Video: The Best Partner Enablement Medium
Partnership professionals have a lot of things to do.
Its not enough to sign partners, and expect them to produce revenue.
Once a partner is signed the fun begins.
You now have to figure out the enablement issue.
Partner enablement broadly sits in two buckets:
- Partner enablement (i.e. getting your partners sales teams interested and educated enough in your product to sell it to their customers)
- Internal enablement (educating your sales team to sell your partners solutions)
So what are some of the challenges that surround partner enablement, and how can video be the medium that solves a lot of those problems.
The challenges of partner enablement
So a good place to start this blog post is probably the issues that partner managers face when trying to enable sales teams on both sides of the aisle.
When looking at enabling sales teams the major issue is noise.
You have to give sales teams sympathy.
Not only are they held to a quota for selling your own products but now you are expecting them to learn another 20 partners' solutions.
It's a tough place to be.
Couple that with enablement resources that usually take the format of lengthy documentation or poorly designed battle cards and it's no wonder that sales teams struggle to understand partner solutions.
Luckily there is an alternative.
Video is the way to quickly and efficiently get everyone up to speed and have your sales team fully understand (add something).
It's proven that video, especially if short form and concise, is one of the best ways of learning.
You just have to look at TikTok as a sign of this being true.
The younger generation instead of reading books, or even watching longer form content on platforms like Youtube are going to TikTok to learn how to start businesses, get better at cooking and everything in between.
This switch from long form content, and text heavy resources should be reflected in how you enable partners at your organization. The benefits of video for partner enablement As mentioned above there is a shift to short form video content across various platforms.
But why is that?
- Videos can down on the fluff that is often contained in traditional enablement resources
If you go and review your current marketing resources that are being used for partner enablement chances are they are text heavy, low on engaging content and probably need updating.
How can you expect a sales team to engage in resources that don’t give them the information they need in a format that makes sense to them.
You are making life harder than it needs to be for them.
Videos on the other hand, require you to write a concise script, which is put in a format that engages.
If you poll your sales team now and asked them which medium they prefer for learning, I would imagine 9/10 would choose video.
- Video is an engaging medium that can hold attention better than other types of content. To expand on the above, there are statistics that say that most viewers retain up to 90% of a video's message as compared to 10% if reading text.
What makes video such a memorable medium is that videos contain things such as body language, tone of voice and eye contact which are essential when helping people remember.
Not to keep revisiting it, but when you look at your current partner enablement resources chances are they are very heavy on the text which creates issues for anyone trying to learn a partner solution.
- Video can be easily tracked
Most partner professionals have some type of LMS, or learning requirement that they put partners through.
Oftentimes they want to track this activity.
With text it is very difficult to track whether someone has read your document.
Video offers enhanced tracking and reporting capabilities that can come in handy when you are trying to hold people accountable for engaging with enablement resources.
How to implement video for partner enablement
Now that we've looked at some of the advantages of using video for partner enablement, let's take a look at how to implement it.
If you're thinking about using video for partner enablement, there are a few things to keep in mind:
Make sure your videos are high-quality and informative. This sounds obvious, but it's important to make sure that your videos meet the same standards as other types of content that you would use for enablement purposes.
Keep your videos short and to the point. The attention span of most people is relatively short, so it's important to make sure that your videos are focused on a single topic and that they don't drag on for too long.
Use video in addition to other types of content, rather than as a replacement for other content. Video is a great complement to other enablement resources such as written materials, presentations, and live training sessions.
Here at PartnerFuel we are building out high quality enablement resources for partnership teams, including video content. If you don't have an internal team to handle this lift, reach out to us, we can handle this at a reasonable rate. Conclusion Video is the best partner enablement tool because it's engaging, interactive, and can be used by partners at their convenience.
If you're thinking about using video for partner enablement, make sure your videos are high-quality, informative, and short. Use video in addition to other types of content to create a well-rounded enablement strategy.
If you are struggling from a resourcing perspective then book a scoping call with the team at PartnerFuel, we would love to help you supercharge your sales enablement through video creation.