Channel strategy
In short
A channel strategy is a company’s plan for how its product reaches customers. It chooses the routes to market, assigns roles to each, and sets the rules for pricing, ownership, and support.
Routes can be direct (your own reps or website) or indirect (resellers, distributors, marketplaces, agencies). The right mix depends on your customers, your price, and how much help buyers need to buy and use the product.
Choices a channel strategy makes
- Direct vs. indirect: Whether to sell yourself, through partners, or both.
- Segment fit: Which customers each channel serves, for example small accounts self-serve and large accounts through reps.
- Partner roles: Who sources, who sells, who implements, and who supports.
- Economics: Margins, commissions, and discounts for each route.
- Rules of engagement: How deals are registered and who owns an account.
How to build a channel strategy
1. Start with the customer
Work out how your ideal customers like to discover and buy. A buyer who wants hands-on help needs a different route than one who wants to buy online in minutes.
2. Match channels to deal size
Rep-led sales only pay off when deals are large enough to cover rep cost. Lower-priced offers usually need self-serve or partners.
3. Model the economics
Compare the cost to acquire a customer and the margin left after partner commissions in each channel. Say a partner takes a share of each deal; the strategy only works if the remaining margin is still healthy.
4. Pilot before scaling
Test with a few partners or one new channel, measure pipeline and retention, then expand what works.
How to measure it
- Pipeline, revenue, and win rate by channel.
- Customer acquisition cost and retention by channel.
- Time to close and average deal size by channel.
- Frequency of conflict between channels.
Common mistakes
- Adding channels without rules, which creates conflict.
- Picking channels the company can use rather than those buyers use.
- Judging a channel on volume only, without checking customer quality.
Channel strategy FAQs
What is a channel strategy?
A channel strategy is a plan for how a company gets its product to customers. It picks direct and indirect routes such as sales reps, self-serve, resellers, and marketplaces, and defines each route’s role, pricing, and rules.
What is the difference between direct and indirect channels?
Direct channels are run by the vendor, such as its own sales team or website. Indirect channels use third parties, such as resellers, distributors, and marketplaces. Most B2B companies combine both, matched to customer segments.
How do you choose the right channels for a B2B product?
Look at how your ideal customers prefer to discover and buy, how much help they need, and your deal size. Then model acquisition cost and margin in each channel and test the most promising ones on a small scale.
How do you measure whether a channel strategy is working?
Compare pipeline, revenue, win rate, acquisition cost, deal size, and retention by channel. Also track how often channels conflict over deals, since heavy conflict usually signals unclear rules.
