Challenges and opportunities in local partner channel marketing
When local businesses stumble, a national brand's revenue tumbles. A third of national marketers say 40% or more of their company's revenue comes from local business partners, yet less than 30% of small businesses have fully recovered from the pandemic. Do the math, and you'll see a lot of lost revenue.
Only two-thirds of national marketers have only a moderate understanding - or worse - about their local partners' business and marketing challenges and how to kickstart local demand.
This is the finding of the National Brands Kickstart Local Demand report from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and BrandMuscle.
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is a global network of executives with 16,000-plus members who control approximately $1tn in aggregated annual marketing expenditures. It includes more than 65,000 global executives in more than 110 countries covering multiple industries, segments and markets.
This new research examines the opportunity and challenges national marketers face when improving and promoting their local partner channel marketing programmes.
“Local partners are the last mile to purchase and have the most interaction with customers,” says Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council.
“If national marketers really want to know their customers, they need to work closely with local partners, collaborate on marketing projects, share data, etc. Shoring up your local partner channel marketing programme is a great place to start," adds Neale-May.
Key findings
95% of national marketing leaders say it’s important (41%), very important (41%), and even critically important (25%) to increase revenue through their local partner channel.
75% have only a moderate understanding (40%), limited understanding (29%), or no understanding (6%) of local partners, their challenges, and how to optimise their performance.
55% say the overall effectiveness of their local partner channel marketing programme is only moderately effective or worse.
43% say it’s very important, even critical, to improve digital marketing among local partners, yet 48% don’t even offer fund reimbursement for digital marketing tactics.