within a quarter.)
Yes, there still absolutely need to be checks and balances to ensure that the partner isn’t just putting the MDF to their bottom line and execution is happening. But how about MDF becoming about a real partnership, looking at longer-term achievement and revenue attribution as a measurement of success? With so much marketing fatigue out there, it’s not as easy as it was ten years ago when I used to be able to successfully run a demand generation programme that relied on form completions, moved through to webinar and email nurture to get an easily trackable pipeline. But even then, we were looking at 6-9 months (or longer) of attribution tracking.
On the flip side, I’ve also had some great conversations with vendor marketing managers who understand what we’re trying to achieve, and we’re able to work towards these longer-term goals, but there’s always the pushback from sales leadership.
Which leads me from MDF to new sales – and how you attribute them fairly (if at all).
For a long time, I’ve espoused the rule of thirds when it came to new business. A third from marketing, a third from sales development, and in partner land, a third from vendor partnerships.
Isn’t it time that we all aligned with the greater business objectives, and looked at business and net new growth holistically? Yes, sure, that hunter rep has secured a new meeting, but that prospect will have done their research on the company, and that’s where marketing has contributed. However, that will always go to the sales rep as an attribution, regardless of the website, sales collateral or case study that they’ve sent alongside the meeting request.
Most smaller businesses can’t afford all the attribution tracking software that allows you to measure and track each engagement. These tools do exist, but they’re the luxury of global vendors in most cases.
One of the key conversations I have with all our clients is much like the old Pantene TV ad. “It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.”
Yes, new leads and net new business will start to hit the books, but that’s because we’re working closely with sales and not as an island. And we’re constantly asking, how do you use that collateral? What purpose does it serve, and where does it fit? Who can we use as a case study to fix a gap in our resources? But in the end, so long as new business is delivered, everyone is happy, regardless of what that final touch point was.
These discussions need to move outside of businesses that are owner-led sales and into larger organisations. The more successful a business is in totality, and the more that it’s recognised that marketing is actually part of every engagement in some way, then we’re on the right path.
There is still a long way to go.
