Nowadays, co-selling is becoming a common vocabulary for many cloud-based solution providers when having conversations with Cloud Hyperscalers. The data speaks for itself.  Forrester predicts that 17% of the B2B spending of $3.5 trillion will go through a cloud marketplace by the end of this year and 80% of B2B Sales transactions are going through digital channels by 2025.  On top of that, 43% of enterprise buyers say their top reason for purchasing through marketplaces is to take full advantage of co-selling with cloud hyperscalers.

Cosell marketing has become one of the top marketing channels for company’s with solutions with subscription models. The reason is that it’s a very scalable go-to-market (GTM) option for building sustainable demand generation and lead acquisition through joint channels. However, a lot of hard work is involved backstage.

The main reason is that you don’t build a partnership overnight. Although each partnership will demand a different amount of time, energy, and effort, it will definitely consume a big chunk of time for the cloud solution provider and the cloud hyperscaler such as Microsoft, Google and others to work with.

That’s why we think it’s important for you to know this 6-step process that will help you ease your way into the world of Co-Sell Marketing with Cloud Hyperscalers before you even start.

Assess your Cosell marketing readiness

Every vendor and each hyperscaler is different. And the term “Cosell Ready” can vary a lot between them.

Let’s take Microsoft for example. To Microsoft, being “Cosell Ready” means having your solution transactable in their Marketplace, Cosell GTM assets are ready, drive cloud consumption and a bunch of requirements they have. On the other hand, being Cosell ready for AWS means understanding which vertical, solution play, customer lists and more will yield the most impact.

It’s crucial that you take your time to read and fully understand all of the requirements of each of these hyperscalers when it comes to Coselling GTM development. By doing that, it will save you a lot of time and energy when going through this process.

Identify Cosell Ready Solution To Market

You need to figure out a couple of things before you even start thinking about Coselling. One of them is knowing if your solution is SAAS and can be transactable via their marketplace, and the second is being sure that you and your business need this kind of partnership.

The Cosell ready solution must meet the following requirements:

1. Differentiation: Are you focused on solving a challenge in an specific industry?
2. SAAS ready : Is it built on their cloud services stack and performs as a SAAS solution?
3. Transactable: Is the solution listed as a transactable solution in their marketplace?
4. Repeatable: Is the solution implementation and sales is repeatable?
5. Cosell GTM: Do you have the critical Cosell GTM assets and execution plan available to drive demand generation and sales plays?

Develop Cosell GTM (go-to-market) plan

What is it about? Developing your Cosell go-to-market plan involves working with your Cloud Hyperscaler to determine each company’s area of strength and the goals for each channel you use to promote the solution. Basically, in unity there’s strength!

It is essential for this partnership to work that your partner understands that a Cosell relationship should work in harmony and in conjunction with efforts you’re already executing. Your partner should fill in the gaps where it’s needed and help you facilitate connections and marketing tactics that your company may need or might not excel in.

If it sounds like we’re talking about real human relationships, it’s because we are. By following these rules, you’ll be able to outline a strong Cosell GTM plan that focuses on each company’s strengths and achieve the best results.

Publish your Cosell solution and offers

There are several marketplaces that every SMB and enterprise-ready solution should be on. You might also consider listing your product on other marketplaces depending on your solution and objectives. Here are two approaches:

1. Discovery : And if you’re looking for a marketplace where your solution can be discovered in the channels and be connected to all the major cloud solution marketplaces, then you should participate. For example WIC Solutions Marketplace is available for showcasing all the solutions that impacts UN goals 2030 and founders are women.
2. Transactable : Cloud marketplaces hosted by Google’s, Microsoft Azure, AWS, Salesforce and IBM should be considered based on your partnership relationship. Start with one before expanding to all. For example: Meylah’s Speaker Engage platform is available as a transactable solution on Microsoft marketplace.

Execute your Cosell marketing

Executing your Cosell marketing plan takes consistent time and effort from both the parties. It is primarily the job of the Cloud Solution provider supported by Hyperscalers. The two of you must have common goals and strategies that work in harmony and work as separate marketing engines.

You’ll want to have a clear plan on what markets or audience segmentations you will primarily be marketing to prevent double efforts and costs across the board. Plus build your critical cosell GTM assets to kickstart your conversations. To get your started, download the critical GTM assets checklist if you don’t already have access to it.

If your Cloud Hyperscaler has a specialty, lean in on tasks outside their wheelhouse and provide support where needed. At this stage of the process, you should clearly outline who will be doing what as it pertains to marketing.

Track your credibility markers, leads & contracts

Tracking your progress should be easy if you’ve followed the previous steps. In any successful partnership, each will have a list of responsibilities and benchmarks to hit to determine some level of success.

It doesn’t matter if you’re using a robust CRM like Salesforce to track and measure the different leads and contacts gained, or deals closed/won, or you simply have an excel file that tracks ongoing progress as outlined by your go-to-market strategy.

What is important is to have some sort of tracking tool to understand where everyone has succeeded and where improvement can be made.

Bottom line

A lot goes into a Cosell relationship from building to marketing to selling together. And while there will be many more activities to complete in your Cosell journey, these six strategic steps will get you where you need to be as a beginner.

If you want to know more, Join the #CosellVelocity Digital Marketing Summit on January 18th from 1-5PM PST and learn how to build and navigate the cosell marketing with cloud hyperscalers journey, but walk away with tactics that you can start implementing right away. Register for free at cosellvelocity.com.