5 ways ISVs can effectively partner with cloud providers for cloud marketplace success

If you have a listing on cloud marketplaces but are not able to attract the attention of cloud providers, you need to relook at your cloud marketplace selling strategy. Partnering with cloud providers is your gateway to higher profits, better sales, faster deal closures and overall better SaaS business outcomes. However, not knowing how to pump resources effectively to build and sustain such partnerships is more common than you might imagine. Fortunately, after enabling 100+ ISVs to list on cloud marketplaces, grab the attention of their cloud providers and scale such partnerships, SaaSify has the ultimate secret recipe for success.

A GTM strategy with cloud providers or how you seek to leverage the cloud marketplace to drive SaaS business is where you need to start. Cloud GTM cannot be an afterthought or receive step sisterly treatment if you really want to build attractive partnerships with your cloud providers. Before you get overwhelmed and start sweating, know that you don’t need to have your cloud GTM strategy put together at once. What is important is to ensure that a roadmap has been laid and creating and implementing a GTM strategy with cloud providers is a key business imperative.

Building a win-win partnership with your cloud provider to accelerate sales, revenue and growth requires that everyone on your side of the story is on board. If you feel that your partnership team can, on its own, drive cloud GTM and build alliances with cloud providers, you need to think again. While the partnerships team can steer your ship, ultimately support from finance, strategy, sales, marketing, etc. is critical to actually create a splash with your ship. For instance, unless your sales team drives sales or deals through the marketplace, it will be impossible to turn heads of your cloud providers. Same goes for marketing, which can help you drive more and more traffic towards your cloud marketplace listing. Of course, without leadership buy-in, nothing can move even an inch. Thus, once you are able to get everyone in your team on the same page and excited about cloud marketplace selling, the chances of attracting cloud provider attention will skyrocket!

For cloud providers to actually bat an eye and give you the attention you seek, you need to present yourself as an enabler for them as well. One guaranteed way to achieve this is by listing transactable offers and driving transactions through cloud marketplaces. When you drive sales through cloud marketplaces, you become a member of the in-group or a part of the system who is equally invested in accelerating marketplace sales like the cloud providers. The rationale is simple: when you drive sales through cloud marketplaces, you help bring more customers to the cloud ecosystem, which leads to higher cloud consumption and effectively means more revenue for the cloud provider overall. There’s a secret benefit for you as well. At a transaction cost as low as 3%, when you drive sales through cloud marketplaces, you also benefit from increased operational excellence, streamlined processes and faster deal closures.

Co-selling is all about working closely with your cloud providers to unlock joint deals, leading to mutual returns. While getting eligible for co-selling and understanding the documentation is important, what is more critical is building the relationships with cloud marketplace field sellers, who will ultimately send leads your way. It is equally important to bring your own leads to show your commitment to the success of co-selling. When starting your co-selling journey, the tale of partnership benefits needs to be crafted and communicated. This suggests having a clear understanding of how if you and the cloud partner work together, the impact will be mutually beneficial. Focus on how your offering can impact on their sales quotas, how it can better help their customer demands and overall, how selling together will bring the best of both worlds. It is also important to work closely with cloud partners to understand their expectations and learn from their expertise. They will have a better view of what their customers want, and you can spin your sales accordingly. Similarly, it is vital that you effectively educate the partners about your products to help them make a compelling sale. Don’t forget to learn and iterate because great partnerships evolve and grow over time.

If you want cloud providers to notice you, give them some good reasons. And, getting certified or enrolling in their curated programs is definitely one way to go. If you undergo the right certifications and training provided by cloud providers, you instill greater confidence in them about your capability to positively impact their cloud ecosystem. This directly translates to greater incentives, high visibility, easier access to resources and support and even leads to higher buyer trust and confidence. In fact, some certifications can also help you get exclusive badges and stamps of approval as well as they can make you eligible for exclusive benefits.

As a cost-effective cloud marketplace integrator, SaaSify has enabled 100+ ISVs to successfully capture cloud provider attention via:

• Cloud GTM support to help strategize GTM, prepare marketing assets and drive marketing execution to leverage cloud marketplace rewards and benefits
• White-glove onboarding to help all team members understand how the cloud marketplace work and drive buy-in across teams
• Private offer creation automation to create transactable offers from within Salesforce, as well as create public transactable offers to drive more marketplace transactions
• Co-sell readiness & advisory to prepare your listing for co-selling with cloud providers, helping you secure more deals
• SaaSify GTM program and other expert support can help you prepare for and ace certifications, reviews and competency programs by cloud marketplaces

Get ready to grab all the cloud provider attention with SaaSify. Book a demo today!