Extending Your Marketing Reach with Partners – Business2Community

Published on 10/14/19 on Business2Community.

One of the biggest challenges facing companies is acquiring new customers/business. Especially as companies grow, one way they may split their marketing department is into customer retention vs. customer acquisition teams. While the customer retention program focuses on keeping and growing the business from current customers, the acquisition side has the sometimes daunting task of going out and hunting for new business.

Depending on the industry and the company’s business model, these efforts can lend themselves to a multitude of marketing channels or only a few. In the digital marketing world, just a few common acquisition channels include Search, Display, Video, and Email. Many companies will leverage these channels either through their own efforts or through their ad agency, as they can all be highly effective at driving acquisition activity to varying degrees.

However, many companies that focus on these types of acquisition initiatives still reach a point where acquiring new customers becomes more difficult and/or less cost-effective. Simply pouring more budget into your Search, Display, or other acquisition focused advertising channels and media buys eventually leads to reduce overall performance and return on investment (ROI). However, there are numerous ways to access additional customer acquisition streams outside of traditional media buying.

Here are a few ways to extend customer acquisition programs by leveraging the capabilities of outside companies and third-party channels.

Partner/Referral Marketing

In many industries, one highly effective method of driving new business is by working with partners. These may be complementary companies in the industry that are integrated or otherwise already work closely with your business. They typically provide a different and non-competitive product or service, but still serve a similar customer base. A partner company like this can be extremely valuable by simply facilitating introductions to their customers or through a more formal referral program, where they are compensated for new business they drive to your company.

This type of partner referral initiative can have many advantages, including the fact that the intros or leads they provide are likely to be well-qualified since they know their customers. This helps ensure that the prospects they send your way are more likely to become your customers, as well.

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