Out with the Old! – Partner Portal Spring Cleaning

It’s hard to keep up with Partner Portal content. It seems like every day, there’s new product information to add to your Library, new assets available for partners to co-brand, new announcements to share on your Portal homepage.

With so much on your plate, it’s easy to neglect partner portal content. 

But the thing is, refreshing your content is one of the best ways to keep your partners informed about how your company and program are evolving — and that allows them to sell or implement your products more effectively.

So, let’s do a little spring cleaning, shall we? Here are five areas to do a deep clean:

5 Areas to Refresh Your Partner Portal Content

1. Your Home Page

Your homepage is your partners’ first impression of your portal — and it pays to make sure it’s a great one. If your homepage has information about all the fresh incentives you’re launching or product features that are being released, partners will feel excited about participating in your program (and know to take advantage of the incentives you have to offer).

Audit this space for outdated announcements, banners, or irrelevant news. Replace them with fresh content that highlights current promotions, upcoming events, or critical updates to your partner program.

Want help designing your Home Page in Channeltivity? Get some tips here and here.

2. Your Partner Program Guidelines

Partners should be able to access your most up-to-date policies, benefits, and requirements at any point in time. If you’ve introduced new tiers, incentives, or rules, make sure these are clear and easy to find. Outdated guidelines can lead to confusion or misalignment with your expectations, which can ultimately lead to costly issues.

Worried about channel conflict? Here are some ideas for preventing it.

3. Your Library 

Unfortunately, this area of your partner portal will probably take the longest to clean up — if you’re like most companies, you use your portal library as a dumping ground for any and all partner-related materials. 

But this creates unnecessary clutter, making it difficult for partners to find the most up-to-date materials. Plus, it’s not a great look — PDFs from 2019 make it seem like your portal hasn’t been touched since then.

Spruce it up by creating a report of all the content in your Resource Library, then reviewing everything that is a year old (or older) or has super low engagement (clicks or downloads). What can you take down?

Keep an eye out for: 

• Promotional material for campaigns that have ended
• Webinar invites or details for dates in the past
• Content that is no longer relevant
• Old versions of content
• Files that are no longer needed

Next, double-check your folder structure and filters. If you were a new partner, would you know where to go to get specific information? If not, do some rearranging.

You might even tap your most trusted partners to run through it with you after you make changes to make sure the structure is intuitive.

4. Your Co-Branded Collateral

Partners rely on your co-brandable assets to market your solutions, so you want these PDFs to not only look sleek and modern but convey accurate information.

Take a close look at these materials to ensure they include updated:

• Copy and messaging
• Branding (logos, colors, etc.)
• Product information (SKU names and numbers, features, etc.)

Remove older versions or pieces that no longer align with your company’s current strategy. Replace them with fresh, compelling assets your partners can use to draw in more end customers or upsell existing ones.

Remember, co-branded collateral should be just one small piece of your partner marketing plan. Cross-check your channel marketing strategy with what’s laid out here.

5. Your Training Courses

Courses may not need to be adjusted or overhauled as frequently as other areas of your portal, but they still deserve a second look during your round of spring cleaning.

Ensure that all course content (links, slides, one-pagers, videos) reflects your latest offerings and policies. If you’ve updated your logo or branding, make sure that’s reflected in your course and certification images, too. 

Need a partner enablement manager to improve your partner onboarding and retention? Read about the qualities you should be looking for here.

Ongoing Content Management

Clean-up should not be an annual event. A good rule of thumb? Pull old content down whenever new content is added. You might also consider working with content owners to develop a content expiration strategy.

For example, you could consider categorizing content by type and setting time limits by content type. Webinars, for instance, might be retired after 6 months. Marketing briefs might have a 1-year lifespan. Some PRM tools, like Channeltivity, have content expiration dates built in so that expired documents disappear automatically.

Or, if your portal supports content rating, run a report every month for content that’s rated 3 or below and take those pieces, links, or videos down.

Keep Your Partner Portal Content Organized

If increased utilization of your partner portal is a goal for the year, ensuring that your portal is clear of old, outdated content will be a step in the right direction. Your partners will thank you for it.

Want a Partner Portal that helps you stay on top of your content?

Check out Channeltivity. It’s your one-stop shop for easy-to-access resources, a content rating system, co-brandable assets, and more. Sign up for a demo today.