Yet even in 2010, the channel remains the ugly stepchild of direct and inside sales. Even as office overhead and direct sales salaries continue to rise and companies are in search of more highly efficient ways to burnish their brand equity and market share out in the world, value-added resellers and distributors remain an afterthought for too many companies.

If it seems like there’s an internal contradiction going on here based on the benefits the channel can offer, there is: most channel marketing managers and channel sales managers report to, wait for it, the corporate Sales Manager, who controls both direct and channel sales. Channel sales managers often have to fight harder for budget, are expected to tell the partners to sell identical solutions faster than direct sales, and are often directed to survey (and re-survey, and re-survey) their partners every six months, and yet provide only the barest sustenance of marketing support.

What kind of marketing support do channel marketers need? Here’s a short list we commonly use:

* Well-constructed pull campaigns versioned for the channel to establish the value proposition to end users and build demand for the channel partner

* An implementation guide to help channel partners identify and quantify how various marketing materials work

* Counsel on how to write a great marketing plan at the local and regional level

* Ideas and training on how to frame technologies as solutions to business challenges and brand yourself as an industry expert

* Steps on how to incorporate social media into a marketing mix

* Instruction on how to tell the difference between marketing leads and sales leads

* A process to put together effectiveness metrics and track a campaign, including what the metrics should be capturing and recording

This is not an exhaustive list, but it should get any channel marketer started. And if you’re looking for a best practice, look no further than Cisco. They know how to treat their channel. For validation, see under “Generating 80% of your revenue with the channel.”

The answer, apparently, is not by a long shot.

A new Marketing Sherpa study (delivered in a deck, not a white paper) of 880 BtoB execs shows that

• good white papers are still highly effective
• users and vendors ranked white papers as the #1 piece of content worthy of registering for
• readership of white papers actually rose between 2007 and 2008, with 58% of decision-makers and 63% of influencers reading two to five white papers each quarter, and 27/22% respectively reading between six and ten

Where did most people find these white papers?

More than three-quarters on vendor Web sites and nearly two-thirds from similar online sources. The stat I really like is pass-along, with 56/57% of decision-makers and influencers reporting that they forward along white papers to colleagues.

And what makes for the most interesting content? Simple:

• Case studies and success stories
• How-to’s for using a product/service to better advantage
• Top ten lists of ways to improve business

Other good information from the Sherpas:

* Length isn’t set in stone, and neither is format

* Identify your industry, target reader, goal and position of the company within the industry

* Solve a tactical problem

* Don’t punt on the title

* Match the length to the prospect’s desire

* Keep registration questions to a minimum, especially if you are trying to reach a tiny niche audience

* Turn the white paper into podcasts

* Consider an eBook in PDF form, optimizing it with metadata through Acrobat so it’s searchable via those links online

One final reminder: just because it’s a white paper, you do not have license to go on and on for 30 pages. Keep it brief, keep it fresh, and remember your call to action.

The technology that enables this to happen, such as HP’s Indigo press, Heidelberg/Kodak’s NexPress, and Xerox’s DocuColor , are so refined that in some cases it’s difficult to tell the difference between the digital sheet and a traditionally printed lithograph. A few years ago, that just couldn’t be said. With digital print, what used to require a traditional print run, followed by a second run through an Ektajet machine or some other type of limited imprinting device, is now done in one pass. The digital printers work much like a color copier, essentially creating a one-off output, but at a much higher quality, thus allowing you to insert data, imagery, and versions within the same press run. Imagine that you have a great creative idea that, with slight modifications to text, imagery, and headlines, could become a much more targeted mailer. But the mail list that you have has only 20 directors of IT? In years past, they would have simply been lumped into the same generic mailer, with hopes that the message would resonate with the lowest common denominator. Now, you can cost effectively print one mailer if necessary.

It should be noted that in some areas digital still can’t compete with litho, such as higher volume print runs or printing large swatches of solid color, but the gap is closing. Even with some of the limitations of digital POD, the benefits far outweigh any negatives for certain types of collateral, especially if speed and turnaround time are critical. My rule of thumb is, under 1,000 units and smaller that 11” x 17”, look at digital. Once you move beyond that threshold, lithography becomes the more cost-effective option.

So in retrospect, maybe the news of print being dead is a little premature. Maybe the better phraseology is that print is evolving. Like everything has to do in order to survive….