Marketing Week published a piece last week that'll feel painfully familiar if you market for a Microsoft partner. Their State of Brand in B2B survey found almost half (44.9%) of 300 B2B marketers find it difficult or very difficult to secure investment for brand building, and around two-fifths (38.9%) say a better understanding of brand building at CEO and CFO level would make the difference.
Worse, 47.7% said brand building isn't a budget priority at all, and 40% said brand simply isn't seen as delivering ROI in their company.
So B2B has a brand-investment problem. Fine. But in our ecosystem it's sharper than that, and at Resultful we've got the data to show it.
Key takeaways
- Resultful's study of 501 Microsoft partners found building brand awareness is the top marketing priority for UK partners, at 27.2%.
- Only 12% of partners cite 'no clear proposition' as a limiting factor, yet 37.9% admit they lack a differentiating proposition and 46.1% don't market their own proposition at all, showing a blind spot rather than a budget problem.
- Budget ranks eighth out of ten constraints on partner marketing, behind competing internal priorities, funding complexity and reliance on vendor-supplied material.
- Partners run an average of 10 of 20 listed marketing activities and plan to add 8.4 more while ruling out only 1.5, spreading effort so thin that brand messages never repeat enough to stick.
- Marketing generates a mean 24.4% of new business while Microsoft referrals and vendor leads bring in 35%, and 67.9% of funded partners say they'd cut marketing if that funding stopped.
The UK partner market already knows it's invisible
When we asked 501 Microsoft partners across the UK and the USA to pick their top three marketing priorities for the next twelve months, building brand awareness in a crowded market came out top for UK partners on 27.2%, the highest-scoring priority anywhere in the study, in either market.
It doesn't stop there. Difficulty standing out from other partners is a top-three constraint for 27.6% of UK partners, against 18.3% in the USA. And UK partners trail on owning their messaging, 51.2% against 57%.
Three separate questions, same answer. UK partners feel like they've blended into the wallpaper, and they're right.
The bit that should worry you
Here's where it gets interesting. Only 12% of partners named "no clear proposition" as a thing limiting their marketing, identical in both markets. Dead last out of ten options.
Yet 37.9% say they don't have a proposition that differentiates them, and 46.1% say they don't market their own proposition at all. 62.1% believe they've got a clearly defined proposition that sets them apart, but only 47.3% market their own proposition rather than Microsoft's products.
So roughly a third of partners have a proposition problem they've not registered as a problem. That's not a gap they're working on, it's a blind spot.
If you strip the logos off most partner websites, you genuinely can't tell who's who. The same broad claims, the same safe language, the same vague talk about expertise, and then everyone wonders why the buyer defaults to whoever Microsoft mentioned last. Fixing that starts with brand positioning, not a new logo.
Brand doesn't fail on budget. It fails on attention
You'd expect budget to be the villain here, in line with the Marketing Week findings. It isn't. Budget ranked eighth out of ten things limiting partner marketing, on 18%, behind competing internal priorities (32.9%), the complexity of funding rules (29.3%) and over-reliance on vendor-supplied material (25%).
Look at those top three again. Competing internal priorities is really a resourcing answer: the most common way partner marketing gets done is a director or owner covering it alongside another role, 35.7% overall and 38.8% in the UK. And funding complexity plus vendor-material reliance describes a market where the mechanism that pays for the marketing is also the mechanism that makes it generic.
That's the sameness engine right there. You take somebody else's content, slap your logo on it at the same time as hundreds of other partners, and then measure the result.
Doing everything is the same as doing nothing
This is the strongest single fact in our study, and it explains the lack of steady leads better than anything else.
Take the twenty marketing activities we listed, add currently doing to planning within twelve months, and every single one lands between 89.6% and 95.8%. The average partner runs 10 of the 20 and plans to add another 8.4, while ruling out just 1.5.
Nobody's choosing. Everybody's doing a bit of everything.
And a bit of everything in small doses won't build a brand. Brand needs the same message, in the same places, repeated long enough that someone remembers it when they're finally in market. That's the always-on bit. It isn't a campaign, and it certainly isn't a rebrand.
What underinvestment actually costs you
Here's the number to sit with. Marketing generates a mean 24.4% of new business, 22.1% in the UK. Meanwhile Microsoft referrals plus distributor and vendor leads account for a mean 35%, rising to 35.1% in the UK against 22.1% from partners' own marketing.
The channel brings you more new business than your own marketing does. And 67.9% of funded partners told us they'd stop or reduce marketing entirely if Microsoft funding were withdrawn.
That's not a demand engine. That's a dependency, and with the changes to how co-op and rebates are earned, it's a fragile place to be sitting.
Then there's the internal disagreement. UK managing directors reported mean marketing investment of 4.49%; heads of marketing reported 2.93%. Same question, same market, same fortnight, two different companies described. If your leadership team thinks you're spending a third more than you are, the brand conversation was never going to be an easy one.
So what do you actually do?
Three things, and none of them need a budget increase.
Pick something to be known for
One proposition, in your own words, that your sales team and your Microsoft account manager can both repeat. If you can't say it in a sentence, it won't survive a meeting you're not in.
Cut activities, don't add them
Take that list of eighteen things you're doing or planning and get it down to five you'll do properly for twelve months. Consistency beats coverage, every time.
Fund a slice from your own P&L
Even a small one. Vendor money is a genuinely privileged position to be in, but it comes with somebody else's priorities attached, and the partners who build a brand are the ones treating marketing as a strategic investment on top of it.
Brand isn't a one-off thing you commission and tick off. It's the compound interest of turning up, consistently, saying something only you can say. Partners who start now will be the ones getting the call in 18 months. Everyone else will still be buying paid search against each other, and with paid search the one activity where more partners plan to start than currently run it, that auction's about to get a lot more expensive.
Frequently asked questions
Why do Microsoft partners struggle to build a distinct brand?
Resultful's study of 501 UK and US Microsoft partners found it isn't primarily a budget issue. Budget ranked eighth out of ten constraints on partner marketing. The bigger factors were competing internal priorities, the complexity of funding rules, and over-reliance on vendor-supplied material, which tends to make partners look identical to each other. Many partners also don't realise they lack a differentiating proposition: 37.9% admit they don't have one, but only 12% name it as something limiting their marketing.
Is brand awareness actually a priority for Microsoft partners?
Yes. In the study, building brand awareness in a crowded market was the top marketing priority named by UK partners over the next twelve months, at 27.2%, the highest score recorded anywhere in the research. Difficulty standing out from other partners was also a top-three constraint for 27.6% of UK partners, compared with 18.3% in the USA, and UK partners trailed on owning their own messaging.
How much does Microsoft partner marketing depend on vendor referrals?
A significant amount. The study found marketing generates a mean 24.4% of new business overall, 22.1% in the UK, while Microsoft referrals plus distributor and vendor leads account for a mean 35%, rising to 35.1% in the UK. That means the channel currently brings in more new business than partners' own marketing does, and 67.9% of funded partners said they would stop or reduce marketing entirely if Microsoft funding were withdrawn.
Why does running lots of marketing activities not build a strong brand?
Because brand needs the same message repeated in the same places long enough to be remembered. The study found the average partner runs 10 of 20 listed marketing activities and plans to add another 8.4, ruling out just 1.5. Spreading effort across nearly every activity in small doses means nothing gets repeated consistently, which is why doing a bit of everything produces the same result as doing nothing.
What can a Microsoft partner do to fix its brand without a bigger budget?
Three things, none requiring extra spend. Pick one proposition, in your own words, that sales and your Microsoft account manager can both repeat. Cut your activity list down to around five things you'll do properly for twelve months rather than eighteen done half-heartedly. And fund a slice of marketing from your own accounts rather than relying entirely on vendor money, since vendor funding comes with somebody else's priorities attached.