This is where the partnership life cycle begins! In this stage, you'll search for partners that can be a good fit for your program and start conversations to create new partnerships.
Short on time?
Check out the impact.com infographic on the Discover and Recruit step of the partnership life cycle.
Discovering new partners has been made easier by Marketplace, a feature in impact.com's platform
Discovery best practices, like casting a wide net, can help you get more out of discovery efforts
Recruiting partners to your platform is performed by proposing contracts
Recruiting best practices, like personalizing messages, can help you get more partners signed to your program
Before you joined impact.com, you may have found discovering the right partners tedious and may have experienced more misses than hits. To smooth out the process, impact.com developed Discover: a partner discovery tool in the platform to help you easily recruit at scale and find partners that perfectly align with your brand.
First, it's important to learn how to find the right partners for your brand. Once you locate partners you're interested in working with, bookmark them.
As you search for partners, you should employ several strategies to assist in your search success. For a more in-depth take on those best practices, download impact.com's ebook on Discovery and Recruiting.
Cast a wide net
Consider opening up your program to as many suitable partners as possible. Casting a wide net will help you find quality partners and capture value in the long tail of online activity. With partnerships, scale truly makes a difference.
Get to know your partners
Research the value your partners provide to their audiences. Knowing which audiences partners cater to, the overall user experience they create, how many visitors they average a month, and the geographic areas they serve will help you discover the best partners to promote your brand.
Migrate partners you already have
If you've already established successful partnerships outside of impact.com you can migrate them onto the impact.com platform by sending pre-established partners a promo page link.
Research partner information and statistics
When browsing for new partners, note details like their primary promotional method, audience countries, social audiences, engagement rate, audience authenticity, and Alexa rank. All of this information can be found in a partner's Marketplace profile. It can help you decide whether they'll be a productive partner for your program.
Now that you've found partners you want to work with, learn how to propose a contract to them. They'll receive an email with your proposal and then can choose to accept the contract.
Constantly recruiting partners to your program is essential for continued program revenue growth. Signing new partners allows you to expand your reach, increase brand awareness, and drive more conversions.
Partner with brand advocates
Partners that are already fans of your brand or products often form a deeper relationship with your program, which conveys a higher level of authenticity that's hard to find.
Discover brand advocates
Consider using social listening tools (e.g., HubSpot, Hootsuite) to identify brand advocates. Add a branded partner sign-up link to your website to help brand advocates easily find and sign up for your program.
Review your marketplace listing
Make your Marketplace Listing visible to partners on impact.com and ensure it's as appealing as possible. If you choose to opt out of the Marketplace, you won't receive inbound marketplace applications from partners to join your program.
It's a great idea to preview what your Marketplace Listing will look like to partners as well.
Constantly recruit new partners
Always be on the lookout for new partners. Having a stream of new partners consistently joining your program exposes your brand to new audiences.
Review applications and proposals frequently
Regularly review new partner applications. Reviewing partner applications to your program on a regular basis gets interested partners started in your program faster. It also keeps their interest and signals that you're a responsive brand.
Individualize messages
Use the messaging tool to consistently engage with partners and build strong relationships. Keep partners updated on new product launches, top-performing links, upcoming offers or promotions, and exciting events you've planned. Tactics like these will keep you top-of-mind!
Create message templates to keep the look and feel of your messages consistent. This ensures that partners recognize your messages and helps with consistency in how you reach out.
Keep it personal
Partners, especially influencers, can often be individual people, so personalization is highly important when recruiting. Personalized interactions make partners feel special and it brings them in as a part of your team.
Personalization can be as simple as including an individual's name, mentioning a recent post they wrote, or an offer they posted. Adding a creative subject line can be effective as well.
Follow up
Following up on pending contracts and emails you've sent is vital. A lack of response to your initial email doesn't always signal a lack of interest—it may simply mean a busy partner missed your message. Be persistent, be consistent, and be creative.
Check with partners you've sent proposals to—and consider following up.
Look for the blue ? [Help] button in the bottom-right corner of your impact.com Dashboard to live chat with a product specialist (or create a support ticket).