Top 4 Channel Enablement Tools to Drive Revenue Expansion

Channel enablement tools empower channel partners to be the best at what they do: selling. 

Channel partners can be software resellers, or any external agents working on behalf of your company. They bring in revenue for your business. However, they may not always have the same resources as your internal revenue teams. 

You should equip them with the tools and information needed to sell effectively.  This is where channel enablement tools come in. They empower channel partners with the right resources needed to produce their best work.

What is Channel Enablement? 

Channel enablement refers to the strategies, tools, and processes companies use to help channel partners effectively sell their products or services. Usually, distributors, resellers, affiliates, and other third-party entities play a significant role as channel partners in your go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

Their main objective is to sell and support you. You need to ensure channel partners have the right resources and technology to do it. A typical channel enablement strategy includes providing sales training, tooling, marketing collateral, and most importantly continuous support to ensure partners can meet customers’ needs.

If you’re selling a product, train your channel partners about its features, benefits, and ideal customers you’d want to attract. Give them promotional material and access to tools for driving demand and being productive while they’re at it. Conduct weekly review meetings to monitor performance and refine strategies for mutual growth.

A good channel enablement strategy extends and amplifies a brand's reach in diverse markets while keeping sales processes similar to in-house teams.

4 Channel Enablement Tools to Empower Your Partners

A variety of tools empower channel partners to drive the best of their demand generation efforts. These tools notably focus on training, communication, sales enablement, and content creation. Dive in. 

Provide Product Training with Demo Automation Software

Partners should thoroughly understand your product before they go for selling. Nitty-gritty, nuances, frequently asked questions, features, and functionalities make a difference in making them sales-ready. 

1. Storylane

Storylane helps partners to use clickable demos customized for different decision makers. You can train partners to follow a consistent demo flow to help prospects discover the value your product can drive for them. Most importantly, it helps your prospects experience the product in real-time while partners assist them by clarifying doubts.

Pros of Storylane: 

Creates beautiful, visually appealing, and shareable demos 

No learning curve and incredibly easy to use 

Competitive pricing with great features

Ratings

Users give 4.8 out of 5 stars to Storylane on popular review websites.

Pricing

The company offers Starter and Growth plans at $40 and $100 per user per month. The enterprise plan comes at a custom pricing. 

Ensure Seamless Communication and Collaboration with Business  Messaging Tools

B2B selling requires a collaborative approach. You should provide a direct line of communication to partners when they’re navigating prospects through your sales funnel. Business instant messaging software helps maintain an async and continuous communication line, helping partners take your suggestions when needed.

2. Slack

Slack makes business collaboration easier. It offers transformative benefits with real-time communication capabilities, helping channel partners align with core sales teams. It allows them to quickly respond to customers' queries and market changes.

You can create a dedicated channel to manage partners, specific clients, or campaigns. It organizes discussions and keeps relevant stakeholders engaged and informed. 

Pros and Cons of Slack

Pros:

• Offers an intuitive interface with extensive integrations
• Huddle allows teams to connect instantly for a sync discussion.

Cons:

• Might have a learning curve for new users (G2)
• Sometimes mention notifications get delayed (G2)
• Advanced capabilities and storage options are available in the paid version (G2

Ratings

People give 4.5 stars out of 5 to Slack on popular review platforms.

Pricing

Slack offers four pricing plans, Free, Pro, Business+, and Enterprise Grid. The Free plan has limited functionality.

Take a look below to see more intricate details about Slack’s pricing.

Make Sure Partners Can Access relevant Sales Assets with Sales Enablement Tools

Channel partners represent multiple companies. Provide them with the right resources and materials they need to effectively sell and represent your brand. Sales enablement tools provide detailed information and educational content to set them up for success. 

These tools act as a repository that holds training and onboarding materials. You can add new channel partners and keep them on the same page where everyone is. With this, the messaging becomes consistent. Your partners also get the most up-to-date information through marketing content and other promotional material.

With the correct information, partners set the right context, eventually leading to converting more prospects in their funnel.

3. Seismic

Seismic equips channel partners with the right skills, content, tools, and insights to grow and win. It provides a user-friendly interface with all resources distributed logically. You can save documents to quickly locate them when needed. 

Seismic maintains one source of truth for all sales and marketing collateral, empowering channel partners to self-educate and train themselves.

Pros and Cons of Seismic

Pros:

• Keeps everything organized and allows for quick access
• Very easy to create, upload, and edit presentations
• Provides usage tracking ability

Cons:

• Need more ways to filter a report (G2)
• Need the ability to  view uploaded documents during a live presentation (G2)
• Search functionality has some room for improvement. (G2)

Ratings

Users give 4.7 stars out of 5 to Seismic on popular review platforms.

Pricing

You can get in touch with the Seismic team to get more details.

Enable Partners to Create Sales Content with Design Software

Suppose, you’re entering a market in Brazil or Japan. Although English is understood, it isn’t as commonly used as their native language. Portuguese and Japanese are more common. It’s advisable to equip your channel partner in such situations with sales content creation tools. Tools that help content localisation quickly.
Adopting SaaS localization not only helps reach more markets but also shows dedication to putting customers first.

Partners can recreate sales material following typography principals, making their sales efforts more effective. This is simply one use case. There are several other uses of sales content creation tools, helping partners make the most of their efforts. 

One-size content doesn’t fit all. With these tools, partners can create or modify content according to their needs.

4. Canva

Canva helps channel partners create sales presentations, one-pagers, brochures, and various other marketing materials. The software provides a drag-and-drop approach to creating designs using Canva’s vast library of templates and other visual elements.  

Your partners can design and create absolutely anything with Canva. Be it a digital asset like a presentation or a physical item such as a visiting card. You can even create your brand’s color palettes and fonts on Canva, which your partners can use to be consistent with your branding.

Pros and Cons of Canva

Pros

• Makes it extremely simple to create visuals
• Doesn’t require professional knowledge

Cons

• Some font families are not supported by Microsoft PowerPoint (G2)
• Might not provide control and accuracy same as a graphics designer  (G2)

Ratings

Users rate 4.7 stars out of 5 to Canva on popular review platforms.

Pricing

Canva offers a free plan for users to try and experience the product. The Pro plan is priced at $12.99 per month. You can create a brand kit and access visuals exclusively available to Pro users. 
Check out Canva’s pricing page for more details.

Building a Bridge Toward Revenue Growth 

Building a bridge with just hands is possible, but a slow, challenging, and tedious process. With the right tools that bridge comes together seamlessly connecting two sides. External partners and internal sales teams are like the two sides of the bridge. And, channel enablement software is the tool that bridges the gap between the two.

Partners help you get closer to the same revenue objectives as salespeople. Often, internal teams are well-resourced with the tools and tech they need. But channel partners stay far away from such resources. 

Bring them closer. Give them the right tools to build your bridge toward incredible sales achievements and revenue growth.