Winning the triple crown is one of the most difficult feats in baseball, so much so that there were no players who achieved this accolade between 1967 and 2012. To win the triple crown the player must lead the league in runs batted in, batting average, and home runs. When association management software provider Impexium describes their Partner Showcase virtual event as a triple crown win, it’s a sure sign of a successful virtual experience – delivering wins for their clients, partners, and team.
To pull off this feat, Impexium started by understanding their clients’ needs. The company recently undertook a client journey mapping exercise – spanning every interaction from sales all the way to account management. Among other things, a clear need emerged. Their clients expressed: “When we have questions about different technologies that integrate with Impexium, what do we do? How do we know who we should work with? Who does Impexium recommend?”
Batting in runs to help clients score
Each different vendor brings different things to the table, and so Impexium decided to host a partner showcase that brought their partners together into one experience to make it easier for clients to see for themselves what integrations and solutions are available. From the beginning, Impexium intentionally put their clients’ needs front and center in the design of the event experience, meeting with clients to ask, “If we do this, what would you want to see? What’s the talk track that would be valuable?”
To ensure that they helped clients to get information in the format that was most useful to them, Impexium encouraged partners to share a case study with a current Impexium client so that their solution would become real for the person on the other end and clients could see “here’s how my peers are doing this”.
Impexium then took this use case approach and mirrored it in their marketing of the event to their clients, positioning the partner showcase event as a way to understand solutioning, making a better member experience, and increasing revenue with integrated partner products and services.
Patrick Dorsey, Senior Vice President, Marketing at Impexium, noted the importance of creating an event that would provide a meaningful experience for clients:
“We all have zoom fatigue. If a client is taking their time to attend our event, we want to make sure it’s worth it.”
By eliminating the need for clients to search and find information on the best solutions that integrate with their membership management platform and making it easier for clients to understand the value of using different technologies to achieve their goals, Impexium batted in runs for their clients, helping them to score by linking them with partner solutions to meet their needs.
Increasing partners’ batting averages
Impexium presented the idea of the partner showcase event and the case study format to partners. They gave clear directions and highlighted the client feedback, saying “We feel in order for you to make this valuable to Impexium clients, you need to address the following.” All the partners bought in and then Impexium worked with them to understand the content and market each showcase session with a unique value proposition.
Patrick Dorsey shared how Impexium built relationships with their partners and prepped them for successful presentations.
“We worked with them. We made sure our partners felt comfortable about the message and we felt comfortable their message would be impactful.”
Another key part of the success of the event was that the partner presentations were pre-produced. Impexium worked with Matchbox to pre-record and produce each partner’s session. This lowered anxiety for both partners and the Impexium team on the day of the event, providing a “safety-net” in knowing that the sessions would be high-quality and there would be no unforeseen issues. This also meant that partners were available in the chat during their session in the virtual event, giving them more time to focus on answering client’s questions throughout the whole session, rather than just having 10 minutes for Q&A, as is typical at many events.
By creating an event that puts partners in front of clients who are actively seeking their solutions and working with partners to help them understand in detail the clients’ needs, Impexium prepared their partners for success and provided a valuable marketing opportunity. By working with partners to focus their content to show the value that partner solutions provide, Impexium helped partners to increase their batting average – many of the partners who participated walked away with qualified leads.
Securing a home run for the team
After the partner showcase virtual event was over, Impexium received positive feedback across the board:
- Clients engaged in the event, asking questions to partners and interacting with the Impexium team in addition to attending sessions of interest to them. They feel supported by the Impexium team in finding the integrated solutions they need. With access to all the recordings available to all Impexium clients, this will continue to be a useful resource for any client needing a new integrated solution in the future.
- Partners provided feedback that this was a good business opportunity and their participation was a valuable investment of their marketing resources. Partners have stronger relationships with the Impexium team and they got qualified leads from the event, making this a win-win.
However it was an unintended outcome of the event that really secured a home run for the Impexium team. Patrick Dorsey shared,
“We were very much client-centric in the event design and trying to make sure our partners thought it was a good use of their time and money as well. We were so focused and hyper-sensitive to these goals that I don’t think we realized how many internal departments (account management, support, and implementation) would find this useful or think ‘where else could we use it?’.”
“The internal benefits of giving staff another tool to provide value and respond to client questions depending on where they are in their journey was something we had overlooked. For example, our implementation team can use it to say ‘let me show you how this solution works when we work with another client so you better understand the integration’. This is a great resource for a lot of different touchpoints in the client journey with Impexium.”
By creating high-quality recordings of partner case studies, Impexium has created a resource that can be used internally by their teams to better understand partner solutions, make better recommendations to clients based on their needs, and provide significant value to clients to help them create better experiences for their members – a real home run for their team.
Looking to the future
Impexium plans to run this virtual event again, incorporating learnings from the event data, and making it an iterative, ongoing practice. They hope other partners will see the benefit of taking part and their partner community will grow, which will also increase the value of the event for clients by introducing them to more integration options to solve their business challenges.
This partner showcase virtual event addressed and answered a client need, improved business relationships with partners, and created a useful resource for both clients and Impexium’s own team, the value of which will last long after the event has taken place. Impexium really pulled off the triple crown win!
How can you replicate this win-win-win for your organization?
Whether you are an association trying to serve the needs of your members or a technology vendor looking to create opportunities for clients and partners – partnering with Matchbox gives you access to our resources which help you to create and launch successful digital initiatives. With detailed best practice guides and easy-to-customize templates, we help you to create virtual experiences that are proven to increase engagement and deliver on your strategic objectives. Use the form below to talk to us about a partner showcase or demo day for your members, clients, or partners.
