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For years, agency partners have been neglected. And it makes sense.
Agency partnerships take much more time, thought and effort to get up and running than affiliates, referrals — even channel. They’re working directly with your end customers, and without close collaboration during the sales cycle, proper training and tight standardized operating procedures, they could let your customers down.
But now, that payoff is worth the effort. Here’s why:
- The market is tough. You want partners who have the closest relationship with your end customer possible so you can get deals across the finish line — and build loyal customers.
- Vendors are hitting their total addressable partner market. While there will always be other companies out there you could partner with, you or your partner are already on good terms with many of them, and you need new and different customer acquisition and retention strategies to get and stay ahead of the competition.
- Agency partners can help you do more with less. They reduce the load on your success and support teams, helping you reach — and perhaps more importantly, nurture — more customers with fewer resources and more revenue sharing.
In this article, with with input from PartnerStack’s very own agency expert — Katie Hart, Senior Customer Success Manager, we explain:
- What an agency partner program is
- Why agency partner programs work
- How to set yourself up for success
What’s an agency partner program?
An agency partner program is a collection of — you guessed it — agencies who refer leads your way or co-sell with your GTM team.
So, how is that any different from other types of partnerships?
Though agencies can support all kinds of services, they have one thing in common: a vested interest in delivering an exceptional customer experience. The better each project goes, the more customers trust them. And that trust is what is so valuable to SaaS companies — if an agency makes a recommendation, their customers listen.
Hart explains, “Compared to affiliate, which is very one-to-many, agency is completely customer-centric. They know their customer, have a deep relationship and therefore know exactly what they want and how to sell to them.”
Plus, agencies aren’t just interested in helping and upselling their current clients. They’re also interested in expanding their offering.
By joining a SaaS company’s agency partner program, agencies gain access to beta features, extensive resources and training, sandboxes and one-on-one guidance they can use to introduce and monetize new services on top of the vendor’s product. Ultimately, this leads to more opportunities for them and more revenue for the SaaS seller.
Why start an agency partner program?
We’ve already hinted at a few benefits agency partner programs bring but let’s spell them out in more detail.
Customer-centricity
Agencies, consulting firms and other services companies are customer success specialists — they wouldn’t have an ongoing business if they weren’t experts at what they do.
Leveraging their expertise (and giving them opportunities to deepen their product knowledge) can help SaaS businesses improve customer satisfaction scores, prime customers for upsell or cross-sell opportunities and ensure clients renew their contracts.
Hart points out, “Even if it’s a one-and-done project, it’s not uncommon for customers to come back for additional work that could involve an upsell on your end if they’ve had a great experience with that partner.”
You might also like: What is co-selling in a partner ecosystem?
Notoriety
The best agencies and consulting firms have been around for a while, so they’ve got an established brand and built up a large book of business. If you’re a smaller SaaS company, having a well-known consulting company or agency’s stamp of approval makes it easier and more efficient to break into new geographies and industries because people trust who those firms endorse.
“Advocacy is so important,” Hart emphasizes. “The more high quality agency partners you have shouting your brand from the rooftops and going to bat for you in vendor evaluations, the better. It becomes a very natural way to expand into new regions.”
Launching joint campaigns with top-notch agency partners can often amplify your brand awareness even more than additional marketing budget can.
New offerings
Agency partners are working with your end customers day in and day out. That boots-on-the-ground perspective can generate ideas for new features to put on the product roadmap. They might also brainstorm new or enhanced service offerings. Or they could propose a combined partnership to offer an all-in-one package with a second agency. All three lead to more revenue.
How to build an agency partner program
If you’re new to the agency partner model, here are four steps to get you going in the right direction.
Figure out how you want your program to look
Before you publish anything externally, you need to take a look inward. Answering these questions will help you determine what kind of program you’re going to run and what will need to be a part of your strategy:
Will working with agencies be more of an async account mapping activity, where you separately go after each other’s customers? Or will it involve hands on co-selling to new prospects?
For list overlap, look for a central partner portal that integrates with a tool like Crossbeam. If you’re co-selling, you may need to develop a standard operating procedure for crafting co-marketing campaigns, joint demos and pricing sheets.
Will partners need some assistance crafting messaging or is it fairly obvious?
If your product is especially complex, it’s worth thinking about how to message your partnership in a way that highlights the strengths of your product and the ease of implementing it with a consulting partner — and that may require some extra help from your partner marketing team or even your product team.
Will agencies be implementing your solution? How much time and instruction will they need to get up to speed?
Training can be a major investment, but in many cases, it’s worth it. Hart highlights, “Agency partners need to be perceived as experts with badges or credentials to prove it. As a prospect, I feel more comfortable working with a company that’s my vendor’s ‘Partner of the Year’ than any other agency.”
See more: 5 ways agencies boost partnerships (plus, one thing they can't do).
Define your program benefits
Agency partners put their business reputation on the line to work with SaaS companies and promote their products. So you’ve got to make your partnership worth it.
To do that, put yourself in their shoes. Think hard about how you can guarantee their success and motivate them to grow with you. Some examples of agency partner benefits could be:
- Featured case studies in your customer newsletter
- Extra demo accounts or free hosting environments
- Giving them previously lost leads to work
- Spotlighting their agency in your partner directory
- A baseline commission for leads
- Dedicated partner manager(s)
- Speaking at your conference
- Shoutouts on social media
- Online or offline trainings
“Many of the agency programs I see use tiering. This incentivizes partners to hit specific goals to get specific benefits and they’re tailored to the type of services company each partner is,” Hart shares.
But you don’t have to implement tiering right away. Start simple with a couple of benefits, and then add on as you gather feedback from your partners.
Hart adds: “The most successful agency partner programs aren’t set in stone. They’re looking at what’s happening in the landscape of their competitors and B2B partnerships in general and adjusting their structures accordingly.”
Identify key agency partners
In general, you want to be more selective when it comes to agency partner recruitment — particularly if they are doing some component of implementation or optimization around your product.
Establish an ideal agency partner profile (IPP) with details about the work they do, their company size and the industries they typically serve. Then, do some research. Try using a tool like PartnerStack's partner discovery to filter through a list of vetted, recommended partners based on your IPP.
You might also want to ask a few of your existing customers which consulting firms or agencies they’ve heard good things about and add them to your list to reach out to. And don’t forget about potential agency partners who’ve already inquired about your program.
“You may already have some agency partners who are, right now, just referral partners. Tap into those relationships and see how those could grow into something more,” Hart suggests.
Aim for a seamless process
Because an agency’s business is built on your offering, they need to be well-informed about new releases, new company messaging, potential bugs, beta testing — basically anything related to your product.
But the larger your agency partner program gets, the harder it will be to disseminate this information on a one-on-one basis. An ideal solution is a centralized, self-serve partner portal, where agency partners can:
- View announcements
- Take training
- Share leads
- Download useful materials
- Ask questions
You might also create a community for your partners on Slack where they can collaborate with each other and share ideas without needing immediate input from you.
For agency partners working on $50K+ deals, you may want to provide extra support. If you don’t have those resources on your team but anticipate needing them soon, you may want to request budget for them in your next QBR and make sure everyone is on board.
Hart notes, “It’s so important to have buy-in from product, CS, sales and marketing. They should all be thinking of agency partners as an extension of your business and a way to make their jobs easier. The PartnerStack customers that have the most success get these stakeholders involved.”
Related: Outreach etiquette for how to start an agency partnership the right way.
Shoot for an MVP (most valuable partner)
Your agency partner program may not be ready for huge-scale co-marketing campaigns or a formal directory, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get things going.
“Start with a pilot with a small group of agencies and go from there,” Hart advises. “Or, and this is a bit meta, consider working with a consultant who has built excellent agency partnerships before. They can help you set realistic goals and put you on the path to reaching them.”
The best way to keep yourself organized?
A PRM with everything you need — out of the box. From a network of vetted agency partners to built-in email capabilities and a fully-featured library and training module, to granular reporting, PartnerStack makes laying the foundation for a top-notch agency partner program a breeze.
See all it has to offer a budding agency partner program by booking a demo today.
Or, get your B2B business in front of the fastest-growing partner programs by joining the PartnerStack Network.
