In the previous posts you learned about the benefits of being a Microsoft partner, and how to reduce your time to market with listing through Solution Workspace. Next step towards co-selling with Microsoft is scaling your business with our Go-To-Market (GTM) programs.
Microsoft GTM resources can help you with reducing time to market, generate leads and grow your SaaS business. Below GTM resources are available for all Microsoft partners, at no additional costs. If you don’t know if you are eligible for silver or gold offerings, check the Partner Center guide. Here you find an overview of eligible programs based on your competencies. In addition to our free GTM programs we offer 30+ co-funded services in our Marketing Services Catalogue. Because our goal is to guide you and not overwhelm you we will cover the co-funded best practices in another post.
Today we’re focusing on Geo Expansion because this one of the most asked questions when I talk to SaaS companies about their partnership with Microsoft, how can Microsoft help me expand my business?
Geo Expansion collection. This collection is the starting point, it’s split up in different types of content across the three phases of the expansion journey, activate, engage, and grow. But the most important questions to answer for successfully expanding your business internationally are, When Where and how? When is your company ready to expand? Where should it expand to maximize near and long-term success? And Last but not least, how are you going to do this?
What are the best practices? by watching our webinar series you will learn more from market expansion field experts, Microsoft leadership and successful program partners. If you want to get started answering when, where and how right away you can start with this step-by-step guide. Each section begins with best practices of “what works”, followed by a series of questions and comments which serve to enable you to assess your company’s readiness for international expansion.
After you answered the 3 questions it’s time to finish the activation phase and open the Geo Expansion Toolkit. These tools will help you build a compelling plan for international growth and drive brand visibility that captures interest of Microsoft sellers, channel partners, and strategic customers. There’s no one size fits all to expand your business this, to learn more about expanding to Asia, Latin America or Europe check the links and/or contact a partner from our Agency Guide.
Checklist
- Make sure your business profile in Partner Center is ready for international growth. Help customers find you using these best practices
- Submit your business profile through Solution Workspace, for a guided experience with a Microsoft Cloud Specialist you can nominate yourself here.
- List your solution on the Microsoft Marketplace. Here’s a link to the starter guide. You can use Solution Workspace or the guided CED experience here as well.
If you have questions regarding this post or want to discuss expansion possibilities personally, leave us message so we can schedule a call with you. Next post I will zoom in on some of the best co-funded GTM programs for SaaS ISVs.
Bookmark-worthy links:
FY22 Microsoft Go to Market Programs (linkedin.com) (program overview of all FY22 GMT programs)
Geo Expansion collection (18 assets from activate till grow Geo Expansion)
Geo Expansion Webinar Series - Microsoft Partner Community (Geo Expansion webinars recordings)
