Partner newsletter

A partner relationship management (PRM) software is a tool designed to facilitate the partnership experience from end-to-end. It is primarily used by partners to drive traffic, leads and deals to a vendor, and by a partner manager and their team to manage their partner relationships as well as support their partners.

Most PRMs should be enable resources sharing between the two parties. It should also provide communication tools, relevant analytic dashboards, as well as link tracking and lead/deal submission tools.

Noun

[pahrt-ner ee-koh-sis-tuhm]

A partner ecosystem is a network of businesses who serve similar audiences but are not competitors and may thus benefit from collaborative marketing and sales strategies. In an ecosystem, the involved companies orchestrate all indirect distribution channels to scale and grow. For example, a marketing automation platform (MAP), a video marketing platform, and a content management system (CMS) are three businesses who target similar customers and would benefit from joining or creating a network together. 

By co-marketing and even co-selling in strategic partnerships, companies can sell more products and support happier customers who have a suite of complementary tools at their disposal. Partner ecosystems help businesses serve their customers’ needs in ways that they can’t necessarily do themselves through their own technology. Through recommending trusted products that fill functionality gaps, companies can set their customers up for greater success, and of course, greater retention and customer lifetime value (CLTV).

Example: The Quickbooks partner ecosystem contains hundreds of companies — mostly technology vendors — who serve small businesses.