Making Partner Marketing the Engine of Your Company's GTM Strategy

Ricky Currier (00:00.971) Hey, mean, how's it going? Amyn Jivani (00:02.422) Hey, good, how are you, Ricky? Ricky Currier (00:04.299) It's good to have it on. think you were just saying this is what your first podcast? Amyn Jivani (00:07.938) I think it's my first one, so I appreciate you having me and giving me the platform. Excited for the conversation today and hopefully the first of many more to come. Yeah, yeah. Ricky Currier (00:18.247) I hope so too. I'll try to go easy on you. I mean, we try to have some fun and keep it light. So why don't you give some background to the audience of who you are and where you work? Amyn Jivani (00:23.779) Yeah. Sure, sounds good, happy to do so. So my name is Amin Javani, as you mentioned, I'm currently the Senior Director of Partner Marketing at Contentful, where I focus on our overall ecosystem growth and then specifically on driving joint value with our partners to our customers. And so what that really means is we're thinking about... How are we growing the ecosystem of partners across system integrators, across ISVs, and actually we have our own marketplace too, and how all of those partners together just derive, sorry, how those partners collectively deliver more value to our customers. Me and my team specifically focus on a lot of the joint marketing work with those partners, and we're really thinking about how do we integrate a lot of the work that we do to the overall company goals and priorities. make all of our content campaigns and launches that much stronger with Partner Voice and really think about the collective power of what we offer as a premier content management and digital experience platform along with all the value. Prior to this role, I spent many years in mostly large technology companies, most recently at Google Cloud, where I spent about seven and a half years helping grow the ecosystem, primarily of ISV partners there and focused on a variety of different solution areas. And then prior to that, spent many years at both Salesforce and VMware in a variety of different roles. And so I've kind of found my way into different facets of marketing and now specifically in this world of ecosystem and partnerships, which I think is just fascinating. Amyn Jivani (02:06.574) And just a big part of how companies are really going to market and growing and delivering value to customers. So it's a really exciting space to be in. Ricky Currier (02:14.637) Yeah, I feel like there's a lot to unpack there. So let's just start with your kind of history because those are some big names, right? Salesforce, VMware, Google. Would you consider Contentful a growth stage startup? And not that we need to label it, but just interested like what lessons you might've learned at those big companies that you're now applying at Contentful. Amyn Jivani (02:17.229) Yeah. Amyn Jivani (02:23.468) Yeah, yeah. Amyn Jivani (02:28.184) Yeah, sure. Amyn Jivani (02:34.178) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think the opportunity at Contentful, especially the age of AI is just really interesting, right? I think content and the role of content is really evolving meaningfully. As we think about answer engines and generative engine optimization and the role in which how your content really shows up in the way customers are going through the buying process is just paramount. And so how you think about personalizing that content and that eventually the customer journey. How you then make sure that you're showing up on brand across different campaigns, across languages, across geographies. These are all problems that we're tackling head on. And so I think the opportunity to come to a company like Contentful, which is very much in a growth stage right now and in a space, I think that is just becoming more and more paramount to how companies really engage their customers. That's what drew me to the company and to the role. But like you said, lots of great learnings and history from a lot of these large scale technology corporations that I spent many, many years at. I think the biggest thing that I've found, especially if I think about specifically the role of partners, is most previously having worked at Hyperscaler, you're really thinking about how SI partners and ISV partners are really driving pipeline and scale. thousands and thousands and thousands of partners globally. And you're really telling the overall ecosystem story, the differentiation of your platform, and then really getting partners to buy in and to sort of build on top of that. At a growth stage company like Contentful, you're much, much more focused and also I think much more integrated with the company's core go-to-market notion. We have a large partner community, but there's probably... a smaller portion that we're really focused on going directly to market with. And then we're really thinking about, again, enabling that long tail of partners too. But if I think about the partners that are really gonna move the needle for us, and if I think about where and how I need to bring partners into some of the things that I mentioned earlier, our campaign content, our launches, our co-sell notions, it's really about getting more specific and really tying back to company goals. Amyn Jivani (04:55.128) company metrics and less of just the partner goals and the partner metrics. The thing that I've found and what I'm really obsessing about today in my role is really making sure partners and the marketing work and then the overall company that we're all pulling in the same direction to go out and win customers and to deliver value to customers. And so I think it's most impactful when partners are not sort of this parallel motion off to the side, but really when they're really integrated. directly into the companies go to market. And I think that's the biggest shift that I've seen and the biggest mindset shift that I've had to then make to then be most successful and impactful in the world that I'm in today. Ricky Currier (05:37.459) No, that's fascinating. So I'm just thinking through just from your perspective, kind of take a step back. You're in this partner marketing role, you know, thinking about alignment, thinking about being part of that larger go to market motion. What do you think the actual charter is of a partner marketing organization within this bigger, bigger ecosystem internally? Amyn Jivani (05:51.31) Mm-hmm. Amyn Jivani (05:55.596) Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I think partner marketing works best when it stops being a separate function, to be honest, and when it becomes the connective tissue across all the go-to-market motions of the company. There's something to be said about building the best co-marketing plan you can with a partner, whether it's an ISV or an agency or a system integrator, and aligning your target accounts and building a full funnel campaign and going and building leads and pipeline and the whole bit. And that's fantastic. But I think if you operate just in that mode, you really are operating as a slightly separate function. When you bring it into the fold of the company's go-to-market motion, and I think partner marketing is uniquely at the center of that, if we really think about how do we drive pipeline connected to company priorities, product priorities. and overall company objectives. And how do you make sure that partners are front and center in everything that we do? There's three really key areas that I'm thinking about it. in my current role. It's pipeline generation, as I've mentioned a couple of times. It's product adoption and it's market expansion. And I'm happy to go into sort of each of those three. But I think at a high level, when we, again, stop thinking about partner marketing or partnerships in general as its own, parallel path and really bring it into the fold. I think that's where you get away from sort of these, what I like to call random acts of marketing sometimes where you're doing the partner webinar or you're doing the co-marketing campaign or getting a new partner listed on the marketplace. Those are all great things and those are all part of the work that a partner marketing or partnerships team needs to go drive. But unless you can really tie that back to support the company's top go-to-market priorities. Amyn Jivani (07:57.081) really don't get the traction and the impact and the relevance that I think a function like this needs to have. And so when you really start to bring it into, again, the core work of the company, that's where I think it really starts to drive outsize impact and value. Ricky Currier (08:14.135) It's funny, I was on a call earlier today and it's not the first time I've heard this, but somebody referred to partner marketing as the, redheaded stepchild, you know, of the organization. And I've been, I've been a redheaded stepchild before, so I know what that means personally. So, you know, I wanted to ask you, you know, like, how do you actually do this? Cause I think a lot of people, understand alignment's important. You know, they want to bring it in the fold, but, tactically, how do you do it? Is that, is it those three things you mentioned pipeline product market expansion? Amyn Jivani (08:18.445) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amyn Jivani (08:29.88) Yeah. Write it. Write it. Write it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think, you know, to your point, right, you've got, you've got content marketing teams, you've got growth marketing teams, you've got product marketing teams, you've got sales teams, you've got all of these teams that are really focused on, and in my case, how am I driving more business for Contentful? How am I acquiring new customers? How am I launching new products and services? How am I expanding my footprint with my existing customers? And then, yeah, by the way, there's all these partners. And oftentimes, many folks don't know how to actually, to your point, operationalize the partner motion within the product or the market, right? They know intuitively that, yeah, sure, I should bring a partner in, but they don't really understand or see the value as to where and how and to what end. And I also think we really, you know, as folks who are in the partnerships world, need to also educate to say, look, there's different partners that are going to serve different needs and purposes as we think about our overall go-to-market, right? So if I think about sales alignment and co-sell, right, really for the purposes of pipeline creation, there's going to be certain partners that are going to be able to open the door at the top of the funnel, right? Those are primarily going to be system integrators. Those are going to be agency partners. They're going to be able to get us in the door and reach customers that we wouldn't be able to reach on our own. Amyn Jivani (10:08.547) They might be able to accelerate a deal by being able to go to that customer and say, hey, we've worked really closely with Contentful. Here's where we're seeing the value. Here's where we've been able to drive successful implementations in the past. You should consider talking to them. You should consider their technology, right? It can also help where a partner can come in and bring their voice and credibility to the conversation and help drive deals to closure. And those are not always going to be the same partners at those three different phases of the customer journey. buying cycle that I mentioned, right? It might be a large global system integrator at the top, like an Accenture, like a Deloitte, like a McKinsey, who has strong credibility and voice in a specific area of domain or expertise that you may want to partner with for top of funnel leadership content. But it might be more of a regional system integrator that comes in in the middle or bottom of funnel, who's really going to be able to, like I said, accelerate that deal or drive that deal to closure. Same thing as we think about ABN or marketing campaigns with partners, right? Or something that's much more down funnel, like a field event. It may not be one partner that fits all the needs of what you're trying to do, but if you think about how do you explicitly tie the right partner to the right funnel stage and the customer journey and really then tie it all back to the sales priorities, that's what's really gonna drive customer success. That's what's going to make sure that partners are. Ricky Currier (11:33.551) you Amyn Jivani (11:36.687) core integrated part of your fee, you're going to market. So again, like going back to like the brand and partner webinar, Hey, you know, it's an important piece of a broader customer journey. That's where it becomes relevant or bringing the right partner into a company led webinar. I think in my mind is even better, right? Because you bring that credibility, bring that voice, you bring that reach, you bring all the things that partners can people and partners that drive and demand on the backs of that. So it's not at the end of the day another campaign or another touch point, but it's stronger campaigns and stronger touch points where partners are involved. Ricky Currier (12:17.763) How much of this is art versus science on alignment? let's use picking a partner as an example, the right partner for the right priority. How much of that is relied on looking at the data versus just what we think we know about that part? Amyn Jivani (12:21.677) Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Right. Right. It's an excellent question. And I think a lot of times it does come down to how mature your partner ecosystem is, how mature your partner go to market motion is, how long your business has been focused on driving growth through partners. Right. Sometimes even within a business, may differ by region or by partner type where maybe you're going into a new market and you have limited expertise in that market, but there's some big players that you need to start to build relationships with. And so in that case, you might not have all the data. You might be really going off of initial relationship building, initial alignment of ICP, initial alignment of goals and objectives that you are then driving with that partner and hence driving. business and growth within that new region that you're entering. Or there might be a very mature market that you're operating in where you have a lot of data on who's bringing in deals, who's registering leads and opportunities, who's really great at helping you accelerate or expand. And so I think it just varies, to be honest. And it is, I think, to your point, less science and more art oftentimes. It is very much a relationship-driven business and function. You can't go at it just based off of what the data tells you. Oftentimes partners are going to lean in at different points depending on your company goals and priorities and how that may match what they're doing in a given year. And so it's not always going to be consistent. It may differ a little bit year over year. You may need to then think about levers like MDF that you have at your disposal, right? And how do you want to incentivize certain partners to do more business with you because you're pushing into a new... area from a product perspective or a new region, like I said. And so, you know, I think it really comes back to having a good understanding of your business and what you're looking to accomplish. Again, going back to those company goals and objectives, right? And matching that with the partners that are going to help you get there. And then how do you drive those relationships, grow the relationships, lean in and sort of, you know, play a little bit of matchmaker, I on the back end is definitely. Ricky Currier (14:45.772) Well, it sounds like it's incredibly key to the whole alignment, but I want to ask a little bit about pipeline alignment because I know pipeline's a big part of partner marketing. It's a big challenge. You sometimes you're relying on the partners to report pipeline. Sometimes you're working with internal field teams. There's a lot of different ways to slice and dice that. So what are some things you're seeing in terms of like pitfalls or challenges or best practices around aligning on pipeline? Amyn Jivani (14:49.815) Yeah. Sure. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Totally. Amyn Jivani (15:10.925) Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I think... Sorry. Ricky Currier (15:18.253) Yeah, yeah, take your time. Amyn Jivani (15:19.075) Yeah. Do you mind me asking the question actually? Yeah. Okay. Ricky Currier (15:21.517) Yeah, absolutely. So I want to ask about pipeline. We talked about pipeline, product adoption, market expansion. What are some pitfalls or best practices on how to align, whether it's internally on pipeline or externally with partners on pipeline? Amyn Jivani (15:33.295) Mm-hmm. Amyn Jivani (15:37.386) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think one thing I mentioned, and I'll repeat it to some degree, and then I'll provide a little bit more color, it needs to come back to company goals at the end of the day, right? And so I think the better you have an understanding of the impact that you as a company are looking to... drive and the goals you're looking to achieve and then the pipeline that you need to be able to create against those company goals and then be able to map partners to those priorities, right? So starting kind of at the top of the pyramid or almost like a reverse pyramid where you've got, you know, pipeline or company objectives at the top. And then you're thinking about, you know, the partners that map to that best in a industry against, you know, a specific persona, I would say. Ricky Currier (16:18.691) Yeah. Amyn Jivani (16:32.271) or a specific region. I mean, those could be really three key ways to look at it and then to understand the ecosystem that surround each of those different buckets. But, you know, as you think about that mapping back to overall company goals, you really start to then get more surgical and I think a little bit more specific as to who you're working with from a partner perspective and to what end, right? And so the one end is going to always be that company goal. but there might be a specific partner that is going to be able to help you build more preference with a marketing persona, let's say, versus a developer persona. There might be a specific partner that is going to help you win more in retail and CPG versus financial services. There might be a partner that is going to be able to help you with region distribution, like a hyperscaler versus a regional system integrator who's going to do a great job of implementing what you. sold to a customer and then driving customer success. And so I think you almost need to break it down to those levels beyond just sort of pipeline or ACV or even churn or expansion or any of those top level metrics. I think all the work eventually needs to ladder up to those metrics. And I think, you know, oftentimes we get very bogged down into partner. marketing specific metrics like partner attach and partner influence pipeline and partner source pipeline. And those are really, really important metrics. But I think what's more important oftentimes is really thinking about the deals that partners have been attached to or the campaigns that partners have been attached to and understanding how did those perform versus campaigns or deals where partners were not meaningfully involved or partners were just sort of attached late in the process. or partners were not really front and center, right? And understanding were those deals where partners showed up? Did we close those deals faster? Were those larger deals? Did we reduce churn? And so I think about it from, again, partners serving different purposes and aligning all the work that we're doing back to those broader company goals like pipeline, like retention, like ACV expansion. But I think we've... Amyn Jivani (18:56.121) to be more impactful and honest about sort of the role in which partners play, you really do have to get a little bit more specific as to what you're trying to solve for and what partners you're working with and really to what end. And so, you know, I think about it again from the perspective of how do I really bring together this vast ecosystem of partners who have expertise in a lot of different areas and we're going to impact our pipeline and campaigns and sales stages in different ways. and really think about it starting from that customer journey and then mapping partners back to that and working with different partners along the way that are going to help us achieve those broader company goals. Ricky Currier (19:35.629) Yeah, no, I it sounds like so much of the success of pipeline measurement comes down to just making sure we're aligned from the get go. So like your reverse pyramid example made a lot of sense. Like you got to start there to make sure the objectives are clear. We're aligned with the goals. What are we measuring? How do we get to the pipeline? It's kind of the secondary effect. want to kind of just go down this road of measurement. You know, how should partner marketers today be thinking about measuring impact? Obviously pipeline is part of that, but it's probably not the only part. Amyn Jivani (19:38.745) Done. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Amyn Jivani (19:49.731) Yeah, right. Right? Right? Amyn Jivani (20:01.337) Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's definitely not the only part. You know, I think where we think about partners, like I was sharing, where they're actually integrated into deal cycles and thinking about, did that deal cycle accelerate because of a partner? Did we grow the overall deal size because a partner was involved? Were we able to grow our reach beyond sort of the accounts and leads that we would be able to generate on our own, right? I think there's a lot of broader alignment to those campaign metrics, to those sales metrics that are not just partner specific, but more specific to the overall go-to-market that I think you can really start to measure sort of the when partners were meaningfully involved in those marketing and sales motions versus where partners were not. And so, you know, I think looking at influence like partner source leads and, you know, partner source pipeline and how many campaigns did you, you know, align a partner to and all the other things that, you know, you would really kind of traditionally measure in partner marketing is great. But I think it's almost, again, looking at the company metrics, the things that the board is going to care about, that your C-suite is going to care about. and measure the impact of where partners are helping accelerate your company goals. Those are really the metrics that I tend to focus a little bit more of my attention on that are going to be a little bit more impactful and a little bit more visible to leadership. And I think that's how you continue to build credibility, how you continue to show impact beyond just the partner specific campaigns and work that you're doing, but really Amyn Jivani (22:00.247) show how partner marketing and partnerships overall are going to be that connected tissue and growth engine for the company. Ricky Currier (22:07.927) It's funny you say that my last guest who's done a lot of work with private equity and business owners at the senior level talked a lot about what you just said. So just kind of validating the fact that, you know, thinking about alignment, you need to be aligned with what the board cares about, what the executives care about. What are those, what are those metrics? think it's very, it's an easy trap to just be like, I have to deliver a pipeline and that's your only line of sight. But there's a lot of other things that at the executive level they care about and just being aligned with what those are and helping. Amyn Jivani (22:12.206) Yeah. Amyn Jivani (22:16.207) Yeah. Amyn Jivani (22:21.795) Yeah. Right. Amyn Jivani (22:27.885) Right. Right. Amyn Jivani (22:34.072) Yeah. Ricky Currier (22:34.477) show that impact can make you a lot more successful, I think, as a partner marketer. Amyn Jivani (22:38.263) Agreed, agreed. I think the job is not just about running partner programs. It's really making sure partners and then marketing as kind of that next layer and then sales and then company go to market all pulling in the same direction to go out and win customers and to drive more business for the company. And on the backs of that drive customer success and value, right? That's really the through line for the work that we're doing. And it can't be just specific to the metrics that, you know, maybe you are measured on in your own personal OKRs. I those are a piece of contributing to the overall puzzle, but I think it's a bit of a trap if you don't connect that back to the overall company goals, because that's where you really can be able to show impact. And I think that's what I would challenge everyone to think about is, regardless of what function you're in, to be honest, like, how is my work laddering up to broader company goals? It's just critical for us. Ricky Currier (23:38.903) Love to get your advice for someone that might be in your shoes that's maybe they're not aligned today, but they're hearing this and they think, okay, we got to get aligned with business objectives. I have to get aligned with other teams. I'm going to start this project. What advice do you have for them to make sure that they don't go down the road or they don't fall any common pitfalls? Amyn Jivani (23:43.907) Yeah. Amyn Jivani (23:47.523) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Honestly, I think show up, show up, over communicate, be in the room where the conversations are happening around, you know, the weekly pipeline calls, the weekly or monthly or whatever cadence you have within your own organization for overall go to market strategy. Find the people that could be your sounding board, cross-functionally, pitch your ideas, come in with an opinion, show that you're working towards aligning your work to those company objectives, right? And have people work with you to validate that. You know, there's nothing wrong with coming in with a great idea that may not have everything sort of buttoned up, but I think as you show up and you have the conversations, people into your work and into your world, so to speak, and then work towards aligning to the things that you know, you know, your sales leader, your CRO, or your CMO, or your CEO, that what they're thinking about, you know, right over the last couple of months, you know, everyone's had their company and sales kickoff and such, you go to those things, you hear about company goals and objectives, you start to think about, what am I doing to impact the goals that we have as company? You know, I think leveraging your cross-functional peers and really working towards it diligently and continuing to iterate, continuing to have the alignment conversations is just critical. And then once you launch, come back, say what you're going to do, and then come back into those forums and show progress against it. And again, think about where and how you can iterate and evolve along the way. I think just being in the room and having the conversations and to some degree forcing that alignment. I think that's just what it takes to continuously show and demonstrate value. so I would say market the marketing to some degree. Don't be afraid to do that, right? But come into those conversations with a curious mind and make sure that you're hearing other people's perspectives and that they're also hearing your perspectives, right? And how can you collectively harness that? Amyn Jivani (26:15.279) of your cross-functional teammates to be able to push towards what you're looking to accomplish as Ricky Currier (26:23.447) No, I think it's great advice, especially for partner marketers that are running from deadline to deadline. A lot of it's just reactive. And that advice is like, look, you still got to do that job. But if you want to get aligned, you got to be proactive. You got to show up. You got to market to the marketing. I love that. So that's good. Amyn Jivani (26:24.985) Yeah. Amyn Jivani (26:28.953) Pray. Pray. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, it's doing fewer things better, right? You know, I think to your point on the reactivity of the way in which we operate, being reactive sometimes and always kind of chasing the new shiny object or this new company initiative, you know, again, great to make sure that your work is aligned to those things, but Make sure that you establish what it is that your team's goals and objectives are and what you're laddering up to. And try to think about how some of those downstream activities or the new things that may become up along the way can all ladder up to those three to five goals you have, right? And this can maybe vary throughout the year, right? You may have some things that are really more important in each one that you need to get off the ground and then you can always sort of look. about how do I maybe need to reset or alter or tweak things for H2. But I think, you you sort of have to stay a little bit true to what you have said you were going to do as an individual or as a team and make progress against that and not get too distracted by things that may be coming at you all the time, right? Knowing where and how to say no to things. that don't maybe align to your functions objectives, which should inherently be aligned to company objectives, right? And so where you see things that are a good fit, where a partner comes to you, for example, this happens a lot, a partner comes to you with an idea and they're like, hey, we think we can really do this great thing and we're gonna need X amount of investment. Here's the three things we wanna go do together. And it sounds fantastic. And they're super leaned in and you're like, yeah, this is great. We're gonna be able to. Amyn Jivani (28:27.055) drive so much pipeline and all these leads and stuff. And indeed, you might be able to, but if those leads come in and sales is focused on all these other things and those leads just sit there, or sales doesn't have the context as to how those align to their goals and objectives, then those are not going to have the impact that you intended on having, right? And so you're much better off understanding, well, hey, look, this sounds great. And, you know, maybe it's just, you know, a small percentage of my budget. So it's not materially impacting anything. And, you know, it's almost a false sense of, I'm not sure what the right word is, but it almost lulls you into thinking like, this is going to be a great thing. And so let me go off and do it. And it's not going to be that much time and it's going to be partner led. But even that is going to potentially just be a distraction or it's not going to have again, the impact you intended to have unless it's to what your sales teams are really pushing in market, the ways in which your campaigns and content and demand teams are driving pipeline for the company. so I think really think about continuous alignment and saying no to things that don't align best to your overall goals and staying focused is going to be the way in which you're be able to have continuous outsize impact. Ricky Currier (29:49.871) No, I think it's foundational. Right. And so I appreciate you sharing that. think that the foundational alignment to develop one go-to-market motion to drive real meaningful impact and success, not just for the team, but for you as an individual partner marketer. So, mean, I appreciate you sharing it. I appreciate for you showing up on your first podcast. That, you know, means a lot to me. And thanks for sharing with everybody. Amyn Jivani (29:52.313) Yeah. Yeah. Right? Amyn Jivani (30:01.315) Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being a fantastic host and for creating this platform for all of us. It's been a pleasure spending some time with you today, sharing my thoughts and experiences. And I think hopefully it's useful for the audience and I look forward to learning more from your future guests as this platform grows. So I appreciate the opportunity. Ricky Currier (30:32.847) Well, thanks for the nice words, Amin. Have a good one. Amyn Jivani (30:35.119) Alright, thanks. Take care.