Partners Are Not an Extension
Salomé Imedashvili is Marketing Director UKI at Salesforce, where she has led partner marketing strategy for over four years. Her most-cited data point: partner-sourced leads convert 8 to 10 times more effectively than independently generated leads.
“The first thing I did at Salesforce was make marketing part of every QBR. When everyone wins, it is amazing what can happen.”
Salome Imedashvili is Marketing Director for UKI at Salesforce, having previously served as Partner Marketing Director for EMEA. She has been at Salesforce since February 2022, progressing through four roles across UKI and EMEA partner marketing strategy.
Salome began her career as a Communications Coordinator at Societe Generale in Tbilisi before moving to London, where she progressed through product marketing at CBRE and a decade at Emarsys (later acquired by SAP), rising to Field Marketing Director for UK and North and then Global Head of Customer Marketing. She then spent a year at Amazon as Senior Marketing Manager for Europe before joining Salesforce.
Her core partner marketing philosophy is built on three beliefs: partners should be embedded in the GTM motion rather than treated as an extension of the sales team; thought leadership content should be open and ungated; and UK-driven innovation should influence global strategy. The self-service campaign portal for smaller partners, which allows them to pull assets by industry and persona and run campaigns independently, is a direct result of her recognition that partner marketing teams are always small relative to the ecosystem they serve.
“I’ve sat on both sides of the partner marketing table, and the data only goes one way.”
“Partner-sourced leads convert 8 to 10 times better. Not opinion. Data.”
The conversion multiplier for partner-sourced leads is driven by a combination of factors that independently generated pipeline cannot replicate. Partners bring industry-specific expertise that qualifies the lead at a deeper level. When a Salesforce partner in financial services brings a lead, they have already established that the client has the problem, the budget, and the intent. Salome’s view is that this data should fundamentally change how marketing budgets are allocated between independent and co-marketed demand generation.
“Make sure every QBR has a marketing section. That single change moves marketing from supporting function to GTM driver.”
The QBR marketing section is a structural intervention rather than a tactical one. When marketing is represented in the quarterly business review, the conversation about where to invest and which partners to prioritise is informed by the people who run the campaigns. Without it, marketing is briefed on decisions that have already been made. With it, marketing shapes the deals and partnerships before they are finalised.
“Define ownership before the campaign launches. A CEO who attended your event cannot be called back by a junior BDR.”
Salome’s campaign framework starts from the ownership question. Who qualifies the lead, who follows up, and who owns the nurture sequence are questions that must be answered before the campaign launches, not after it generates results. The rules of engagement define not just who calls whom, but at what seniority, with what knowledge, in what timeframe.
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