Marketing your business can be a challenging task. Ensuring you choose the right platform to market is vital in order to open your business up to numerous growth opportunities. However, the Salesforce AppExchange Marketing Program (AMP) may be beneficial to ISVs looking to boost their marketing efforts.
It offers partnership and promotion opportunities that enable businesses to connect with the Salesforce market to expand their audience. To help you decide if it could help you, we will talk about how the AppExchange Marketing Program can help you grow and secure a successful business venture.
What Is the AppExchange Marketing Program?
The AppExchange Marketing Program (AMP) is a paid co-marketing program that focuses on helping businesses grow. They offer turn-key, paid co-marketing opportunities to help partners reach a Salesforce audience, including Salesforce customers and employees.
What Is the AppExchange Marketing Program Useful For?
AMP is ideal for entrepreneurs seeking to penetrate the Salesforce market as a means of growing their businesses. Here are some ways you can use the AppExchange Marketing Program:
1. Expand Customer Base and Brand Awareness
With AMP, you can reach out to Salesforce customers and influencers – this could significantly boost your marketing needs. The AMP platform allows you to educate Salesforce employees on the value of your brand and the benefits of partnering together through internal assets, virtual Demo Jams, and videos.
2. Maximize AMP Features
You can maximize the features AMP provides to help market your brand. Choose from a vast pool of prebuilt and customizable apps, components, Flow, Bolt, and Lightning data solutions. They also have numerous certified consultants to assist you with Salesforce implementations or integrations.
3. Create Co-Branded Digital Content
Salesforce regularly releases co-marketing opportunities between various brands. This allows you to engage with existing Salesforce influencers and partners to help market your business.
Requirements of the Program
To join the program, Salesforce requires businesses to comply with several requirements to join the program and enjoy the platform:
- A live and public AppExchange listing.
- ISV-revenue sharing agreement.
- Adherence to Salesforce branding, content submission, and user guidelines.
- Good standing within the Salesforce Partner Program.
Clear pricing of your solution, in adherence to AppExhange Pricing Policies.
How to Prepare for AMP?
1. Have a Great Marketing Strategy
Create a marketing plan and strategy that goes well together with Salesforce and its values. Within your marketing plan, include aspects such as swim lanes and tactics for Partner Marketing, AMP, Enablement, and Social Media in conjunction with your privileged access management (PAM).
2. Optimize Your Listing
Before diving into AMP, take the time to look through and optimize your AppExchange listing to help maximize your chances of connecting with numerous partners within the ecosystem.
3. Follow Content Submission Guidelines
As you prepare for your marketing strategy, it is essential to ensure that your content, numbers, and presentation materials are up to the standards for AMP. AMP provides comprehensive content and submission guidelines to help you ensure that you fully comply with their standards.
Applicants also undergo a security review process to ensure that your program passes their legal standards and prerequisites.
4. Obtain the Appropriate Certifications on the Partner Learning Camp
It is advantageous to gather the following certifications to increase your chances at securing new customers and leveraging the platform fully:
- Introduction to Digital Marketing
- Marketing Manager
- ISV Marketing Essentials
Keep in mind that prior to obtaining these certifications, you must register as a partner within the AMP ecosystem.
5. Utilize Free AppExchange Marketing Opportunities
As you dive into AMP, you can also make use of the following marketing opportunities to further boost your brand awareness within the platform. Here are a few strategies you can use:
- Guest blogging (become a thought leader)
- News/press releases
- Grow your social following
- Get people to talk about your product
AMP Promotions for ISV Partners
AMP offers a different set of promotion options for ISV partners. They mainly focus on providing comprehensive marketing solutions, from employee education, promotions of AMP listing, brand awareness, etc.
By taking advantage of these, you can simplify your product offering while maximizing the transparency, clarity, and marketability of your product.
See here for the various AMP promotions for ISV partners.
AMP Promotions for Consulting Partners
AMP promotions for consulting partners focus on a different angle to help market their brand. It prioritizes brand visibility and filtration, enabling customers to easily identify consultants best-suited for their specific needs.
See here the various AMP promotions for consulting partners.
Taking advantage of the various promotions AMP offers enables you to increase your brand reach and improve marketing practices for your company. With these opportunities in mind, let’s look into how you can measure the results you acquire by looking into AMP’s ROI Guide.
How to Use ROI Guide for Demand Generating Promotions
AMP provides numerous ROI guides, depending on the type of promotion you are using. The AMP ROI guide provides suggestions on how to get the most value and longevity from your AMP investment. It also gives in-depth detail on topics such as lead capture and search performance.
Within the guide, AMP provided the following content to help you easily navigate through your the types of promotion that best suits your need:
- Demand Generating
- Sponsored Placements
- Co-Branded Assets
- Internal Assets
- Paid Media
- AppExchange Chat
AMP Timing and Deadlines
AMP usually releases new co-marketing opportunities for purchase every six months. These months are divided as follows:
- Salesforce Q1-Q2 (February-July)
- Q3-Q4 (August-January)
Partners will then choose their participation by quarter, executing one quarter at a time. Salesforce proceeds with creating a Slack channel with the selected partners to share relevant data such as run dates, action items, and deadlines at kick-off.
Generally, the deadline to apply for certain video or digital assets and paid media are as follows:
- FY23 Q3: September 14, 2022
- FY23 Q4: December 14, 2022
Beyond these dates, you will no longer be able to apply for the promotions falling into their respective quarters.
How to Apply for AMP
Step 1: Log in
Log in to the Partner Community. You will need to navigate to the AMP application site: Publishing tab → Marketing tab.
If prompted, input the necessary details and review all the information and resources.
Step 2: Submit the necessary details and pay fees
Select the desired time period and promotions. Keep in mind that promotions are on a first-come, first-served basis, so it is best to register ahead of time. Additionally, there are different application deadlines for certain promotions such as video/digital assets and paid media.
Once you have selected your promotion, proceed with clicking on the Cart icon to complete your application. You will pay the fees associated with your selected promotions once you are accepted into AMP.
Step 3: Wait for confirmation
After submission, the AMP team will review your application. If approved, you will receive a confirmation email stating your program acceptance and providing you with a contract. Once signed, the AMP team will set up a joint Slack channel to collaborate on all things AppExchange Marketing Program.
Final Thoughts
The AppExchange Marketing Program is an innovative platform that can help your business reach beyond its borders to achieve growth. It provides numerous marketing solutions that can help drive your brand further into the market, and make it visible among your peers and industry competitors.
Investing in the right platform to market your company and its products is crucial for achieving growth. With AMP, you can ensure that you are increasing the chances of securing a successful Salesforce business venture.