For Channel Fusion, channel marketing is more than the tactical delivery of co-op/market development fund management programs, brand compliant ad building solutions, channel rewards, consumer rebates and local advertising solutions. It starts with the establishment of a solid strategy and roadmap to ensure our clients’ channel programs are achieving their desired outcomes.
To ensure every client’s channel program has clearly defined outcomes around strategy, customer experience and return on investment, Channel Fusion has introduced the Outcomes Blueprint, a unique process for challenging our clients to think beyond program delivery and operations. This process is used for new and existing clients to establish a common understanding of and commitment to program objectives and ensure alignment among all client and program delivery stakeholders.
Establishing a Channel Fusion Outcomes Blueprint is a three-step process.
Step One – The Outcomes Meeting
Whether it’s onboarding a new client or expanding the depth and breadth of an existing client’s channel program, development of an Outcomes Blueprint starts by establishing a comprehensive understanding and corresponding roadmap of what strategy, customer experience and return on investment outcomes our clients would like to achieve in terms of their channel marketing program. That includes understanding current challenges that exist within their current program, determining how those obstacles will be overcome to achieve defined objectives as well as how we are going to ensure alignment within our client’s organization and internally to achieve those outcomes.
This Discovery process part of the Outcomes Meeting is a facilitated, collaborative session to capture, discuss and challenge the current state of our client’s channel program, the vision for its future state and probe to determine the desired outcomes related to strategy, customer experience and return on investment.
Nothing is off limits during the Discovery process. The Channel Fusion team will explore all dimensions of a client’s channel program, including things like:
- Brand messaging (yours vs. competition)
- Threats
- Competitive advantage (between/among competitive brands)
- Segmentation (program size, geography, program level, etc.)
- Challenges/pain points
- Program data (size, budget, usage)
- Success metrics (current and desired)
- Engagement
- Adoption
- Sentiment – how does channel audience feel about your brand and your competitors?
- Customer Experience (for the channel)
- Perception of channel partners (current vs. desired)
Step Two – The Outcomes Blueprint
Following the Outcomes meeting, our team takes the input, information and discussion points from the session to create the Outcomes Blueprint. Much like the Outcomes meeting, this is an iterative process to ensure alignment around a brand’s strategy, ROI and CX outcomes.
The Outcomes Blueprint is delivered digitally and documents key takeaways and information from the Outcomes Meeting. It also captures the strategy, customer experience and return on investment outcomes for our clients’ channel program. Once again, documenting these desired outcomes allows us to ensure alignment within our client’s marketing team and the Channel Fusion team supporting the program.
Within the Outcomes Blueprint is the input that will drive the Outcomes Scorecard.
Step Three – The Outcomes Scorecard
The Outcomes Scorecard is a graphical and visual representation of the strategic, customer experience and ROI criteria defined within the Outcomes Blueprint. The scorecard is designed to be flexible and can measure things like dealer or distributor engagement, funds utilization and brand alignment, for example, based on the outcomes identified in the Outcomes Blueprint.
Like any marketing program, the Outcomes Blueprint and Scorecard are revisited on a regular basis as part of quarterly business reviews with our clients.
By ensuring our clients’ channel programs have clearly defined outcomes around strategy, customer experience and return on investment, Channel Fusion is able to establish a common foundation in terms of program objectives, while ensuring alignment among all stakeholders – at the brand or client level as well as within the Channel Fusion team members responsible for program delivery.
About Channel Fusion
For 20 years, Channel Fusion has been delivering strategy, customer experience and return on investment outcomes for brands and their channel partners with a wide variety of solutions and industry expertise. We continue to invest in the overall ecosystem of our channel marketing offering to ensure our clients provide their partners with an optimal customer experience. Our core technologies and configurable platforms are supported by a team of customer-centric “Fusers.” Let us know if you’d like to learn more about how we deliver desired outcomes for brands and their channel partners.