Today every technology company has almost the same marketing automation stack for their Business Development Reps (BDRs). When a technology company hosts a customer event, webinar, workshop, etc. they almost always “send the leads” to their identical marketing stacks. An automated email goes out thanking attendees for coming and then BDRs, or bots, follow up with the prospective customer until an initial sales meeting is confirmed.
In some organizations, the event owner (usually in marketing) will provide the context of the event. The context will include what attendees experienced and any next steps they discussed at the event. The problem is that if these events involved a cloud, technology or software partner “the leads” go to each company and their respective marketing automation stacks. Each companies’ BDRs then usually engages each attendee on their product and their product individually. So prospective customers can get 3-5 marketing and BDR streams for each event they join.
The good news. There is a better way.
Since you as an alliance leader have built your cloud, ISV and technology partnerships in a product-first way, you have a potentially better path. As a leader you should be setting the event follow up strategy from your partner event with your marketing and your partner’s marketing. Work together with your partners to develop a more unique attendee engagement. Instead of individual marketing streams and BDRs asking your attendees from your event to take individual meetings with each company, ask the potential customers if they would like to take one meeting with all of the partners sharing how their technology works together for them. This allows for much broader qualification. It expands the types of technology your potential customer is evaluating, not just in your space.
An ask for one meeting for a potential company to hear how multiple solutions work together is a much different ask than most buyers are use to. In my experience they are more likely to take it and now your sales teams across companies have an organic way to work together.
So go make it happen, your BDRs and prospective customers will thank you.