Tips & Guides — 25 Aug 2022
How to choose the right partners based on your needs?
Whether you’ve been considering the idea or have already started launching a partner program, there’s a painful reality that every digital marketer needs to be aware of: finding the best partners is not easy, but having them on your side is essential.
Brands That Nail Partner Marketing
Learn now →An ideal partner connects with your brand, has common interests, a similar audience, and most importantly, is someone you can trust. Teaming up with partners based on your needs is an excellent way to get great outcomes and improve your strategies and campaigns.
Brands can expand awareness, create multichannel tactics, and try demographics by paying only for the results. This article will cover the most important criteria to consider when choosing your ideal partner and what to consider.
What are the types of partner marketing?
A Beginner’s Guide to the Types of Partner Marketing
Learn now →It takes a comprehensive and consistent study to understand the type of partner marketing best for each business. Let’s start by better understanding what partner marketing is.
Essentially, partner marketing is any strategically thought out collaboration between a brand and individuals or a company working together to achieve common goals. Brands pay only for the results. When the partner completes any desired action, they get a commission. Below, we’ll look at some types of partners:
More and more, influencers are conquering their space within brand campaigns and bringing satisfactory results. An influencer has a fan base that trusts his word and his recommendations. He also knows his audience deeply. Thus, brands that find influencers with common values stand a great chance of expanding their content to a new customer base.
How eCommerce can benefit from Influencer Marketing
Learn now →Affiliates can also be influencers, but in this case, the concept of an affiliate can be a bit broader and include bloggers and other content creators. Brands provide affiliate links, which can be used on blogs, social media, and google ads. Each time someone purchases through the link, affiliates receive a commission boosted by the brand.
Undoubtedly, an affiliate program can benefit any business, but this partnership works well for eCommerce, beauty, apparel, technology, healthcare, and subscription businesses.
What is an Affiliate Program? How it Works & Why You Need One
Learn now →These partners are customers who already know and recommend your brand. They help spread the word about your products and services to family and friends.
Unlike an affiliate, which promotes your products to the audience of a platform, referral partners promote your brand within a circle of known people, making recommendations gain a high conversion power. Creating an incentive program can encourage loyal customers to engage and talk more about your brand.
What is a referral program and 8 examples that work
Learn now →Ambassadors are authorities in their niche. To start with an ambassador program, a brand forms long-term partnerships with trusted ones that fit into the brand’s niche. They will promote the brand to their followers online and in person, using their content channels.
It differs from an affiliate program; an ambassador’s priority is to form genuine relationships with their audience and share how your brand matches with them.
As we described in the previous article about the first steps to creating a partner program, you probably already have your goals clearly defined.
How to start a successful partner program?
Learn now →The more you know your target market, the better your chances are of finding partners that make sense for your brand. Therefore, study your target audience and look for partners with a similar target market. For instance, the partner could be in the same industry as your brand.
Teaming up with a partner your target audience would benefit from is critical. Your partner should have helpful, engaging content that genuinely helps your target audience.
Look for partners that fit your target market in the right geographic region. Research your prospective partners before contacting them. For this purpose, you can use Google to learn more about your partners’ credentials or check their social media channels.
Explore where their name appears online and their online presence in general. The goal is to come up with ideas on how your brand and your potential partner can work together to influence consumers.
Before starting with a partner, see which goal he can help your brand to achieve based on your business plan. Basically, there are many opportunities that a partner can fulfill, some of which we can highlight:
The right partner will help your brand smoothly achieve these goals. Thus, you must ensure that your partner’s and brand’s values match. Avoid partnering with a brand whose values or image are at odds with yours.
It is essential to ensure that the goals you set are measurable. This way, it will be easier to track each partner’s performance. Below are some of the most common types of quantifiable metrics for your partner program to increase:
Your business will achieve sustainable growth through your partner program by tracking these metrics. Each time you collect the data you want, ensure you organize it well so you can refer back to it when needed.
Consistent success is just as important for your brand as for your partners. Rewards are key to keeping them motivated and engaged in your campaigns. In addition, partners who excel deserve to be rewarded for their efforts.
You should set the reward upfront, and the model can vary depending on the specific partner program you run. It’s all about the mutual benefits. So make sure you value your partner while promoting your brand.
How to Calculate Affiliate Marketing Commissions?
Learn now →As with any shared growth process, you need to be committed to helping your partner get better and better at developing and promoting their campaigns. When a partner first signs up for your program, you need to take the time to educate them.
Prepare everything so you can give them more details about your company, how your campaigns are run, the analytics metrics, and your expectations from your partners. This will make them much more likely to promote your brand effectively.
For more experienced partners or those who have been with your program for a while, it’s important to keep them updated on your brand. It’s a good idea to set up a custom partner portal to provide all the resources you need, such as training and other educational resources, and have them ready to answer any questions you may have.
Build a Partner Portal Your Partners Wouldn’t Want to Leave
Learn now →
As you have seen, ideal partner recruitment is essentially a multi-phase process. After researching, learning, and discovering who is the perfect partner for your program, it is time to contact the chosen ones. You will likely need a comprehensive platform to help you manage your partners effectively without spending much time.
If you are looking for a SaaS platform to help you with this process, check out Affise Reach. With Reach, you’ll be able to contact your partners directly, without any third parties, and manage your entire campaign with complete security. In the end, finding the right partner will be easier if you talk directly with them about your business, goals, and proposal.
Reach allows your brand to build and manage partnerships easily. It also provides all the tools you need to track your partners and follow your goals. This way, you can see what is going well and what needs improvement and consider a multichannel strategy.
Influencers, affiliates, and other partners are changing how consumers interact with and perceive ads. Brands that have worked with partners have reaped great results, as much of a partner program’s success is due to the partner’s work.
As we explore in this article, finding the right partners is a process that involves planning and strategy. However, it is perfectly possible to find the perfect match. Let’s recap the steps, but remember that you can return to this article as often as you feel you need to:
1 – Study your target audience: Learn as much as possible about your target market.
2 – Investigate your partners using search engines like Google and social media to find out more about your partner’s online presence.
3 – Find out the values: Establish a value for each partner.
4 – Set measurable goals: Know your goals to track them smoothly.
5 – Reward your partners to keep them motivated: Define how you will recognize the efforts of your most committed partners and tell them about it at the start of the partnership.
6 – Support your partners throughout the process: Provide training and support materials to your partners.
7 – Contact your partners directly: Use a platform that allows you to send messages directly to your partners to tell them more about your brand and proposition.
If you are looking for a complete platform to help you every step of the way, it’s time to try Reach. Talk to one of our customer success agents and get your plans off the ground.
Written by
Affise Academy
Affise is a partner marketing platform for brands, advertisers and agencies to scale via all possible performance marketing channels. Synergy of technology and our long standing experience lets you expand your partnerships, automate every step of the campaign lifecycle and make data-driven decisions.
See all articles →Stay on top of the competition. Let us keep you updated with news, insights, and more
