Collab Convo Podcast | Amy Coleman on building a partner marketing strategy that delivers
“We’ve got £10,000 to spend this quarter. What can we do with it?”
It’s a familiar question in partner marketing.
But according to Amy Coleman, Marketing Director at Orange Cyberdefense, it’s often the wrong place to start.
In the latest episode of Collab Convo, Amy argues that too many partner marketing programmes jump straight to tactics. Roundtables. Events. Campaigns. Content. Boxes get ticked, budgets get spent, but the underlying question often goes unanswered.
What problem are we actually trying to solve together?
For Amy, successful partner marketing starts long before campaign planning. It starts with understanding why you’re partnering in the first place.
What is the joint value proposition? Who are you trying to reach? And why does this partnership matter to your customers?
Without those answers, even well-executed campaigns struggle to create meaningful impact. As Amy explains, it’s about taking a step back to understand the strategy before deciding on the marketing tactics.
The conversation also explores how Orange Cyberdefense transformed its partner marketing approach by moving away from a long list of technology vendors and introducing a structured partner prioritisation model.
Rather than trying to give every partner equal attention, the team assessed partners against two criteria: strategic fit and willingness to engage. This created a clear framework for deciding where to invest limited time, budget and resource.
That structure didn’t just improve focus. It created the business case for additional investment, including dedicated alliance and partner marketing resource, executive alignment around shared business plans, and more coordinated campaigns that support both direct and partner-led growth.
One of the most interesting themes throughout the discussion is that partner marketing shouldn’t sit alongside your wider marketing strategy. It should be part of it.
When direct and partner marketing work towards the same objectives, content, campaigns and propositions become easier to scale, creating greater impact without duplicating effort.
The conversation covers:
- Why strategy should come before tactics in partner marketing
- How to prioritise partners using strategic fit and engagement
- Building joint value propositions that actually resonate with customers
- Aligning direct and partner marketing into one go-to-market motion
- Why “no plan, no pipeline” is more than just a catchy phrase
Amy’s closing thought neatly sums up the conversation:
“No plan, no pipe.”
Because sustainable pipeline isn’t built through isolated activities. It’s built through a clear strategy, focused partnerships, and consistent execution over time.
Watch the latest Collab Convo episode with Jo Dunkley and Amy Coleman to hear the full conversation.