Practical AI tips for Vendor Partner Marketing

Jacqui Rand
00:04 - 00:54
So the theme of the channel meetup in 2025 is all about unpicking the channel trends and what channel teams are facing in 2025 and how that impacts the way they work. And one of those trends is AI. And so we have gathered a panel here together to talk about how AI is impacting them and their working practices within their channel vendor roles. So we want to take a look at how they're using AI or not using AI, how partners are using AI. And just to see when I introduce you to the team, I'd like everyone to kind of bear in mind that we're trying to cover those people who are sort of starting out on their AI journey and perhaps introduce a few ideas for those who have a little more experience as well.

Jacqui Rand
00:54 - 01:28
So we're trying to cover both angles. So we know that most teams are using AI for generating content, perhaps a chat GTP, and perhaps doing Canva for designs. But even those, there's that kind of nuances around the right kind of prompts and making sure you add your own tone of voice and your own sort of creative flair. But what we'd like to do is actually ask each of these ladies to introduce themselves, where they come from and which company they work for, and perhaps just kind of talk us through their AI journey within that vendor.

Jacqui Rand
01:28 - 01:31
So I'm gonna start, Jennifer, if I may, with Jennifer Judy.

Speaker 1
01:33 - 02:34
Thank you, appreciate you inviting me to this event. AI is the big buzzword. these days, and everybody is at different levels in their journey with AI. I work for HP, and I manage the channel sales enablement team for software services and video collaboration. And in my AI journey, I am at the beginning, really trying to investigate how I could empower our partners to be more successful through enablement. And that does come through communications, and marketing collaterals, playbooks, really driving partner revenue. So again, I'm at my beginning of the journey and I'm looking to really, I just started dipping my toe in and working with a partner, a video collaboration playbook and how I empower to make that playbook more effective through AI capabilities to leverage that content.

Jacqui Rand
02:36 - 02:47
Okay, can you just sort of elaborate on that a little bit more? So is it a sales playbook or a marketing playbook or an enablement playbook and how's AI kind of involved in that?

Speaker 1
02:48 - 03:34
So we are working on a sales playbook and it is a sales playbook and I'll just, a little background information. I came from Polly and Polly was acquired by HP. And this is something that everybody could look at in their organization is when you're blending of things or you have new technologies that you're trying to introduce, which we are trying to do, is we have a lot of partners that did not know our video collaboration. So we wanted to build a playbook, a sales playbook to educate and arm our partners as well as our internal sellers within HP to understand the value prop, what to position, how to position it.

Speaker 1
03:35 - 04:22
So within that, this playbook, you know, they could be pretty big when you start looking at all the facets of it. So what I wanted to do is really expand and go, OK, with all of the things that would feed this playbook, as we all know, content is key. And it goes through so many iterations and staying relevant. You're always going to have to update. My vision was, I'm always going to have to update this playbook and feed all the different data sources. So where I wanted to go and where I'm starting my journey, I'll be very clear, I'm starting my journey is I want to use an AI component where I could actually feed all of the content that was in my playbook.

Speaker 1
04:22 - 05:08
and support it on the front end from an AI prompt. So now my partners could go in, click this AI prompt saying using prompting, and I will say there are special ways that you should do prompting. Think of the race model. You always articulate what your role is, what the action is that you're wanting the prompt to do, context, And then expectation. I am a salesperson in North America. I want to build a video room. What is the, and you kind of build it that way. The reason I wanted to do that is because then all of the backend, I could put all the materials I used for my playbook on the backend.

Speaker 1
05:08 - 05:50
And now this prompt will be able to extract it based off of what this prompt is for the user and pull the exact data from that would normally be in a playbook, maybe on page 50, it's now going to aggregate all of that content to be more poignant and what a person wants to hear and see. So that's kind of where I'm going with mine. And I'm really trying to build it in that way because then always the data I have in the background is relevant and up to date. Because I'm always loading the most up-to-date presentation or data sheet or whatnot in there.

Speaker 1
05:50 - 06:03
So it's always coming in in that fashion. And we believe this is going to really expedite our partner's ability to transact and get the exact information that they need.

Jacqui Rand
06:04 - 06:25
Thank you. That's a great explanation and I like the race element as well in terms of the prompts. That was role, action, context, and expectation. That's great. Nice tip. Andrea, perhaps you would share your experience and your journey so far and just give a little context in terms of where you're working.

Speaker 2
06:26 - 07:29
Yes, I would love to. I would echo a lot of the sentiments that Jennifer shared, actually. For context, I am a business transformation specialist at Juniper, specifically focused on developing tools and programs that will help put our partners in that pioneer market space so that they're the first to capture opportunities alongside Juniper. within the partnership and a lot of that is focused on being as dynamic as the enterprises that they're serving. With information coming out at light speed and technology evolving very quickly, it's becoming increasingly difficult, I think, for partner sellers especially to stay on top of the latest and greatest for the entirety of a solution stack that is represented within their organization.

Speaker 2
07:30 - 08:35
We want to establish that ease of selling as well as vendor preference by making it easy for the sellers to take the latest sales plays to market and also maintain a level of cohesion with the brand messaging that is approved by our corporate team so that they're truly serving as an extension of us and the market is seeing consistent message across the board. So what we have done internally is implemented an AI tool that is ring fence within our environment. So there's no security concerns with proprietary information stepping outside of our ecosystem. And we have tested something internally where we build a brand voice, we build pre-packaged prompts, and we're leveraging that generative AI to help support internal content development in a brand cohesive fashion.

Speaker 2
08:36 - 08:59
And we're evolving that into what will become a digital sales assistant that is generative AI based to support our partners with rapid market readiness. So a lot of what Jennifer shared is mirrored in the approach that we're taking as well. So it seems to be something that's top of mind for partner sellers and vendors alike.

Jacqui Rand
09:00 - 09:22
Interesting. So you're following down the generative AI route in terms of packaging up the right content the partners depending upon prompts as well. Anything on predictive AI using any analytics from within the PRM or anything of that sort as yet?

Speaker 2
09:24 - 09:55
No, when we look at the discriminative AI side of things, that's for a phase two. It's a little bit more involved in terms of the architecture that needs to be built, the data that needs to be pulled in, in order to make that predictive capability really spot on. So we're taking it step-by-step. We're starting with a proven use case internally, building upon that with a generative AI basis before we add that discriminative front end.

Jacqui Rand
09:57 - 10:04
Interesting, thank you very much. So Louise, perhaps you could introduce yourself and talk about the AI journey that you're on in your role.

Speaker 4
10:05 - 10:54
Yeah, thanks Jackie. Yeah, hi, I'm Louise Grant. I build and manage global partner programs for IT telecoms and cyber security vendors and have just recently set up my own company Lucerna to do just that. So my AI journey really is based around PRM systems and it's really, really interesting to kind of see how PRM systems have developed very, very quickly from being a content repository and kind of, I suppose, a shop window for partners to engage with their vendors into being something that's much more dynamic, much more valuable and very analytic. And in terms of the way that AI is now amalgamated and included into PRM systems.

Speaker 4
10:54 - 11:40
A lot of it, you won't even know, you know, you don't wake up in the morning and go, oh, I'm going to go and use AI for this particular thing within my PRM. It's just now there and it's built. with things like being able to segment and target resources to different partner types and different user types, different personas. From a marketing perspective, you've got so much opportunity with your co-branding and your co-marketing to now automate a lot of your content based on who you're sending it to. And then with process automation, again, within your PRM system to enable partners on their partner journey with you as a vendor and make that journey as easy as possible.

Speaker 4
11:40 - 12:26
AI just supports that incredibly well to automate all those processes from MDF claims to onboarding. like I said, co-branding, content creation, and then as we've touched on here, reporting and analytics. A big, big shift is with AI within PRM systems, you can get so much more reporting and analytics within your PRM without having to go to your CRM, so Salesforce, for example, to get that information. So PRMs really are evolving with the help of AI to be much more, like I said, much more than just that content repository. They're taking over a lot of the analytical functions that you used to have to go into your CRM system for.

Jacqui Rand
12:27 - 13:20
Interesting. I was just listening, we did a podcast with Jay McBain, and I've just got this one data point stuck in my head, which is that actually only something like about 17% of partners use TCMA through partner marketing automation. And yet that is a vital data point that vendors need to understand what clicks, what opens are happening. to know therefore what piece of content is working, at what stage of the buyer's journey, etc. What can you do if they're not using it? Anybody got any suggestions in terms of, as you say, the PRM needs to be that central kind of data and because of the data and the AI behind it that is providing you with that intent information around customer buying journeys and how your partners are assisting with that.

Jacqui Rand
13:21 - 13:31
If they're not using the TCMA, how can you go about getting that? Anybody, any suggestions? No, it's a conundrum.

Speaker 1
13:31 - 14:12
It is, but I think when you look at what Louise said as well, is we're getting to the stage of doing hyper personalization. And I think as you start going down more personalization, you're targeting the right people to do the right things. And this isn't going necessarily on the TCMA aspect, but I do believe when you start creating this hyper personalization within your PRMs and your targeting of messaging, utilization will likely go up. If it's hitting you and your personal level, I do believe you're going to start getting more attention. A lot of us get emails that are ad targeted as things that you're looking at.

Speaker 1
14:13 - 14:19
That's where I believe we are heading towards with this hyper-personalization.

Speaker 4
14:20 - 15:00
It's becoming intelligent as well. It's predicting. AI can predict trends and it can anticipate. It's not just as far as personalization and tailoring your content to your audiences or creating materials. It's not just a cut and paste from a back-end data repository. it will now look at that information and anticipate your needs or your audience's needs. So from a tailoring perspective, it can have a look at where you've clicked around, what you've looked at, what you haven't looked at, and then prompt you to go, okay, well, I saw you had a look at this document.

Speaker 4
15:01 - 15:15
Have you thought about that one? Or if you haven't looked at something, it will go, okay, well, you've spent a lot of time looking over here, but why don't you go and have a look at this? This might be useful. So yeah, it's that intelligence, that I think is a big shift as well.

Jacqui Rand
15:15 - 15:32
So that's definitely going to help you with your sort of nurture process because the intelligence will tell you what to do next. How about campaigns? If you're putting campaigns together for partners, how is AI influencing that? Is it the personalisation element?

Speaker 4
15:34 - 16:35
Louise? Yeah, I think it can be the personalisation element, but also when you look at, you know, as a vendor, if you want to do a particular campaign with a particular partner, you know, AI can help you have a look at that partner's sales history and, you know, what they've sold, who they've sold into, where they've been successful, having and maybe bringing sales stages, you know, have a certain percentage of historical sales stalled at a certain sales stage and tailor those messages in tailor the messages to be able to support the different partners at kind of the points where they need that support because not every partner needs the same messages um and you know and depending on the personas that you're targeting and like I said you know the different um the different sales stages that you might be sending various messages out then to be able to kind of slice and dice all of that information and get that intelligence, you know, based on your sales history, but also your pipeline as well in your funnel, right?

Speaker 4
16:35 - 16:53
You know, if you've got a load of opportunities and a load of customers sitting at a certain sales stage again in the future, you can tailor your messages through your marketing campaigns to that, you know, much more easily looking at all of your sales data historically and predictably.

Jacqui Rand
16:54 - 17:07
Right. So that's I think I'm gathering, though, is is somewhat in the future, being able to map the sort of the predictive with the tailored campaigns element. But it's somewhere you're you're heading towards. I

Speaker 1
17:07 - 17:08
can see

Jacqui Rand
17:08 - 17:51
nodding generally that that's that's sort of where we're headed. But that's reassuring for people because, you know, they might think of being left behind and that, you know, they haven't, you know, adapt. adopted AI for their campaigns as yet, but to understand that some of the biggest and the best are not yet there with that whole tying the two pieces together of actually using the data that AI could provide and mapping that to the personalization and the campaign and the content that would then map those two together. So I'm going to change tack a little bit and just ask from a partner perspective, Are you aware of anything your partners are doing apart from landing in perhaps your vendor PRM and inadvertently using AI?

Jacqui Rand
17:52 - 17:56
Anybody got any thoughts around how partners are adopting or not adopting AI?

Speaker 2
17:59 - 18:50
I think there's certainly a trend where just like every other organization, they're looking at common scenarios that are very time-consuming and that's where their journey is starting. Where do we engage in this AI ecosystem to streamline processes that we know the bulk of our team is spending a lot of time that could be spent selling, meeting with customers. A common one I have heard just outside looking in is RFP responses. There's already a certain level of templatization that is built into that process. So naturally, the next step is how do we leverage AI to take this all the way home in terms of streamlining?

Speaker 2
18:50 - 18:51
So

Speaker 1
18:51 - 18:51
that's

Speaker 2
18:51 - 19:04
probably the organic starting point is looking at anything that's fairly repetitive already has a lot of commonalities within it because it's a safe landing point as you begin your AI journey.

Jacqui Rand
19:05 - 19:39
Yes, I there's a company I'm aware of called CR 365 who do that for Microsoft Dynamics exactly that and they do the. the RFP and the RFI, and actually I think they didn't take it through to the design phase as well. So it's helping that whole kind of deployment and what the customer needs by prompts and filling out, as you say, the sort of time-consuming forms and predicting what they would need from that. Anybody else, any other things that partners are inadvertently or actively using AI for?

Speaker 1
19:41 - 20:38
I think operational efficiency, just as Andrew was talking about, that's the key, is everybody wants to focus on sales, driving sales more effectively. Where do you, where I think, where I'm hearing a need, and it's not just, and I know we say channel and I'm definitely channeled through and through, But it also helps your internal sellers, because remember, partners are an extension of your sales organization. So where I'm looking at it is where AI is going to come into a big play, which I'm hearing internally and with the partners, is building presentations, building emails. When you could start having the AI search your systems, your PRMs, all of that data in there to help them, instead of taking a week to build presentations themselves, they can compile it quicker and then they can go to market.

Speaker 1
20:38 - 21:20
So I definitely agree with RFP and RFIs. Those are critical. But then once you start getting into the heart of things and them and executing and talking to customers, having the ability to minimize the amount of time that they need to hunt through your portals to find the pieces of data that they're looking for and have an AI system help build, here's what I need, build me a presentation, build me an email. That's where I'm seeing that they really need to hit the ground running and to really expedite. And that's a win-win for a vendor as well as the partner organization, because that means they're out there selling more and doing more.

Speaker 1
21:21 - 21:26
So that's where I'm seeing the trend is the need to hit the ground faster.

Jacqui Rand
21:27 - 21:31
I see that from your perspective, Louise, as well within the PRMs,

Speaker 1
21:32 - 21:32
because they can

Jacqui Rand
21:32 - 21:40
actually pull both structured and unstructured data from their sort of data portal, data lake, whatever they call it.

Speaker 4
21:41 - 22:11
Yeah, completely. I was going to say, you know, things like kind of chatbots agent and, you know, chatbots are kind of, you know, more less AI, more kind of Q&A, but yeah, as far as, you know, the question, you know, Q&A agents and things, you know, when partners need to find information, you know, Jennifer, to your point, you know, for anything that they need, you know, rather than having to trawl through, you know, the massive resources that would sit in a PRM system, then yeah, that kind of, you know, online chat help then will just instantly give them what they need.

Speaker 4
22:12 - 22:12
Indeed.

Jacqui Rand
22:13 - 22:28
Right, I'm going to sum up now if I may and ask each of you to perhaps offer some tips, advice for partner marketing teams in vendors. So Andrea, can I start with you this time, please? What advice would you give people? I

Speaker 2
22:31 - 23:33
would give the advice to always take the outside looking and approach. Get a pulse on what is top of mind for sellers and partner leaders alike. At this moment in time, we're seeing the evolution of what smarter selling looks like. The introduction of AI redefined, I think, the lives of everybody from students to professionals. So we want the partners to lean on the vendors for tools related to how they engage with our joint customers. If not, the sellers are going to find outside resources that will simplify their role. Leaning into that, I will say anything that's going to help the sellers gain confidence and the clarity to act quickly, ensuring that there's seamless alignment with the vendor and accelerated time-to-market is how we win in the market together.

Speaker 2
23:33 - 24:26
Time-to-market is critical and that's why I think having a sweet spot between marketing campaigns that deliver the right message in an ideal world are also using some predictive elements so that you have really targeted and effective campaigns that are going to feed that funnel with the best leads. But then also having the sales aspect so that you're simplifying the way that partners adopt playbooks, how they manage objections, how they open a lead in the most effective way, that's where we're going to find that we can fire on all cylinders. So very excited to see where this space is headed and also very reassuring to hear that a lot of top players in the IT space are more or less at the same stage in our respective journeys.

Jacqui Rand
24:27 - 24:33
Indeed. Thank you very much, Andrea. And Jennifer, any advice and top tips that you have?

Speaker 1
24:34 - 25:16
Yeah, I think for all of us, some of the biggest challenges that I'm encountering and I'm hearing in the industry is for AI to be successful, you've got to have clean data. Data is king. We've always said data is king. So having clean data is critical when it comes down to personalization, making sure the personas that are coming in if you start doing and customizing stuff. So that's one. Work on your data. And then I'm going to tie the data into content. The other challenge and the thing that I'm working on now is you always have to make sure you have a governance practice in place for content.

Speaker 1
25:16 - 25:50
When you have content, and particularly in portals, and Luis, I know all of us deal with portal content, You need to have that governance in there for when outdated content is done, pull it out to make sure it's not tapping into that. Because that's something I was just at a round table, and that was one of the big concerns. They're saying, we were having our A and it's pulling old content. You've got to have your governance in there to make sure it's always tapping into the most current information that you've got accessible. So those are the two things.

Speaker 1
25:50 - 25:57
Clean your data and make sure you have a governance practice in place. Excellent. Thank you, Jennifer. And

Jacqui Rand
25:57 - 25:58
Louise, final words?

Speaker 4
25:58 - 26:31
Yeah, 100% agree. You know, I think you can have the best, you know, AI tool backend system in the world, but if your data and if the information that it's looking at isn't current, isn't up to date, it's not going to serve your needs yet. It's only as good as where it's pulling the information from. I think we all know that from the various, you know, AI tools and chat GPT and all the various tools that we use at the moment anyway. I think from a PRM perspective, think outside the box, expect more from your PRM system.

Speaker 4
26:31 - 27:05
Like I said earlier, it's not just a data repository, it can do so much more for you now using AI in all the various different areas. But on the flip side, it's not a replacement for personal relationships. it's not a replacement for that that one-to-one so I think you know we can use AI to make our lives an awful lot easier in an awful lot of ways but there is still that human kind of connection that there needs to be really at the end of the day and that can't that can't be replaced hopefully not anyway.

Jacqui Rand
27:06 - 27:38
No, and I think that's a lovely sentiment to leave it on and something I think we all share. You can use the tools, as you said, for data, the governance strategy, making sure you're looking from a sales perspective outside coming into the vendor organisation, lean on the PRM, but also keep your own personal flair and creativity alive and the relationships that you have with your partners. So, great, good summary. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate you joining us. Thank you very much. Thank

Speaker 2
27:38 - 27:40
you. Thank you. We're done.

Jacqui Rand
27:40 - 28:22
That's a wrap. Lovely. That was very easy and we, yep, 25 minutes. That's perfect timing. Thanks guys, I will. Somebody else will have to top and tail it now because I can't do it on teams and guess it's a nice little intro outro and then we'll make sure we credit you and tag you when we post some of this. It will be going out sort of with a CMU brand. And for that, hot off the press, just so you know, our UK event is the 3rd of April. And I think we've got locked down our dates for Raleigh on the 29th of May and California on the 3rd of June.

Jacqui Rand
28:24 - 28:38
So make sure you've got those dates written down, and we'll make sure we send you registration details. We only opened the UK a couple of days ago, and we've got, I think, 50-odd registrations and maximum room space of 100. So if you're not registered

Speaker 1
28:38 - 28:39
soon, you

Jacqui Rand
28:39 - 28:45
won't get a space. So yeah, it's all good. So thanks very much, guys. Appreciate

Speaker 2
28:45 - 28:45
it.

Jacqui Rand
28:45 - 28:49
We'll make sure we share the content with you and tag you accordingly. Really appreciate your time.

Speaker 2
28:50 - 28:51
Thank you. Bye. Thank you, Jackie. Bye.