Date: January 4, 2023
Author: Daniel Nissan
Five Key Channel Marketing Trends For 2023
- Generative AI
AI modeling advanced quickly in 2022. The sprouts of machine-generated marketing content have taken hold in the fertile ground of our digital age. We expect that the upcoming year will see major improvements to these AI modules. Channel marketing platforms should be quick to adopt these new technologies and integrate them. Vendors can benefit by creating and sharing marketing assets with partners faster and at lower costs. As partners apply automation to customize and personalize these assets for their end customers, the customer relationship profits as well. - TikTok
The TikTok platform is turning out to be much more than a social network with entertaining videos. People in general, but mostly Generation-Z, turn to TikTok for answers on many topics — personal, as well as business. It’s a tremendous shift among social media channels. TikTok is growing into the most-searched site, challenging Google as the go-to place for answers and content. In 2023, we expect many B2B marketers will adopt TikTok for brand marketing. That will include marketers supporting their channel partners with proper content, automatic customization, and TikTok syndication tools. - “High-touch” automation for strategic partners
Our prediction for 2022 stands. Partners will increasingly come to realize the many benefits of automation and its ability to drive revenue. We fully expect adoption of specific targeted automation to increase in 2023.
It will always be important to build an engaged community of partners, and we’ll continue to be asked to do more with less. Those conditions only increase the value of better tools and data. The channel is the most cost-effective way to reach customers in a down economy — and really any economy. Again, we consider this an aggressive strategy for people who want to be big winners, but not a risky one. - ML-powered lead distribution
Brands continue investing tens of millions for lead generation and distribution to partners. But the tools used to distribute, assign, and track those leads haven’t seen much improvement in the past few years. New customers, as well as existing customers, can be overlooked or neglected. Lately there have been major advancements in ML/AI, plus increased data sharing and collaboration between many brands and their partners. It leads us to expect serious changes in lead distribution, nurturing, and tracking — dramatically shifting current practices. - Marketing Automation
We expect to see more pre-configured marketing workflows that integrate data, creative, marketing tools and smart scheduling. This will enable vendors and partners to take advantage of the customer data they collect during and after sales. While partners collect plenty of data, many are not capable of using it to improve their marketing automation processes. Meanwhile, vendors have the analytics and ML knowledge and expertise, but lack access to local data about end customers.
We predict that vendors and partners will further invest in systems and solutions to share and collaborate on such data. A high-quality TCMA platform also will protect user privacy and help to maintain compliance with local laws.
How Can Channel Marketers Gain A Competitive Advantage?
Marketers should focus on adopting and deploying the tools we mentioned. This will help marketing programs stay competitive in the market and be attractive to partners. And we suggest a closer collaboration between channel marketing teams and their CMO office. This should further leverage corporate strategies and practices in channel marketing. Automation, collaboration, personalization, and syndication are the road to a successful future.
About the author: Daniel Nissan is Founder and CEO of StructuredWeb. The company adds exceptional value to channel marketing programs by providing a TCMA on an innovative platform, support for best practices, and intuitive training.
