NetMotion Wireless Channel Marketing Best Practices Success Story
Channel Marketing Best Practices: NetMotion Wireless Partner Marketing Success Story
Download Success Story PDF »Rebranding and Simplifying the Partner Program
NetMotion Wireless, a leading provider of mobility management solutions, supports some of the world’s most recognized brands in field service, government, utilities, public safety, insurance and other industries with critical mobile workforces that depend on continuous, reliable connectivity. The company’s clients—including AT&T, US Foods, Cox Communications and Hertz, to name just a few—are very selective about the technologies they deploy. At least 85% of NetMotion’s business comes through channel partners, and the company’s sales and marketing leadership has long recognized the importance of channel marketing best practices.
Channel Marketing Challenges
NetMotion recently decided to relaunch its entire partner program with an emphasis on simplifying and rebranding the program. The company rededicated itself to channel marketing best practices with the ultimate goal of increasing visibility and engagement with partners globally. Focusing on partner enablement, NetMotion wanted to be able to provide partners with easy access to robust channel sales and marketing tools and programs, including a better solution for deal registration that would integrate smoothly with their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
At the center of this new partner enablement initiative would be a high-functioning portal. In fact, says Erik Helms, NetMotion’s VP of Strategic Partners & International Sales, “We were not initially looking for partner relationship management (PRM) technology at all, but were coming at the problem primarily from a portal perspective. We needed a ‘front door’ for partners that we could control within the scope of our marketing/sales operations, as opposed to our general web environment.”
Solutions
In short: NetMotion needed a full-featured, easy-to-use partner portal to be operational within four to six weeks. Once the portal was up, it was essential that its large, globally dispersed network of partners be able to get on board and become active very quickly. ZINFI’s Unified Partner Management (UPM) platform, along with its global partner marketing concierge services, proved to be the answer. The portal became the centerpiece of NetMotion’s renewed focus on channel marketing best practices, providing the company with new insight into partner activities, performance and practices. Now they have answers to questions like: How do our partners find new information? How do they find collateral? How might they execute their own campaigns? “We accomplished a lot more along these lines than we anticipated in the past twelve months,” said Helms.
Results
Using the ZINFI’s Unified Partner Management platform, the NetMotion team went from zero to a fully functioning partner portal in six weeks. In fact, the platform and portal infrastructure were set up so quickly, NetMotion’s team had to catch up from a marketing and collateral perspective. They began with an initial selection of key partners in the first-stage rollout, then sent out emails to all partners to educate them about the new ZINFI platform. With channel marketing best practices firmly in mind, NetMotion leveraged ZINFI’s partner marketing concierge service for fast, effective onboarding. In less than twelve months, nearly 200 partner reps worldwide have signed up and 80 have participated in onboarding meetings via webinars. “The concierge service was super helpful,” notes Helms, “and it gave us the appearance of being a bigger team. It has become a new way for partners to work with NetMotion.”
Once partners were signed up and had completed onboarding, they immediately began to leverage the portal for training and to download collateral. Turnkey campaigns and ZINFI’s email marketing engine soon became used as well. “That was a big bonus for us,” says Helms. “That was definitely not part of our requirement when we were looking for a way to launch a portal.” Over the next 12 months, getting even more partners engaged with turnkey campaigns will be a priority. They will be relying heavily on the platform’s metrics to monitor initial results and drive adoption.
“It was easy to get everything up and running quickly. ZINFI has been responsive and helpful with our customization and our requirements, and certainly in the campaigns we’ve done so far.”, says Helms.
The NetMotion team is excited about the year ahead. Channel marketing best practices will remain a key focus as the company seeks to further refine partner relationships and tighten execution within North American channels. The company has also set its sights on high-growth markets in Europe and Asia, with aggressive sales goals that will need to be backed up by marketing. Through its distributors, NetMotion will be pushing new resellers worldwide to register their deals to provide visibility in the portal—both for NetMotion and its distributors. NetMotion will also use the ZINFI platform to differentiate bigger and more strategic partners, steering them to features that enable customization of functions like branding in the portal and partner-specific security protocols and documentation.
Overview
Mobile VPN software provider, NetMotion wanted to rebrand its partner program with an emphasis on channel marketing best practices. Using ZINFI’s UPM platform, NetMotion launched a new partner portal in a matter of weeks, providing partners with better tools to work with, instant access to collateral, turnkey marketing campaigns and a full-featured email marketing engine. ZINFI’s concierge partner marketing services streamlined the onboarding process, helped NetMotion get 200 partner reps signed up and provided training for their reps via webinar onboarding meetings and online help.
At a Glance
NetMotion Stats
Headquarters : Seattle, WA
Contact : +1-206-691-5555
Challenge
- Simplify and rebrand partner marketing program
- Launch new partner portal quickly
- Partner Enablement
Solution
- Deploy ZINFI partner relationship management (PRM) technology with advanced portal capabilities
- Leverage concierge service for onboarding
Result
- Portal fully functioning in 6 weeks
- 200 partner reps signed up, 80 reps participated in onboarding meetings
About NetMotion Wireless
NetMotion Wireless develops mobility management software for enterprises and organizations with mission-critical connectivity requirements. The company’s products address the unique challenges created by these workforces by providing the security, visibility, and control that IT departments demand, while minimizing the connectivity challenges faced in the field, so mobile workers can be more productive. Thousands of enterprises around the world are using NetMotion products to keep millions of mobile workers connected to applications. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
About ZINFI Technologies
ZINFI helps technology providers and their channel partners achieve profitable growth rapidly and affordably by automating channel management processes globally. ZINFI’s Unified Partner Management (UPM) platform enables vendors to drive profitable revenue growth by deploying a set of cloud based modules for partner recruitment, engagement, enablement and management that seamlessly work together by fitting into an existing infrastructure.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is NetMotion Wireless?
NetMotion Wireless is a leading provider of mobility management solutions — mobile VPN software for enterprises and organizations with mission-critical connectivity requirements. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company supports recognized brands across field service, government, utilities, public safety, insurance, and other industries whose mobile workforces depend on continuous, reliable connectivity. Its clients include AT&T, US Foods, Cox Communications, and Hertz. At least 85% of NetMotion’s business comes through channel partners, which is why channel marketing best practices have long been central to its sales and marketing strategy.
What channel marketing challenge did NetMotion set out to solve?
NetMotion decided to relaunch its entire partner program with an emphasis on simplifying and rebranding it, with the goal of increasing visibility and engagement with partners globally. The company focused on partner enablement — wanting to give partners easy access to robust channel sales and marketing tools and programs, including a better deal registration solution that would integrate smoothly with its CRM system. At the center of the initiative was the need for a high-functioning partner portal: a controlled “front door” for partners within the scope of marketing and sales operations, distinct from the company’s general web environment.
What solution did NetMotion implement?
NetMotion needed a full-featured, easy-to-use partner portal operational within four to six weeks, and it needed its large, globally dispersed partner network to get on board and active quickly. ZINFI’s Unified Partner Management (UPM) platform, together with its global partner marketing concierge services, provided the answer. The portal became the centerpiece of NetMotion’s renewed focus on channel marketing best practices, giving the company new insight into partner activities, performance, and practices — including how partners find information and collateral and how they might execute their own campaigns.
How quickly did NetMotion launch its partner portal?
Using ZINFI’s Unified Partner Management platform, the NetMotion team went from zero to a fully functioning partner portal in six weeks. The platform and portal infrastructure were set up so quickly that NetMotion’s team had to catch up from a marketing and collateral perspective. The rollout began with an initial selection of key partners, followed by emails to all partners to educate them about the new ZINFI platform.
What role did ZINFI’s concierge service play in onboarding?
NetMotion leveraged ZINFI’s partner marketing concierge service for fast, effective onboarding. In less than twelve months, nearly 200 partner reps worldwide signed up and 80 participated in onboarding meetings via webinars. As Erik Helms, NetMotion’s VP of Strategic Partners & International Sales, noted, the concierge service was highly helpful and gave the company the appearance of being a bigger team — becoming a new way for partners to work with NetMotion.
What results did NetMotion achieve with the ZINFI platform?
Beyond launching the portal in six weeks and signing up roughly 200 partner reps with 80 participating in onboarding meetings, NetMotion saw partners immediately begin using the portal for training and to download collateral. Turnkey campaigns and ZINFI’s email marketing engine soon came into use as well — capabilities that were not part of NetMotion’s original requirement when it set out to launch a portal, and which the team described as a significant bonus.
What are NetMotion’s plans for building on this success?
Getting even more partners engaged with turnkey campaigns is a priority for the year ahead, with the team relying heavily on the platform’s metrics to monitor results and drive adoption. NetMotion intends to further refine partner relationships and tighten execution within North American channels while also targeting high-growth markets in Europe and Asia. Through its distributors, the company plans to push new resellers worldwide to register their deals for greater portal visibility, and it will use the ZINFI platform to differentiate larger, more strategic partners by steering them toward features such as portal branding customization and partner-specific security protocols and documentation.
