Peter Ripp of "Early Stage VC" has five lessons for anyone who wants to access specific market segments.

Lesson One:
Match the channel with the product. Understand what skills, motivations, reputation, resources, and reach a reseller must have to deliver your product to their customer.
Webspeak: Segment the blogosphere and profile your intended community.

Lesson Two:
Segmentation only matters if you can actually figure out how to attract, qualify, recruit the right partners.
Webspeak: Know how to find these people on the Web; what they read, what search terms they use, etc.

Lesson Three:
Try to get adopted by some existing network of resellers, rather than build your own.
Webspeak: Find existing communities of interest or purpose.

Lesson Four:
Indirect distributors don’t do missionary work for you. They piggyback on your initial success and amplify it.
Webspeak: Use guerilla efforts to lead to (what usually only in retrospect appears to have become) viral marketing or network effects, i.e. success.

Lesson Five:
Give the channel a real ROI. Demonstrate how they can achieve their goals through you.
Webspeak: Affiliates.