Marketing with ISVs: 5 Ways to Lean on Them

By Cheryl Salazar, The Partner Marketing Group

It never ceases to amaze me how many resellers don’t take their advantage of their ISV partnerships. ISVs provide you with:

• Valuable, relevant content for your users and your prospects
• End-to-end solutions for your industry offerings
• Revenue share agreements that help you increase your billable hours
• Marketing materials and leads

ISVs don’t compete with you, they help you build your value-add. And once you’ve built your end-to-end solution, guess what? You can sell on VALUE vs competing with every other reseller who is targeting your prospect (and probably selling on price).

There are several ways you can work with your ISVs to conduct co-marketing activities:

Marketing with ISVs

1. Webinars
ISVs recognize that resellers have customers they provide add-on services to. They will often work with you to get co-sponsored webinars on the calendar. While you introduce your ISV to your customers, they will deliver the content on your behalf.

2. Email campaigns
Many ISVs will put together email marketing campaigns with you – based on your industry, your cadence and your need. All you need to do is ask.

3. Blog posts
All the ISVs I’ve worked with, whether they focus on Microsoft Dynamics, Sage or Intacct, are more than willing to custom write blogs for you. Just like you they look for outlets where they can post blogs that will help them reach more customers. They’ll work with you to custom write something for your business and will often offer to provide a blog per quarter or more.

4. Events
Booths at tradeshows are spendy propositions for most resellers. This is often the venue where you’ll notice your ISV spend a lot of money – a large booth, great branding, good presence and social media to go along with it. Ask them if you can participate in their booth with them. Reciprocate and invite your customers to meet them and understand their solution. It’ll be a win-win for both of you.

5. Co-branded collateral
ISVs tend to spend a lot of money creating the best content. They can afford to because they understand their niche market so well, and have realized the gains by investing in it. As long as you’re a loyal and committed reseller of their solution, they’ll go the extra mile and often co-brand their collateral with your logo.

So, take the time to create a short list of your most valued ISVs. Use this list as a starting point to kick off your marketing discussion with them. It’ll be a match made in heaven for both of you.