New research from the CMO Council, with brand management portal BrandMuscle, reveals that a third of national marketers say 40 percent or more of their company’s revenue comes from local business partners. Yet two-thirds of national marketers have only a moderate understanding or worse about their local partners’ business and marketing challenges and how to kickstart local demand.
This new report, National Brands Kickstart Local Demand, examines the opportunity and challenges national marketers face when improving and promoting their local partner channel marketing programs.
Key findings:
- 95 percent of national marketing leaders say it’s important (41 percent), very important (41 percent), even critically important (25 percent), to increase revenue through their local partner channel.
- 75 percent have only a moderate understanding (40 percent), limited understanding (29 percent) or no understanding (6 percent) of local partners, their challenges and how to optimize their performance.
- 55 percent say the overall effectiveness of their local partner channel marketing program is only moderately effective or worse.
- 43 percent say it’s very important, even critical, to improve digital marketing among local partners, yet 48 percent don’t even offer fund reimbursement for digital marketing tactics.
“Local partners are the last mile to purchase and have the most interaction with customers,” said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, in a news release. “If national marketers really want to know their customers, they need to work closely with local partners, collaborate on marketing projects, share data, etc. Shoring up your local partner channel marketing program is a great place to start.”
There is a significant opportunity for national marketers to improve their local partner channel marketing programs, such as making services more easily accessible, getting more creative with funding, and providing marketing training, content and digital marketing tactics that are meaningful at the local level.
“The opportunity to grow revenue incrementally through local partners should be a priority for marketing leaders,” said Kyle Coughlin, VP of marketing and demand generation at BrandMuscle, in the release. “Given the amount of revenue already being generated through local channels, optimizing and enabling partners to better align with marketing objectives and drive a positive ROI will help both the brand and partners succeed. Partners are often the last touchpoint before a sale. By helping them be better marketers, they become more active brand advocates in the path to purchase, which is a win-win for everyone.”
Download the full report here.
The report is based on a survey of over 140 marketing leaders across B2C and B2B industries. Additionally, we conducted in-depth interviews with executives at SHARP Home Appliances, Caterpillar, Gap, Invesco, Nationwide, BNY Mellon Wealth Management, KloudGin and MisfitsGaming.
