When local and small businesses stumble, a national brand’s revenue tumbles.
A third of national marketers say 40% or more of their company’s revenue comes from local business partners, yet studies show less than 30% of small businesses have fully recovered from the pandemic. Do the math, and you’ll see a lot of lost revenue.
More than four out of five national marketing leaders say they’re responsible for growing revenue and managing performance of local partners through local partner channel marketing programs.
- 75% of national marketing leaders either have only a moderate understanding (40%), limited understanding (29%) or no understanding (6%) of local partners, their challenges and how to optimize their performance.
- 55% say the overall effectiveness of their local partner channel marketing program is only moderately effective or worse.
- 44% say the overall utilization rate of co-op and marketing funds to support local partners is 20% or less.
- 43% say it’s very important, even critical, to improve digital marketing among local partners, yet 48% don’t even offer fund reimbursement for digital marketing tactics.
Sure, this looks bad — and it’s only a partial list in our report. Suffice to say, mistakes are being made. While there are many reasons for a lack of local partner engagement, which our report covers in detail, this also means you can fix them.
Our findings are based on a survey of over 140 marketing leaders across B2C and B2B industries. Additionally, we conducted in-depth interviews with executives at SHARP Home Appliances, Caterpillar, Gap, Invesco, Nationwide, BNY Mellon Wealth Management, KloudGin, and MisfitsGaming.
Download the report to discover ways to help your local partners become better marketers and kickstart local demand for your products or services.
