Why TCMA is The Third Stage Of Sales and Marketing Transformation

Modern Marketing Engine podcast hosted by Bernie Borges

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Companies have used marketing automation software since the 1990s when the internet became widely accepted for business use. The focus of the first two stages of sales and marketing transformation was on automation and integration of the two departments in a direct selling model.

Bernie’s guest on this episode is Jay McBain, Principal Analyst, Channel Partnerships & Alliances, with Forrester. The third stage of marketing automation is through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) per Jay, and he explains why. Jay has spent 25 years in channels, started his own channel software company, and currently serves as local Channels Practice Manager at Forrester.

In this episode, Jay walks through the history of marketing automation, why through-channel marketing is the future, and what businesses can and should do today to prepare. This episode is full of great tips and information if your company is looking to move into the third stage of marketing automation to leverage distribution channels more efficiently.

Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll also hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. Lastly, you’ll learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go to stateofdigitalselling.com.

How TCMA Differs From General Marketing Automation

With cloud technology and high-speed internet, sales and marketing automation software companies sprouted up like weeds. Now, where there were once over 150 marketing automation software companies, there are now about five major players. Companies created automation software to take all the bits of marketing from email campaigns to social media campaigns to direct marketing and automate many of those processes for maximum efficiency.

Traditional marketing automation tools focus solely on the brand itself and how to market the brand to the world. TCMA focuses on marketing through various channels, partnerships, and alliances to reach a larger audience in a more individualized and organic way. Because this means working with many channels, the automation process is more complex with many permutations requiring a multi-layered and faceted automation process.

Why TCMA Is The Third-Stage Of Marketing and Sales Transformation

Sales and marketing leaders are tasked with increasing sales and profit margins quarter over quarter, but the market share is ever changing. Rather than increasing the number of salespeople, increasing the number of marketing partners makes the most sense for many businesses in many industries. Your product is vetted by your channels and then marketed to their audiences, giving your business a wider reach than experienced in the past.

Jay uses Microsoft to illustrate the need for TCMA. Microsoft has over four-hundred thousand partners and brings on over seven-thousand five-hundred new partners each month. Microsoft runs a new campaign every month that has to be replicated four-hundred thousand times for each individual partner. Successful integration and on-brand marketing could not be accomplished by human managers alone, thus the need for TCMA.

How Success Is Measured And Defined With TCMA.

Companies measure the success of TCMA through the return on investment of the direct funding of partners with marketing tools and adoption of those tools. Because large channels might pay out billions of dollars in marketing funding to their partners, there are checks and balances in place to curtail fraud and overpayments. Measuring the actual return by the partners in the channel is one way to measure success.

The overall adoption of the automation tools by the partners is another way of measuring success. The vendor or brand invests large sums of money into the automation tools, marketing materials, and training, and when properly adopted, the returns increase. Many partners, however, want the marketing tasks done for them rather than adopting the systems provided to them. This is specifically problematic within the technology industry.

Why Adoption Rates In Technology Are Low And How This Is Changing

Jay delves deeper into the challenges in the technology space by referencing the book The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. Essentially, many companies started in the last 20 to 30 years did so without much help from automation. The owners don’t see the value of changing the way they market to their customers and as such, they don’t see the need to integrate TCMA into their current marketing process.

This mindset is steadily shifting as more millennials make their way into leadership roles and look to make their mark in the technology space. Jay stated that he sees the tide of adoption rates steadily increasing in the technology sector as those millennials drive the third stage of marketing transformation forward.

Listen in to learn more about hybrid distribution models and how the tools for marketing automation are layered for maximum efficiency. Bernie and Jay also discuss how sales and marketing integration has affected the channel and partnership departments. Additionally, learn why Jay believes market consolidation is on the horizon for TCMA software companies. This is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Featured on This Episode

• Jay on LinkedIn
• Jay on Twitter
• Jay’s Blog Post: Through-Channel Marketing Represents The Third Stage For Sales And Marketing Leaders
• Forrester
• BOOK: The E-Myth by Michael Gerber

Outline of This Episode

• [01:00] - Welcome Jay McBain, Principal Analyst, Channel Partnerships & Alliances for Forrester and modern marketing expert.
• [01:40] - Learn the third stage of sales and marketing transformation.
• [02:53] - Jay discusses Forrester and his role within the company.
• [03:56] - How through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) differs from general marketing automation.
• [05:53] - Further, learn why marketing through a channel is necessary in today’s world.
• [09:15] - Why the complexity of channel marketing requires a different type of tool.
• [11:09] - Jay shares what level of TCMA is needed for those companies already using marketing automation tools.
• [12:40] - Learn why TCMA is the third stage of sales and marketing transformation through the example of the automobile industry.
• [14:18] - Why would consolidation occur in the TCMA process?
• [17:40] - How is success measured and defined in TCMA?
• [20:51] - Why is the adoption rate for technology partners so low?
• [23:01] - Learn why there is resistance to the use of vendor marketing funds and why that’s changing.
• [24:51] - Jay gives advice to those listeners who are in hybrid marketing strategies.
• [26:54] - Listen in for Bernie’s summary of the episode.
• [31:19] - Jay provides one additional point on why most marketing tools favor local business and how your partnership benefits from that favor.

Resources & People Mentioned

We’ve surveyed 862 B2B sales reps across five industries to measure their digital selling skills. The results we found validate a common concern among sales leaders – despite the digital age – most sales professionals lack the basic skills to find, engage and connect with the people they need to meet to start more sales conversations. Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll also hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. Lastly, you’ll learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go to stateofdigitalselling.com.

• Selling with Social Podcast Episode 115 - Leverage Your Channel Sales Partners to Grow Revenue
• Through-Channel Marketing Represents the Third Stage for Sales and Marketing Leaders, by Jay McBain
• The E-Myth by Michael E Gerber
• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine

• https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://instagram.com/bernieborges
• https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast

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