As a business owner, your worst nightmare is losing your channel partners and trusted last-mile advocates to your competitors. Before you get shocked thinking, it doesn’t happen, around 29% of businesses lose money because they fail to retain their channel partners.
You are running promotions, offering incentives and discounts but even then, your partners are getting swept by your competitors. Why? The most likely reason is because your competitor’s incentives are more attractive and don’t simply seem transactional.
If you want to reverse the damage, leveraging the right loyalty management program is key. The right loyalty program can turn the one-time transactions into long-term relationships with your channel partners.
But how does an LMS actually drive repeat purchases? And why should businesses seriously consider investing in one? This 1Channel guide goes in deep, exploring the subject.
Why Your Channel Partners Deserve More Than Just a Pat on the Back?
Hand shakes and high fives are great but they aren’t enough to foster long-term partnerships between a business and the channel partners.
If you want to turn your channel partners into permanent brand advocates, to ensure that your products are reaching the right hands, you have to nourish and support them at the root.
For instance, when you are trying to grow a tree, you have to nourish the mighty root. It is common sense that you won’t neglect the roots, right? So, why settle for just a handshake and a "good job" for your channel partners?
Given the rising competition in the market, it won’t take much for your competitor to sway your pre-existing channel partners and last-mile advocates, especially if you aren’t providing them with what they need – aka the appreciation and the bonus.
More than pushing your products to your target audience, it is about fostering a sense of partnership, appreciation, and shared success. A loyalty management software makes that possible.
10x Your Current Market Growth with Channel Partner Advocacy via LMS
If you want to stand out with your business, it is time to ditch the outdated methods to manage your channel partner relationships.
Spreadsheets. Handwritten appreciation notes. Fragmented communication channels.
All of these are talks of the past, prone to errors and easy to be overturned by the competitors and their lucrative rewards.
What your business needs is a modern loyalty management system, like 1Channel’s. You need to focus on tech-first approach where automation streamlines the loyalty programs and fostering a sense of community.
With an LMS, you have a centralised platform that:
Tracks performance with precision: The basic of any loyalty program is to reward the hard work and performance of a channel partner. However, standard and boring points-based bonuses and rewards don’t work anymore. Instead, the focus is on data-drive incentives. A loyalty management tool allows you to monitor sales, engagement, and other key metrics in real-time, providing valuable insights into what's working and what's not.
Automate rewards and incentives: The main purpose of switching from your boring loyalty programs to an integrated LMS like 1Channel is to forget about manual labour. Instead of having to calculate the commissions and payouts manually, an LMS automates the entire process, ensuring timely and accurate rewards distribution. So, when your channel partners feel valued, they are bound to push your products more – leading to better sales and repeat customer purchases.
Personalise communication and support: Every channel partner is unique, with different needs and preferences. A loyalty system allows you to segment your network and tailor your communication and support accordingly. This ongoing support is a great way to address grievances, get feedback and work on rectifying the shortcomings that your competitors might leverage in the future.
The 'Ripple Effect' of Rewarded Advocacy
There are studies that depict that a happy channel partner contributes to 55% improved customer satisfaction. So, when you are investing in a loyalty program for your channel partners, you are indirectly (and directly) investing in your own growth.
Happy and engaged channel partners are more motivated to promote your products and services, leading to increased sales and repeat purchases too.
Think of it this way:
- When you have motivated channel partners under your belt, they are more likely to promote your products, leading to a faster sales cycle and improved revenue.
- Channel partners are more than your distributors, they are the “middle men” who interact with your target customers directly. Since they already have established customers in specific regions and industries, leveraging their network enables you to expand your customer base.
- More than your channel partners, when they feel appreciated, they transform into loyal brand advocates. They will often go that extra mile to promote your products and services, building trust and credibility with the customers.
- Happy channel partners also contribute to happy customer service, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction, loyalty and repeat purchases.
Listening to Your Partners and Adapting Your Strategy
Another importance of a good loyalty management program is that it serves as a survey ground. When you have a unified area collating all your channel partners, you want to hear from them first hand and an LMS makes that happen.
The “feedback loop” of success with a loyalty program requires ongoing efforts being put into it. This means that you can’t set up a loyalty program at the beginning of the year and hope that it works out by itself without optimisation and modifications.
Instead, you need to harness the power of data that you collect from the software, lay out the analytics and see what’s working and what’s not. When you find out what’s not working, its easier for you to make the adjustments that truly resonate with your channel partners.
From surveys to focus groups, you can encourage your channel partners and last-mile advocates to leave their opinion and feedback, listen to them and then make improvements. When these key stakeholders see you making an effort to address their grievances, it makes them feel valued, further strengthening the loyalty they have to your brand.
In short, better loyalty translates to better sales and revenue for your business.
Keeping Your Brand Top-of-Mind – The Psychological Edge
Ever noticed how loyalty programs make you think of a brand first before considering others? That’s because repeated interactions and rewards create an emotional and habitual connection with a brand.
When your channel partners truly feel seen and valued by your loyalty program management software, it ensures that your brand stays at the forefront of your channel partners’ minds.
In fact, instead of simply comparing profit margins with competitors, they develop a habit of choosing your brand because it feels familiar, rewarding, and beneficial in the long run.
1Channel Loyalty Management: Investing in Loyalty is Investing in Growth
A loyalty management platform is your ticket to driving recurrent sales and repeat purchases by fostering a sense of value and loyalty among the channel partners. Despite being in the backend, channel partners and last-mile advocates truly shape the positioning of your brand in the market.
Instead of relying on one-time incentives, you should focus on building relationships, gamifying engagement, personalising rewards, and leveraging data-driven insights.
If you’re serious about driving repeat purchases, retaining top-performing partners, and creating a brand ecosystem that thrives on loyalty, a robust LMS like 1Channel is your best bet.
So, what’s stopping you? Book your free demo today!
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