Small Business Partner Programs – 10 Ways to Get the Word Out

There’s an increasing trend of big companies partnering with small businesses.  I wrote about this a few weeks back in my article,   Stop Selling and Instead Partner with Small Businesses.

And if you are one of the forward-thinking companies that already has set up partnership programs with small businesses, kudos to you.

Now, how about publicizing your partner program better?

What reminded me of the need to do this was a simple, informative but incredibly helpful post of Don Dodge of Microsoft.  The post is over a year old, but I just came across it recently and it looks like the information in it is still good. 

In the post he lists the partner programs offered by Microsoft with links to where to find out more. 

There’s nothing fancy about the post — just the facts, m’am.  But when you’re a small business owner, the facts are all you need. 

It’s best not to assume that everyone knows about your programs — or that everyone looks in the same place to find out such information.

For instance, I follow the small business market closely, and I have had numerous press interviews with Microsoft’s Small Business team.  (And, by the way, Microsoft is one of the best in the business at small-business partner programs.) Yet, even I was not aware of the some of the information about Microsoft’s programs.

So if you represent one of those forward-thinking large corporations with small-business partner programs, here are some tips for getting the word out:

(1) Set up a Partner Information Website – Need I state the obvious? Your partner program needs to be clearly outlined on a website. Spell it out in detail.  If there is an application process to follow, lay it out step by step.  As a colleague of mine is fond of saying, “Today the average business person has so many distractions that you have to strive to over-communicate, just to communicate enough.”  I recommend making your partner information website separate from the corporate site, but if it must be in the same site at least make the navigation to get to it prominent.

(2) SEO it – Invest in SEO so that your partner-information website can be found in the search engines.  When a business owner searches on a term like “small business partner programs” you want yours to pop up in the search results.

(3) Make it Bookmarkable – In your partner website, use human-friendly URLs that the entrepreneur can bookmark and find again.  One of my pet peeves with corporate websites is that they have some of the worst URL structures on the planet.  Session IDs that expire — or my personal favorite, information contained only in javascript popups – can make it tough to return back to partner information.  Humongously long URLs that break in emails are just as bad. It’s not that hard to create human-friendly, bookmarkable URLs — don’t let your Web development team tell you otherwise.

(4) Link to it from Corporate Websites – Prominently point to your partner-information website from multiple places of your other websites. All too often I see large corporations set up small-business community sites, but don’t include information about partner programs that small businesses might find useful!!!  Instead, these small business sites get cluttered with recycled Entrepreneur magazine articles covering Marketing 101. Entrepreneurs can find canned marketing advice in a bajillion places today, but not information about your partner program. And trust me, if something can put money in entrepreneurs’ pockets, they want to know about it.

(5) Make it Self-Service – Make the websites as self-service as possible to find information and apply to become a partner. Business owners and entrepreneurs are likely to be investigating this kind of thing in the evenings or on weekends and prefer self-service.  If a process takes a lot of back and forth spanning multiple days, it may fall through the cracks.  Not every partner program lends itself to self-service, but with a little effort, you’d be surprised what you can do with a Web-based application process.

(6) Blog it – Write about and link to your partner programs in company blogs and employee blogs — this is a perfect use for blogs.  Blogs are great because they are written in a conversational way that makes them easy to understand.  Give insider tips and personal insights into partner programs – people love to pick up little behind-the-scenes tidbits about company programs that don’t make it into official websites.  (Why else do you think Matt Cutts’ and Robert Scoble’s blogs became so popular?)  Put a link to the blog post as a “popular post” on blog sidebars so that the information can be found even after it cycles off the blog home page. 

(7) Involve Your PR Team – Have your PR team remind journalists (and bloggers who cover your space) about your partner programs regularly. And weave a good newsworthy story around partner programs from time to time, by highlighting some of your small-business partners.  Journalists (and bloggers) may not always be interested, but it helps to repeat the message. And cover multiple types of publications — vertical trade pubs as well as general business publications – because business owners and entrepreneurs read a wide variety of publications.  We all know the small business market is fragmented; it means the burden is on you to touch as many relevant fragments as possible.

(8) Reach Outside Silicon Valley – If you’re a tech company, remember that the vast majority of tech small businesses and entrepreneurs are NOT in California.  Or Washington.  Or Boston. 

(9) Attend Events – Attend selected large events throughout the country that attract business owners.  And when you’re there, have a presence specifically for your partner programs – don’t treat it as an afterthought to the rest of the corporate presence.  Display a big banner saying “Become a Partner” or “Ask About our Partner Program” or “Find Out How Our Partner Program Can Help Your Bottom Line” or something equally obvious. If you brand your partner program, just be certain to make clear that it is a partner program. Sometimes brand names can be too coy.

(10) Encourage Partner Evangelists – The concept of customer evangelists applies equally well to partner evangelists. You can get the power of word of mouth working for you with partners. If you apply the concept of “net promoters” to your partners, the key is to pay special attention to the partners who rank your company most favorably.  They may be inclined to sing your praises far and wide and can have a huge impact.  Give them proper care and feeding.

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I hope this post gives you a few action items for spreading the word about your small-business partner programs.  I’ll do a post with ten advanced techniques in the future.