As per studies, over 43% of businesses run a channel partner loyalty program. Developing a long-lasting relationship with your channel partners is even more challenging than finding and onboarding potential partners. Channel partnerships can be amazingly effective in boosting sales and increasing brand awareness.

However, first, you put effort into a strong relationship with your partners to use their resources effectively. This is where channel partner programs come into play. With effective channel partner incentive programs, you can motivate your partners to invest more time and resources in your business.

Before you start running a loyalty program, you must know some basics. Let us help you understand what channel partners are and how you can use channel partner programs for next-level revenue growth:

What is A Channel Partner?

A channel partner is a company that partners with manufacturers or vendors to sell their products or services. Channel partnership is generally a co-branding relationship where two companies come together to promote and sell each other’s products along with their own.

Resellers, distributors, etc., are also examples of channel partners. Having potential channel partners is beneficial for your business in many ways. You get access to a wider target audience with minimal effort, which helps you expand your market reach.

Why is Channel Partner Loyalty Program Important?

The following are some most relevant reasons for having a channel partner loyalty program:

A Stronger Relationship with Partners

Your channel partners feel valued when rewarded for their contribution to your company. Loyalty Programs open a new door for better communication with your channel partners. Building a strong relationship with your channel partners becomes easier with loyalty programs.

A Chance to Co-Brand

Your channel partners might have other brands as partners as well. Channel partner loyalty programs which include co-branding, feature your channel partner with the brand name in the ads for the region.

This adds value to your brand in building trust among local consumers while your channel partner receives praise for the partnership.

Extend Your Market Reach

Your channel partners might have a customer base of your target audience. You get access to these customers through your channel partners. By rewarding your channel partners through a loyalty program, you can motivate them to market your product to the most relevant customers and expand your reach.

Encourage Partners to Complete Essential Training

Your partners must understand your product to sell it and find new opportunities to present it to the consumers. While you can design learning and training programs for your partners, you must ensure they complete the programs and retain the knowledge. You can incentivize learning by rewarding your partners for completing the training.

Motivate partners to invest more in your brand’s success

Your channel partners probably have other partners as well. The best way to make them focus more on your brand is to run continuous channel partner loyalty programs. The more time and effort they invest in your brand, the more rewards they earn.

Ideas for Channel Partner Loyalty Program

Channel Partner Loyalty Programs should be different from the general loyalty programs for retail customers of a brand. Here are some great ideas for channel partner loyalty programs:

1. Discounts on Wholesale Products

Offering discounts on wholesale products is one of the best loyalty programs for B2B businesses. You can offer wholesale discounts to your channel partners every time they purchase. However, the discount offer need not be the same for every channel partner. The more your channel partners buy, the more discount they get.

For example, you can price your product at Rs 20 per unit when they buy 100 units, Rs 19 per unit when they buy 150 units, and Rs 17 per unit when they buy 200 or more units. These types of programs are beneficial for both you and your channel partner. Your partner can buy more for a lower price, and you can encourage them to purchase more than planned.

2. Rebates

Rebates refer to partial refunds post-purchase. Rebates are among the most common types of channel partner incentive programs. Under these programs, you can give a percentage of the sales back to your partner. Your channel partner must achieve a certain sales volume within a specified time to receive the incentive.

The benefits channel partners can pass to their customers are more attractive for the value chain.

3. Market Development Funds

MDFs (Marketing Development Funds) are the allowance you offer to your channel partners to help them with their marketing and sales efforts. These can be monetary allowances or other resources, such as learning programs.

Your channel partners can use these funds to increase brand awareness. Using MDFs, they can participate in trade shows, launch a marketing event, and purchase radio spots.

4. Sales Performance Incentive Funds

SPIFs (Sales Performance Incentive Funds) are funds brands can use to reward the sales team of their channel partners. The incentives benefit the entire channel partner sales hierarchy based on their performance. These incentives are aimed at motivating the sales team of your channel partners to perform better.

You can offer SPIFs to your channel partners’ sales representatives during slower times to boost your sales. Incentives can be monetary or non-monetary, such as gift cards, restaurant vouchers, flight vouchers, free products, etc.

5. Free Training & Certifications

Everyone loves to learn and develop professional skills while working. You can offer free training to your channel partners and combine the training with decent rewards to make it interesting for them. You can include different milestones in the training program and offer exciting awards for achieving each milestone.

Design a great learning program your channel partners and their employees can be proud of completing. If the program and the certification are not valuable and exciting enough, your channel partners will not be motivated to complete it.

Channel Partner Loyalty Program with RewardPort

The most impactful channel partner loyalty programs consider the requirements and goals of your business and your channel partners. RewardPort is a leading loyalty rewards provider in India.

RewardPort offers modern rewards and methods of engagement for your brand that will keep your channel partners engaged. RewardPort can execute your rewards program online or offline, with awards starting as low as Rs. 10.

You can include gamification, tier-based programs, and other industry-proven methods to drive engagement in your program.