A Short Story: Why Transact in Marketplace?
For anyone who is undecided a) if building a transactable offer is worth the effort or b) if leading with Marketplace is superior to legacy procurement processes: Last night while I slept, we closed an enterprise deal in Australia. Yesterday, I created a custom private offer for the customer and sent them the acceptance link with a link to the Microsoft Learn page with instructions on how they accept the offer. Woke up this morning to a Partner Center-generated message confirming the deal was won and done. Yes, we had given them a demo; and yes, we had to get stakeholder commitment . . . but: Zero haggling on price. Zero contract redlines. Zero delays with traditional vendor onboarding etc. Even better, we leveraged our Marketplace Rewards (bar none my favorite GTM program!) to amplify customer value by providing Azure Sponsorship credits to offset the deployment cost. Even more better, this deal hits three of the levers in the FY24 Transact & Grow Incentive Campaign - meaning sometime in the next ~60 days Microsoft is going to send us $40k in free money. đ I share this story not to boast but to inspire and motivate. Nothing's special about us or what we did here - you can 100% replicate this experience simply by taking advantage of the resources Microsoft wants to give you. #MarketplaceChampions #SponsoredMarketplace Rewards' Azure sponsorship benefit for increasing marketplace sales
As partner ISVs grow through the Microsoft commercial marketplace, through Marketplace Rewards they can unlock new benefits designed to help convert customers and close deals. The benefits at each stage of growth help progress to the next stage, helping to grow business to Microsoft customers, with Microsoft's field, and through Microsoft's channel. Watch this short video to learn more about the Azure Sponsorship benefit available through Marketplace Rewards, including how it provides a way for potential customers to try solutions at no initial expense, using free Azure for proof of concepts or test drives. Use your Marketplace Rewards Azure sponsorship benefit to increase your marketplace sales (youtube.com)LinkedIn Marketing: Critical Hashtags for Partners
When you are posting on LinkedIn, there are a number of Microsoft hashtags you should be using at the bottom of your posts to help increase your visibility. This question has come up in different discussions with partners about how to get their messages seen by more of their audience organically. Thanks to the article from Tricycle-Europe who did the work for me on this. Top hashtags for Microsoft partners: #MicrosoftPartner #Microsoft365 #Azure #DigitalTransformation #CloudComputing #Cybersecurity #MSPartner #MicrosoftTeams #PowerBI #AI And, in general, the top 100 hashtags for LinkedIn can be found at this article by Taavi Lindmaa is absolutely worth checking out! Edited to include the answer to Raj's add below: Raj: In order to find followers for each Hashtags, one can just enter the hashtag in LinkedIn search and go to that page to see the followers' count. JL: It's not as intuitive as you might think, but here are 3 ways to get to that info (with some assistance from Bing AI-Powered Co-pilot): Type a hashtag into LinkedInâs search bar, then find it in any of the posts that come up and open it. Youâll see the hashtagâs follower count at the top, and current trending posts using that hashtag 1 . There are also some apps that can get to this info a little faster, such as a free app called LinkedIn Hashtag Analytics. This app helps get more insights into hashtags on LinkedIn, and helps you discover related hashtags and potential reach scores. You can also manually search for a hashtag on LinkedIn by pasting this URL string into your browser and add the keyword at the end. The below example is searching for the hashtag Social Media: https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23socialmedia. Replace âsocialmediaâ at the end with the hashtag you want. Youâll see how many posts have used that hashtag in the past year. đ Here's some related source info for more: 1. bing.com 2. blog.hootsuite.com 3. linkedin.com 4. vistasocial.com 5. blog.hootsuite.com 6. inlytics.io 7. engage-ai.co 8. brandmentions.com -J.L. ISV Success Program Engagement Manager for Teams PartnersISV Partner : Microsoft Marketing benefits
Microsoft offers an extensive array of marketing support tools to its partners through its Go-To-Market Toolbox. These resources have proven to be highly effective in enhancing our outreach efforts. Here are some of the valuable resources we've been utilizing: Marketing Campaigns: You can access a variety of marketing campaigns through the Partner Center. These campaigns can be a significant asset to your marketing strategy. Explore them here: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-US/asset#/?type=marketing-campaigns Co-Branded Assets: Microsoft provides co-branded assets like One Pagers, Case Studies, Customer Presentations, Infographics, and more. These assets help you create compelling collateral. Access them here: https://ppt.msftgtmtoolbox.com/co-branding Digital Marketing Content on Demand: https://dmc.partner.microsoft.com/ offers a comprehensive collection of ready-made Social Media Campaigns and Web Banners. These resources can be used to run tailored campaigns for your company consistently. https://mpr.msftgtmtoolbox.com/partner/home: If you have solutions listed on Microsoft's Marketplace, you can unlock various benefits through the Marketplace Rewards program based on the offer type. The more you sell through marketplace, the more you can unlock various marketing and selling benefits. They can include promotions across various channels such as https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-cloud-partner-program/, Twitter, Microsoft.com and https://partner.microsoft.com/en-US/case-studies/affablebpm-rewards?wt.mc_id=5sp1blsfbw. Learn more about Marketplace Rewards https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/marketplace/marketplace-rewards. We're eager to learn if there are any other resources that we might not be aware of but are proving valuable to your marketing efforts. Please feel free to share any additional resources you've found beneficial for your partnership with Microsoft. #Marketing #MSPartner #ISVSuccess #MarketplaceRewards #DMC #CoBrandedAssetsWhy and How to use a Call-To-Action on your Marketplace Listing
The "Get it now" button on your listing can be frightening. Your Call-to-Action can alleviate their concern. The very actionable button across the Marketplace for transactable offers is "Get it Now." This is very powerful, clear and actionable. But it can also be frightening! We have all been trained to not trust a download button, and to generally not click on anything. And with good reason. Malware, spam, ransom, subscription billing, or that visit from IT to clean up your computer... not to mention the follow up memo to the entire company reminding everyone of the warnings. (I once had to make a 4:00am trip to the tech desk for an emergency wipe.) It happens! There are very real questions and concerns from users about clicking on that button, much from prior bad experiences. Will I download an entire new process onto the server? Will I lock up my computer for hours doing a setup? Will I cause a charge to me or my company? Will I be on the hook for this, or even fired? Even though the Microsoft Marketplace is a safe space, you can help remove potential obstacles and concerns. Include a specific Call-to-Action that tells your prospect what will happen when they click. If your listing is done well and you have led your reader's eye down the page with the content and formatting of your text, a strong CTA will anchor the text, indicate the next steps and encourage the action. This should help alleviate the concern about what might happen when they click, plus it should help to improve your click-through rate. Here are some suggestions: "Click on the Get it now button above to choose the best plan!" "Click 'Get it now' to set up your free trial!" "See a demo when you click 'Get it now' above!" "Click 'Get it now' to learn more!" And here are some examples: Abnormal Security says: Click the âGet It Nowâ button on the upper left to connect with one of our Email Security Experts. BitFractal says: FREE TRIAL (no credit cards required) directly within the app. Get it now and start using within a click. Intervy says: Click the Get It Now button above and give your team the gift of continuous learning, professional upskilling, and enhanced camaraderie with Intervy. AnnounceBot (in the Teams Store) says: Click Add to a team above to learn more and get your free trial! (No credit card required) Advanced tip: Be sure that you have connected your CRM system to your listing so that you can follow up immediately after the prospect clicks on Get-it-now. Learn more about that here: Connect to your CRM system -JL ISV Success Program Engagement Manager for Teams PartnersBest Practice Marketing Guidance for transactable ISVs on Marketplace
Hi All - Sharing some marketplace best practice GTM guidance for ISVs: Marketplace Interactive Marketing Guide for ISVs http://aka.ms/MarketplaceGTM (Start here) The above guide has links to deeper guidance that I have highlighted here: Marketplace Fast Start Guide 1 - Define a Value Proposition for your Marketplace Marketplace Fast Start Guide 2 - Attract Customers to marketplace with a Content Marketing Strategy Marketplace Fast Start Guide 3 - Achieve quick wins and long-term impact on marketplace with LinkedIn advertising Marketplace Fast Start Guide 4 - Social Media Strategy Marketplace Fast Start Guide 5 - Social Selling Marketplace Fast Start Guide 6 - Creative Content Writing for marketplace Marketplace Fast Start Guide 7 - How to use Account Based Marketing to win, grow and retain business on marketplace Marketplace Fast Start Guide 8 - Generate marketplace demand with to and through partner Channel Marketing Marketplace Fast Start Guide 9 - Unleash the power of high-impact platforms Marketplace Fast Start Guide 10 - Boost your success on marketplace with Guaranteed Demand Generation Marketplace Fast Start Guide 11 - Get your brand noticed on marketplace with Media Ad PlacementNew updates to Partner Center make co-selling easier
Hereâs something you mightâve missed that will make it easier to Co-sell on the commercial marketplace. Microsoft recently made an update in Partner Center that many still havenât noticed - and this change is making it easier to to co-sell. For Active Co-sell deals, the Microsoft seller contact previously was not visible to partners. Now, when you view a co-sell deal, you can see: â Contact information (name & email address) for the Microsoft seller. â A clear handoff trail from co-sell operations to the assigned seller. This isnât just a UI change - it enables better collaboration. Knowing the Microsoft seller helps streamline communication, prioritize collaboration, and strengthen the co-sell relationship. This transparency makes it easier to align efforts and drive the deal to success. Havenât checked yet? Explore your Partner Center referrals to see this update in action now!Leveraging Azure Sponsorship to Drive ROI and Customer Value
Azure sponsorship credits are available to ISVs participating in ISV Success and Marketplace Rewards are a powerful way to grow sales on the marketplace, to allow customers to try solutions at no initial expense, and to sweeten deals with customers. Here's a little snippet of how we've used the credits at Wiz. Our team executed a three-month campaign to promote offers through the Microsoft Azure Marketplace and utilized over $350,000 in Azure sponsorship credits to close over a dozen competitive deals, driving an ROI over 1000%. We then used our remaining credits to create an Azure Marketplace pipeline for our customers. This helped us save time and close deals quickly. The Azure sponsorship credits allowed us to showcase to our customers the great partnership we have with Microsoft and provide them with even more value to their cloud and security teams. To learn more about how we are maximizing the value of Marketplace Rewards, read our success story: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-US/case-studies/wiz-rewards
