By Nora Bright, Jack Foraker

Image by Nicole Todd

Partner marketing demands strong marketing instincts paired with the ability to align goals across companies. It’s also more niche than traditional B2B marketing, meaning the talent pool for potential hires is smaller. 

Yet partner programs continue to grow and evolve, and tech companies need candidates who can make an impact fast. Ask the right questions during the interview stage to find someone who understands the nuances of partnership work and how to drive results that support broader go-to-market goals. 

Here are the questions that can help you find your next great partner marketer. 

1. How do you decide which partners or campaigns are worth investing in? 

Most partner teams have more potential collaborators than bandwidth. This question helps you understand how candidates prioritize their efforts. You want someone who uses concrete metrics to qualify partner marketing opportunities and tactfully deprioritizes lower-value partnerships toward those that actually move the needle. 

2. Tell me about a time you had to align internal teams and partners around a campaign. What were the points of friction and how did you resolve them? 

Alignment is one of the toughest realities of partner marketing—and absolutely essential to a successful candidate. It’s even more crucial when partners don’t have mature marketing practices of their own. Different companies bring different goals and timelines, so cross-company friction is normal. A strong candidate will show you they can set clear expectations, resolve conflicts, and translate priorities across internal and external teams. 

3. Walk me through your most successful co-marketing campaign? What made it successful? 

Successful partner campaigns require coordination, creativity, and solid project management. A good answer should hit on how they worked across teams and measured success in a tangible way. 

4. How do you structure your partner marketing efforts to support pipeline and sales goals? 

Partner marketers work close to revenue, and the best ones know how their programs influence pipeline. Look for someone who collaborates with sales, tracks performance with clear metrics, and builds campaigns designed to create real opportunities. If they also mention co-selling motions or partner enablement, it’s a strong sign they understand how marketing fits into the broader revenue engine. 

5. How do you keep organized when managing campaigns with multiple stakeholders? 

Partner work multiplies tasks and approval chains, so organization is critical. A strong candidate should have a system that works for them, with clear methods for managing assets, deadlines, and communication, plus a way to keep both internal teams and partners in sync. 

6. How do you stay ahead of trends in the partner world? 

Partner ecosystems evolve quickly. You want someone who keeps up with updates from the major clouds—such as new competencies, incentives, sales plays, and marketplace changes—and stays plugged into co-marketing and co-selling best practices. Look for mentions of industry groups, like Partner Marketing Visionaries or Partnership Leaders. A marketer who brings curiosity to the role will spot opportunities that otherwise might be missed. 

7. How do you use tools, automation, or AI to work efficiently? 

Lean partner teams need people who work smartly. Good candidates will share practical examples of tools or automations that help them manage complexity, save time, and stay focused on the work that drives the entire business forward. 

Finding the right partner marketer doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With the right interview approach, you’ll quickly get a sense for who has the experience and instincts to succeed in your co-marketing ecosystem. 

And if you’d rather skip the resume juggling, 2A Recruiting and Staffing can help introduce you to vetted candidates who will make a difference on day one. 

By Katy Nally

Image by Jenni Lydell

If you’re like me, then pie has been on your mind lately. With just a few days until Thanksgiving, I’ve now promised an unreasonable number of pie flavors to my 4-year-old. Here’s hoping he won’t remember by the time we sit down for turkey.  

And beyond the usual pumpkin, apple, and pecan (who’s with me!?), there’s another pie that’s been gaining attention lately. Estimated to hit $100 billion by 2026, the cloud marketplace pie is looking pretty tasty for our three biggest hyperscalers—AWS, Microsoft, and Google. $100 billion is a ton of throughput (up from $15 billion in 2023) and with it will come continued investment to build out these cloud marketplaces so they’re THE place to spend. We already saw Microsoft consolidate its AppSource and Azure Marketplace into Microsoft Marketplace this year to streamline the process for partners and customers.  

The cloud marketplace is where the $$ is 

So, what does this mean for equally hungry channel partners? If you’re a systems integrator, managed service provider, or software vendor, the growth in marketplaces is a big signal to get your listing page(s) in order! For the foreseeable future, cloud marketplaces are where your buyers are transacting and it’s where hyperscalers want their partners to be.  

Here are a few ingredients to make your marketplace page(s) unforgettable.  

1. Lead with the benefit. Your title and subhead should clearly communicate the outcome your solution delivers to customers so they know what business impact to expect. Elevating the benefit, rather than just product features, helps your listing resonate and capture attention. 

2. Keep it short and sweet. Most buyers are just skimming your page, so boil down your value prop into a few short sentences and recap the main ideas in bullets. Too much text dilutes your message and hides your key selling point from decision-makers and search algorithms alike.  

3. Sprinkle in some flare. Screenshots, demo videos, and customer success stories elevate your listing from just another product to a credible solution. A variety of assets keep prospects on your page longer and help marketplaces surface your listing. 

4. Offer different price points. Giving buyers flexible pricing tiers—such freemium, pay-as-you-go, and enterprise contracts—allows you to capture interest at multiple stages of maturity and budget. This also gives customers a way to try before they buy. 

If you’re a partner working with Microsoft or AWS, now’s the time to make sure your slice of the cloud marketplace pie stands out—flaky crust, golden-brown finish, and all. We can help you revamp your marketplace presence so buyers stick around for seconds.  

By Mike Lahoda, Jack Foraker

Image by Emily Zheng

Back in 2016, writer Kyle Chayka coined the term AirSpace to describe the distinct look that every coffee shop—whether independent or corporate, in Seattle or Tokyo—had somehow settled into. You’ve probably already seen it: The coffee shop has minimalist furniture and industrial lighting and free WiFi. The internet, he argued, gave everyone access to the same ideas and inspirations, which was homogenizing our tastes. This got us thinking: Is poorly applied generative AI having a similar effect on marketing today?

We use AI every day at 2A, and we regularly help clients promote their own AI solutions. But when every brand has access to the same tools, sameness can creep into the messaging without a careful hand. And when content feels interchangeable, it’s easier to forget.  

To fix that, you need marketing assistance that goes beyond the brief and acts as a creative partner. 

Co-creating the concept 

Strong assets start with a conversation: We like to kick off a project by asking what message will move the audience and what form will deliver it most effectively.  

This can often mean spending extra time with subject-matter experts (SMEs) for insights that might otherwise stay buried in a slide deck. We helped Dataiku—recently recognized in the 2025 Forbes Cloud 100—create industry-specific ebooks that did exactly this. By interviewing multiple SMEs, we uncovered quotable insights about how AI was reshaping industries from manufacturing to finance. This grounded the content in real expertise rather than broad trends, which gave the ebooks a voice and specificity that was very relevant to Dataiku’s audience.  

Upfront discovery work shapes the content, but it also defines structure, tone, and audience. When we facilitate early discussions, clients often find new clarity about what their story should be—and what makes it worth telling now. The result isn’t a faster version of the expected deliverable, but a stronger and more thoughtful one that reflects expertise rather than algorithmic polish. 

Designing for impact 

Once the story takes shape, the challenge becomes visual: How do you make complex information easy to grasp while keeping it on brand? Many marketing assets begin with dense resources. Our role as a creative partner is to find the structure—and the spark—that helps the message shine through clearly. 

For Microsoft recently, that meant transforming a slide deck full of marketplace and process details into a cohesive sales enablement ebook. We built the ebook concept around a cookbook, framing each stage of building a marketplace channel practice as a “recipe”—complete with ingredients and methods. This approach replaced cluttered visuals with a clear, modular layout that guided readers step by step in an engaging and approachable way.  

Moving beyond the box 

When creative ideas are built through collaboration between subject experts, creatives, and AI tools, the final asset feels different. It carries a sense of intent—a point of view that connects with audiences because it was shaped by real dialogue.  

That’s our goal for every project: to help clients create B2B marketing content that’s engaging and effective. You’re already the expert on your audience. A creative partner brings the storytelling, design, and market knowledge to make sure whatever you put in front of them sticks. 

By Thad Allen

Image by Thad Allen

I’m often asked to design in a particular “style.” Making pastiches and homages is always interesting, but trying to identify those elements that feel a certain way can often require more research than a simple image search. 

Recently, I was tasked with designing a set of stickers for CrowdStrike and AWS in a “pop art style,” with a comic-booky 💥 POW! visual provided as reference. I immediately recognized the lineage of this kind of imagery—and rather than making a copy of a copy (generation loss, to use a visual metaphor) I wanted to take a few steps back to get undiluted inspiration. 

Beyond Lichtenstein into the Silver Age of Comic Books 

In the case of “comic-book-style pop art,” you can trace much of that back to Roy Lichtenstein, who famously adapted comic panels into oversized art print. But Lichtenstein himself is controversial—not least among the artists whose work he, er, appropriated. I’ve softened a bit on Lichtenstein’s oeuvre over time (especially after viewing some of his works in person on a recent trip to The Broad), but comparing his work to actual comic books immediately highlights that his coloring and lettering differs rather dramatically from what comics of the time looked like. My designs, therefore, would be stronger if I didn’t just look at Lichenstein’s work (e.g. Whaam!) but went further back to the Silver Age of Comic Books that he had been building on. 

I keep my comic collection by my office workspace, so I was flipping through back issues in no time. I wasn’t so much looking for panels to copy, but rather trying to recognize patterns in the hand-lettered text of onomatopoeias (words that sound like the noises they describe, like “hiss” or “smash”) or the pulpy titles promising thrills and excitement. 

I flipped through the iconic Marvel style of John Buscema’s Fantastic Four, the surrealism-infused flair of Jim Steranko’s Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and really anything in my collection that had yellowed newsprint pages. 

I also looked at later indie comics from artists raised on and building from the work of these Silver Age artists, the looming shadows of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy or the joyous retro-pop of Michael Allred’s Madman. 

Keeping the POW! and adding a marketing twist 

There were two factors in this particular project I had to keep in mind: the colors had to be the client’s modern brand—smooth-flowing gradients of purples, golds, and teals, a far cry from Lichtenstein’s primary paints or the dotted newsprint of comics. And the words wouldn’t be quick onomatopoeias like “BANG!” but rather short phrases that extolled cloud-readiness or security compliance that don’t lend themselves to exclamation points quite as well. 

I pulled in some Comicraft font sets for an added feeling of authenticity. And because I had familiarized myself with what these comic-y words should look like, I felt much more confident when deciding how to position words and when to use the “wonk” settings to add visual interest. 

Referencing captions rather than sound effects let me to use yellow boxes and unravelling scrolls to lead in text. I also wanted to recall some of the irregularity and energy of hand-rendering in the digital realm, often manually repositioning individual letters in a word. 

Taking the time to understand the source and inspiration definitely made for a better final product!

By Liz Mangini, Jack Foraker

Image by Suzanne Calkins

In cloud and SaaS marketing, no one wins alone. Partnerships are everywhere—and only getting more intricate as technology continues evolving. At 2A, we’re increasingly seeing cloud providers team up with three (or more) partners for co-sell motions and joint GTM efforts. 

It’s a smart play: Power-of-3 messaging and deliverables amplify reach, showcase end-to-end value, and create a unified story that sellers can rally around. It’s also crucial as organizations push AI initiatives and expand industry solutions. But three brands means three tones, three agendas, and three sets of priorities. What should be a simple, powerful story can easily become complicated and hard to follow without the right marketing support. 

Start with clarity 

At the end of the day, customers want clarity. Sellers need consistent, repeatable messaging that shows how partnerships solve real business challenges. Throw three parties together, and it’s easy to end up with three competing messages. 

The challenge we see most often with power-of-3 messaging is that each partner wants equal visibility and weight. That’s understandable, but it can easily lead to imbalance or dilution. One brand ends up driving the story while the others fade into the background. To avoid this, partners need to approach messaging with shared intent from the start:  

• What outcome are we solving for, together? 
• What does each partner contribute to that outcome?  

When this alignment happens, a unified story can start to emerge.  

Turn clarity into collaboration 

Once partners are aligned, storytelling becomes strategy. At 2A, we help cloud providers and partners do the heavy lifting at this stage. We lovingly call it “Tetris-ing” the story. Each partner comes with its own set of proof points and priorities. Our job is to pull those pieces into one cohesive value proposition that feels seamless, not stitched together. We know how to balance visibility between partners and weave together cross-departmental expertise. Once you’ve turned three brand voices into one clear message, the next step is to bring it to life. 

From collaboration to sales momentum 

With foundational messaging in place, it’s easy to spin up new assets and campaigns—things like ebooks, pitch decks, solution briefs, or sales kits. That’s the real win of power-of-3 messaging: It shortens the time between collaboration and pipeline momentum for all three partners. 

At 2A, we help partners find their shared voice so they can sell, scale, and lead together. And we can do it in pairs or triads—or hey, even a quad squad. 

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Nicole Todd

I’ve been noticing more friends taking on fractional roles. Maybe it’s because the fractional model is catching on with businesses looking for access to skills and experience they may not be able to afford full-time. Or maybe it’s because a lot of my cohort have hit the point in our careers where we’ve racked up some real experience, and now we get to use it in more flexible ways. Either way, fractional leadership is having a moment, and for growing companies, it’s a game-changer. 

Fractional hires bring leadership without the long-term commitment 

A fractional executive is a seasoned leader who joins your team part-time—usually a few days a week or for a defined project—to bring executive-level strategy and oversight without the full-time commitment or investment. Think of them as your interim CMO, COO, or Chief of Staff who can quickly understand your business, set direction, and build momentum. 

They’re a good fit for growing B2B tech companies 

Fractional executives fill that tricky middle space: you’ve outgrown one-person-does-it-all leadership but aren’t ready for another full-time seat at the table. Or maybe you have budget for one full-time executive, but you need support that spans a few roles.  
Fractional hires can: 

• Bring outside perspective. Because they work across companies and industries, they bring playbooks with proven outcomes and fresh ideas you won’t get from inside your business’s bubble.
  
• Flex with your goals. As your needs change, their involvement can scale up or down. It’s executive leadership on demand.
  
• Bridge the gap during transitions. Whether you’re between full-time hires or expanding into new markets, fractional leaders can provide steady, experienced guidance when continuity matters most. 

We can help   

At 2A, we’ve seen the power of fractional leadership firsthand. Or another way of putting it, we’ve been doing it since before it was cool. We’ve been placing temporary teammates in strategic roles for years, and our network is only getting stronger. We can give you access to marketing and operations professionals who’ve guided companies through change, challenge, and scale. We can help you find the right fractional fit—someone who can start strong, move fast, and make things happen. 

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Emily Zheng

As the owner of a creative agency, I’ve always believed in pricing based on value, not effort. Or to put it another way, pricing marketing assets by the hour feels backwards. Why should a client pay more because something took longer? I’d pay more to have it done today. That’s the difference between effort and outcome. 

The same logic applies to ebooks—longer is not better. In B2B marketing, ebooks can play an important role: they explain complex ideas, answer objections, and help generate leads. But if you can convince your prospect to move down the funnel in four pages, then there’s clearly no need for six. The goal is clarity and impact, not length. 

Here’s why a shorter ebook might be exactly what your demand generation campaign needs.  

Shrinking attention spans 

Your buyers don’t have the time, or patience, for bloated ebooks. Between inbox overload, back-to-back meetings, and constant digital noise, the odds of someone finishing a 12-page ebook are slim. Most people skim. Many never make it past the intro. The reality is that readers are busy and distracted, and value per page matters far more than page count. A concise ebook that delivers value early is far more likely to be read, remembered, and shared. 

Perceived complexity 

Longer ebooks don’t just test attention, they can also make your topic feel harder than it really is. When readers see too many pages, they assume the subject requires a steep learning curve or that your solution is complicated to use. A shorter, well-structured ebook sends the opposite signal: this is approachable, clear, and worth their time. 

Thought leadership in the age of AI 

AI can generate thousands of words at lightning speed, but it can’t generate authentic perspective. This is where true thought leadership comes in. B2B buyers don’t need long-winded rundowns; they want sharp, differentiated insights. The best ebooks highlight your expertise, connect the dots, take a position, and say something original. A four-page ebook that sparks a lightbulb moment will always outperform a 15-page summary that says what everyone else is saying.  

Of course, not every ebook should be short. There’s a place for longer assets that dive deep into technical specs, step-by-step how-tos, or detailed guides for do-it-yourself readers. Those meaty resources are valuable when your audience is ready to roll up their sleeves. But for demand generation and thought leadership, shorter content almost always wins. 

Build less and say more 

A tight, well-structured ebook isn’t easy to write. It takes a sharp team of marketers and product experts to distill complex ideas into a clear story. Next time you’re tempted to throw more pages at your marketing challenge, ask if they’re truly adding value. And before you start generating content, make sure you have the right team in place to define a differentiated story. Need a hand? We’re here to help. 

By Andrea Swangard, Suzanne Calkins

Image by Nicole Todd

When the AWS Financial Services team released the latest edition of its Banking on the Cloud report, it wasn’t just business as usual. It was one of the first assets to showcase a newly launched brand identity. For us, it was a chance to bring structure and creative clarity to a high-visibility moment of change. 

We’ve designed the report for multiple years in a row, each time adjusting to new content, teams, and visual requirements. This year, the biggest shift came not from the updated content, but from the new look and feel. AWS had recently rolled out its new brand identity, and even internal teams were still interpreting how those changes would translate into real-world assets. 

We approached this ambiguity as a design opportunity. 

Planning for change, not reacting to it 

Before diving into full design, we held a few preliminary meetings with the AWS team to discuss the main brand updates and we provided design samples for how it might be interpreted when applied to the report. Our visual exploration started with simplified style frames that showcased new color options, layouts, and data visualization treatments. 

This helped us gauge how far the client was ready to push visually, and where they preferred to tread lightly. By showing high-contrast examples early on, we helped uncover key preferences, gather feedback, and clarify how new visual elements like color, layout, and illustration should be used in practice. The outcome was two big advantages: the AWS team gained clarity on how to apply their updated brand system, and we had the direction we needed to start designing with purpose. 

Working ahead with a flexible structure 

Because content was still in progress, we created a modular structure using sample copy and trend themes. This allowed us to define visual hierarchy, layout rhythm, and stylistic range without waiting for every word to be finalized. 

Once content was ready, we were able to move quickly, thanks to the flexible structure we had set up early on. With clear direction already in place, additional designers were able to jump in to meet a tight timeline without missing a beat. 

Building trust through creative clarity 

One of the most valuable aspects of this multi-year relationship is the trust we’ve developed with the client team. That trust comes from delivering polished design and helping the client navigate ambiguity, anticipate challenges, and make strategic choices that support their brand. 

From rethinking the asset’s cover to aligning visuals with evolving content themes, we brought flexibility without chaos and structure without rigidity. This latest edition of the Banking on the Cloud report shows that design-only engagements can be highly collaborative, and when grounded in the right process, they can move fast without feeling rushed. 

If you’re navigating a brand update and need help translating it into real work, we’d love to help. 

By Erin McCaul, Kimberly Mass

Image by Rachel Adams

If you’ve ever opened your desk drawer debating between a granola bar now, a sandwich in an hour, or dinner out after work, you already understand product demos.  

Sometimes your audience needs just a taste: a 20-second clip that sizzles with product UI animations and new features. Other times, they need the full plate: a five-minute walkthrough showcasing not just how your product works, but why it matters. And occasionally, it’s time to go all out—a keynote-level catered meal, beautifully presented, built to wow analysts, prospects, and partners alike. 

At 2A, we love product demos because they’re flexible. They can be as quick and snackable as trail mix, or as polished and satisfying as the fanciest sit-down dinner. The best part? Demos can be tailored to fit your goals—whether that’s enabling sales teams, standing out in a Gartner submission, or inspiring customers to give your product a try. 

What sets us apart is how we partner with clients. We don’t just execute on a script—we collaborate to understand the product, refine the story, shape the visuals, and make sure the demo delivers the right impact. And because our entire team is in-house, you get efficiency, consistency, and tech-savvy storytelling without the risk of things getting lost in translation. 

Whether you’re hungry for a snack, a meal, or the whole feast, 2A can cook up the demo you need. Yes, chef! 

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Jenni Lydell

“What are you doing right?”  

It’s what my friend and fellow business owner asked me a few weeks back after I explained that our recruiting and staffing practice had taken off over the last year. In simple terms, I realized it’s because we’re kind. As a small player in an industry where scale often overshadows individuals, we’ve backed into a differentiator that I love.  

By kind I mean we know all our team members that are embedded in other companies, and we check in with them regularly. We offer good benefits, paid time off, and morale boosters. We negotiate on their behalf for raises when they’re due, and we research and cover training to boost them along their path.  

Lucky for us, we’re noticing a trend—clients are recognizing the gap left by larger staffing firms, where contract employees feel more like a line item than a human. Our recruiting and staffing clients, the ones that work daily with the skilled (and human) folks that we employ and place in roles with them, want to be sure their team is well taken care of. And they’re not finding that at the global staffing firms where procurement algorithms select talent agencies for their low margins. Increasingly, they are turning to boutique agencies that prioritize well-being and meaningful connection. 

As a human, I’m thrilled that what we’re doing right is treating our team with kindness. As a business owner, I’m also thrilled.  When employees thrive, clients benefit from stability and engagement, and agencies stand out for the right reasons. In a competitive industry, kindness isn’t just good—it’s strategic.