Fireside Chat with Sophy Gray | Charlotte Hone, Partner Marketing Lead for Europe at Logitech

Sophy (00:04)
For those that don't know me, my name is Sophie Gray. I run 7Demand and the Channel Meet Up. So thank you on behalf of me for being here today. And we're here today to talk to Charlotte about all things partner marketing within Logitech.

Charlotte (00:19)
you

Sophy (00:22)
Welcome Charlotte, thanks for being with us. introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and your role in Logitech.

Charlotte (00:28)
Thanks Sophie. So yes, hi, I'm Charlotte Hone. I'm the Partner Marketing Lead for Europe at Logitech. I have a range of marketers all across Europe, one for each of our key regions. Most of you probably know Logitech probably from our of, guess, consumer arms. So you might know us for gaming, for things like mice and keyboards that go through retail. But my role is very much instrumental in trying to make sure that actually we build out our B2B business.

That means that there's quite a lot of conflict internally that we need to iron out to build out that business. And yeah, it really is very much test and learn. So there's lots of things I'm here to learn from you, but likewise, I can share some of my journey so far.

Sophy (01:11)
So tell us a little bit about your partner landscape because we all know Logitech from a kind of webcam, mouse, device type thing. So what does that mean in terms of the types of partners you have, the size of them, the way your channel is established?

Charlotte (01:27)
So we have around 350 partners that we manage and we have around 6,000 that are unmanaged. So it's quite vast. We have partners that are actually typically served by Gen Z on the IT decision maker front. So it's quite different. So the conversation we had this morning around cyber security and having quite a traditional kind of IT decision maker, that makes it quite complex. And some of the comms that we have to produce and the touch points of where we need to show up.

But yeah, it's very, very much test and learn because the places that we're showing up aren't the traditional places anymore. So we have to think about the content. So whether it's video based, the types of socials that we're using, the influences, it's very much test and learn.

Sophy (02:13)
So your partners, are they traditional kind VARs or do you have more service providers, solution providers that are coming in at new sites? it's just because I think a lot of people here will come from like a hardware, software background. How do you segment your partners? What do the different types of partners look like?

Charlotte (02:33)
So we do have BIs, ISPs, MSPs. We have those traditional partners that we work with. Certainly at the high end of the portfolio that's more complex in terms of that sales cycle. We segment them based on a number of different competencies. Sometimes it's revenue, sometimes it's technicalities. Whether they have a marketer or marketing department, we very much screen them ourselves. It's quite manual right now.

and then we put them into different tracks and then we give them a white glove at the top end and then more of an automated approach at the bottom.

Sophy (03:05)
So tell us about that because 6000 partners is a really long tail and we've been talking particularly on our tail this morning about how you scale marketing through a lot of partners and generally the consensus kind of was that you the top partners get the self-management the middle group of partners are the ones where there's more opportunity to think in a different way about different types of things but the long tail is still reliant on partner portals, campaign kits

et cetera, and there's always going to be kind of some golden nuggets and rising stars within that breadth section. So what do you do from a data perspective, suppose, or a program perspective to identify which partners you focus on?

Charlotte (03:50)
So we work very close to a distribution, specifically on that long tail. So we try to create as many kind of frameworks or projects or campaigns that we can scale as far as possible. We do have a portal. It's a little bit archaic. It's probably created before we knew we really entering the partner space properly. And actually in partners here, they know it. We're trying to really ramp up actually in deploying that new version out as quickly as possible.

We have a lot of content on there. We talked about ease of access and that needs improving, certainly on our side, to make it seamless for those partners to go on and self-serve, certainly on that breadth level. But the higher end is very much working with us to build bespoke campaigns, making sure that the content really resonates and that we create an experience for those partners and their customers as well.

Sophy (04:39)
And I remember when we spoke previously, you've got quite a small team to manage all this through. So how do you organize all of that through the small team?

Charlotte (04:47)
It's tough, I'll be completely transparent, it's tough. We have quite an interesting dynamic internally in that we have a healthy MDF budget, but quite limited resource on the marketing front, so we have to be very choiceful as to where we play, how we play. Like I said, we try something. If it works, we scale it. And like I said, we'll try those systems, certainly in our portal, to try and actually make sure that partners know where to go for things.

that they can self-serve as far as possible because we can't always be there to serve them where we want to. And we work very closely with our sales team as well. At the moment, my key focus is actually building the depth of relationship at the top end of those partners so that they are fully enabled and then we can start to move down that track.

Sophy (05:33)
Thank you. So tell us about that, know, depth marketing with few partners. What does that entail? What kind of programs are you seeing success with? Because what I loved as well about talking to you is your test and learn approach that, you know, you've got the freedom just to try things in Logitech, which not a lot of people are in the situation as being able to do. So tell us through some of the things that you've tried and what's worked and what hasn't worked as well.

Charlotte (05:59)
Sure, I would say a lot of what we're doing is foundation building right now, for sure. But we are in a really, really fortunate position. We don't have a huge amount of legislation that we have to jump through or huge processes at Logitech. I can very much have an idea within our team. We test it, we pilot it with a small number of partners or a small number of end customers to see what resonates, what's generating revenue, and then we scale it. It's fantastic.

can't say that's always the case, but it is fantastic and I think it keeps my team very, very engaged.

Sophy (06:32)
Tell everyone about your influencer program because this kind of struck a chord with me as well. You've seen kind of B2C marketing, the role of influencers, and we talk about influencers within channel and different types of channel categories. I know Josh talks about, you know, different types of channel categories and influencers. But you actually ran a program around that category of partners. So tell us about that.

Charlotte (06:53)
Yeah, so one of the stats actually, I'm sorry it's not an IDC one but it comes from Gartner. About 75 % of my B2B decision makers actually are looking for more retail or B2C based experience when it comes to purchasing. So one of the things I'm having to look at now, certainly down the lower end of our kind of portfolio is that omni-channel approach because those touch points are everywhere in terms of their purchase journey. That also means we need to look at the influences that are influencing that buying decision making process.

And there's lots of people involved, so it's complex. We actually decided, we're looking at kind of training enablement as part of that, and we decided to run a installer challenge, because installers actually influence the person's decision making. If they find our products difficult to install, there's problem post-install, things fall over, quite often we're not specced, and that impacts enterprise projects. So.

We actually ran this install challenge in the Nordics. That's where it started. The installers from across our partner base put teams forward. There was two rounds in each of the countries and it was really, really well received. And in fact, those installers wanted to run it again. So then we brought it to our largest trade show, ISE. We then had installers from all over Europe participate. There was a lot of online camaraderie, I should say, a lot of internal competition.

competitive tension, was some great content off the back of it and we're now being asked to roll it out specifically with individual partners. The reason I'm telling you that is because actually that reach was really significant to our business. The C-suite of those partners are fully engaged, they're wanting to run it, they're backing their teams. Their sales teams are wanting to get involved now so we're trying to work out how do we involve those sales teams involved in an installation installer challenge.

So there's going to be like a pitch element, I think, as the next phase, which will be quite interesting. The sales team is pitching their partner, their installers. And it actually went viral. So it was picked up as part of national TV in the Nordics, which we never expected. And I'm now being asked to scale that globally. So it wasn't a true demand gen activity that I'm sure my business would want me to generate. It's very much awareness to Dean's point earlier. And it really worked.

Sophy (09:18)
So what do people have to do if you are a installer? What was the message? What did they have to do and what did they win and how did it work?

Charlotte (09:26)
So basically

they had to put their best team forward. So internally there was a level of training and enablement. So we have what's called a Logitech university. They have to gain a level of accreditation before they can enter a team. So they have to be compliant. They have to be on our partner program. And then once that team's selected, there's obviously the generic terms and conditions to compete. Their team can then share with their wider teams that they're competing and who they're competing against, because obviously every partner wants to be involved then.

And yeah, naturally progress from there.

Sophy (09:59)
And then how did you measure that? How did you measure the results? it in terms of, because if you've got those requirements to come in, were they the metrics from which you measured it, or did you actually manage to get to some kind of revenue number?

Charlotte (10:10)
We haven't got a revenue number yet, but certainly in terms of the partners that participating, they are our principal and elite, so we want to obviously engage with them. There was a lot of engagement on socials, which we've been able to track, so we've got all those generic reach stats around it. We've got obviously the coverage from the TV, which they've shared their stats. Again, it's very much awareness-based. There's a lot of intangible...

results that I can't yet quantify. But I would say that given the partners are now coming to us to want to run this themselves at scale across multiple regions is enough in itself for us to justify doing it again.

Sophy (10:47)
I love it. I remember at last year's event, we talked a lot about the technical audience within partners and how when we're marketing and we're running incentives, we should also think about technical audiences and different types of roles within partners. So yeah, I love that. So what next if you're kind of in the lovely situation where you've got good budgets but low resource, what kind of things have you got coming up that you're trialing? Where's your focus area?

Charlotte (11:15)
So one of the interesting things, obviously we spiked hugely during the pandemic. Everybody needed a webcam, video conferencing solutions, and then had to anniversary a pandemic. That was a challenge. So we went from having very, very big budgets to then potentially scale back budgets. And actually coming out of that, one of the things we learned is we told the team to get really creative. And in doing that, we noticed that some of the thought leadership led concepts that then were scaled to campaigns.

generated the most amount of revenue. And some of those attribution numbers were really high. So we've actually tapped into that more. So we've been doing this test and learn, and then we're scaling those campaigns, events, thought leadership concepts. And those are the ones that are working. And actually, the teams involved at the start, they're not coming necessarily in from an agency. Sometimes actually that's helping them scale those projects.

Sophy (12:10)
And is AI helping that? Are you doing more with AI to help some of those projects with less resources or are you encouraging partners to use anymore? What's your AI play?

Charlotte (12:22)
Yeah, I think with us, I was actually having a few conversations in the room earlier. We, as a company, I feel, have been embracing AI. I think we are further ahead than I thought we were. So we are a Google house. So we use Gemini and we have our own internal systems as well. We have an AI governance team. I today can use it very freely. So I love the polish button. So if you ever receive an email from me, it's probably been polished first.

It's fantastic, but we are using it for things like building nurture flows. Sometimes we might have a small or sometimes even a complex scenario that we want to push a specific skew or do something a bit differently around Legion. Those nurture flows and prompts are brilliant. They're not to be taken and then rolled out and as exact, but they're a good starting point. And with a lean team, those tools are brilliant. They've definitely boosted our productivity.

We're trialing them on different fronts around all sorts of things. Project management through to events, all sorts of things.

Sophy (13:30)
Another thing that keeps coming up as well is using AI for personalisation in campaigns and using AI to define personalised nurture journeys for partners but also kind of personalised experiences from a portal perspective for partners. Are you kind of leaning into the personalisation route as well?

Charlotte (13:51)
We will be, for sure. So at the moment we have, like I said, just launched our new partner programme. There's tracks in place. We're definitely going for a digital transformation. We've got a new MDF platform. We're trying to overhaul what we're doing with InPartner right now. We've been with them for long time. There's a lot more capability that we definitely want to tap into. And there's a slight global challenge there. And I'm looking to my colleague, Mikhail.

Because from a global front and a regional European front, there's lots of things that we want to do and we want to run, but obviously we've got to comply with sort of the broader business objectives. But there's lots of AI capabilities as part of that journey that we definitely will be embracing.

Sophy (14:29)
So what about in terms of kits and things for partners and making things available for that breadth? Are you still working on that type of activity as well?

Charlotte (14:39)
Yeah, we are. So we will always produce things like toolkits. And actually Dean and I were talking earlier. We will produce a baseline package for partners. So whether it's campaign contents, toolkits that are more enablement or training based. But they're a bit of a menu. So we're not expecting everything to be used. But we will obviously give as much as we can for people to refine, take, tailor.