Approval workflow
Pre-approved play library + simple submission form + 5-business-day SLA. Slow approval kills momentum and trains partners not to bother.
06.4 · MDF & Co-Marketing
MDF without enforcement is a partner-relations expense, not a marketing program.
Marketing Development Funds only produce pipeline when the program treats them as a forecast input, not a partner courtesy. The bar is high but boringly mechanical: approved play library, expected outputs per dollar, lead-sharing rules, attribution, post-campaign follow-up enforcement.
The seven MDF rules
Each one is a gate. Missing any of them turns MDF from a marketing program into a partner-relations expense.
Approved play library
Pre-defined campaign templates with expected outputs (leads, meetings, pipeline) and per-template budget caps. Reduces approval surface area; protects against the partner-dinner expense report problem.
Expected outputs
Concrete output bar per dollar of MDF — e.g. $5K webinar funds 50 net-new MQLs or 5 qualified meetings. No output target = no accountability.
Lead-sharing rules
Who owns the leads generated, who gets credit, when they flow back to the vendor CRM, what counts as partner-sourced vs influenced. Default is shared with first-touch attribution.
Attribution
How outputs tie back to MDF spend. Tagged UTMs, attributed deal-reg numbers, post-event survey codes. Without attribution the next MDF cycle has no data to inform allocation.
Partner obligations
What the partner commits to deliver in exchange for funds — co-marketing brand placement, content amplification, lead handoff timing, post-campaign follow-up.
Follow-up enforcement
The MDF claim closes only when post-campaign follow-up completes — leads contacted, meetings booked or rejected with reasons, pipeline tagged. No follow-up, no future MDF.
Co-marketing — the other half of MDF
Co-marketing is the joint execution layer that MDF funds. The vendor and partner both have measurable stakes (joint pipeline targets, joint account maps, joint follow-up) and both produce a deliverable.
Co-marketing fails when one party drives and the other shows up for a logo placement. The defense is contractual: every MDF-funded co-marketing campaign specifies what each party produces, when, and what success looks like.
Partners spend approved MDF on what's easy to claim; vendors who don't gate get certificates and dinner tabs, not pipeline.