MAKING A CASE FOR PARTNERSHIP

What is Partnership Marketing?

To illustrate the effectiveness of partnership marketing, let’s start with a simple question. Would you rather: Pay $100 for an ad placement that yields 1000 advertising impressions but only 5 sales? Offer a marketing partner $10 per completed sale, leading to 10 sales for $100 each? It doesn’t take someone with an MBA to know you should choose the second option. This is the crucial advantage partnership marketing has over similar data-driven models under the umbrella of performance-based marketing. With many forms of performance-based marketing, you can measure the effectiveness of your advertisement only by analyzing campaign data retroactively, rather than paying for only the outcomes you seek. The structure allows you to make small adjustments and smarter decisions in the future, but you still end up paying for poor results if a campaign underperforms. Brands don’t have any guarantees in many channels of performance marketing—they can only learn from their mistakes. In contrast, in partnership marketing, you only have to pay for what works best according to your definition of success. Rather than investing upfront and hoping for the best, you pay an agreed-upon percentage or fee billed only after you have obtained the desired outcome. And because partners get paid according to those same metrics, it is in their best interests to deliver the best outcomes. The incentives of brands and partners are aligned. Key takeaways:  Partnership marketing is a powerful, scalable, sustainable channel brands can use to grow their business Partnership marketing creates an incentive alignment between brands and partners driving mutually beneficial, agreed-upon outcomes

HOW COMPANIES ARE AIDING THE UKRAINIAN RELIEF EFFORTS

The war in Ukraine is now a full-fledged humanitarian crisis. 

The United Nations estimates that more than 1.7 million refugees have fled Ukraine in the first 11 days of the conflict. They're going to neighboring countries like Poland, Romania, Moldova, and Hungary, which have largely opened their borders to those seeking safety.

While different nations have necessarily stepped up to help, businesses are also lending a hand. Here are a few ways companies are offering donations, a place to sleep, or other acts of charity to help Ukrainians in need:

Offering temporary housing

Airbnb announced on February 28 that it would provide temporary housing for up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, with the stays funded by Airbnb and supported through donations to the company's nonprofit arm, Airbnb.org. The company is also actively seeking volunteer hosts, particularly in Poland, Germany, Hungary, and Romania.

CEO Brian Chesky also recently pointed out another way its platform is helping: After a tweet that recommended booking Airbnbs in Ukraine as a way of getting funds directly to Ukrainians went viral, the company confirmed that it was waiving all guest and host fees on the bookings, so it was not profiting on the crisis.

Donating profits to charity

A straightforward way other businesses are getting involved is by donating to relief efforts in Ukraine, by matching employee donations, devoting profits to a cause, or making a charitable contribution directly as a company. Over the course of two days, the Mansfield, Missouri, seed company Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company donated 100 percent of its sales to the nonprofit World Help, which is working with Ukrainian organizations to provide food and water to refugees. Baker Creek raised $1.6 million, in its largest charitable effort to date. As founder and owner Jere Gettle wrote on Baker Creek's website, this cause hits close to home: His great-grandparents, German immigrants to Odessa, fled Ukraine because of Soviet aggression in the early 20th century.

Setting up charitable funds

The San Francisco-based expert-on-demand company JustAnswer, which has about a quarter of its workforce in Ukraine, set up a crisis fund, which will go toward the Ukrainian armed forces and refugees, with donations facilitated by the Ukrainian charity Lviv ІТ Cluster. JustAnswer raised over $50,000 in under 24 hours, and CEO Andy Kurtzig says the company is also matching the first $50,000 raised by JustAnswer employees and experts.

Evacuating employees 

The Tel Aviv-based website builder Wix has about 950 employees based in Ukraine, which led CEO Nir Zohar to take serious action, he told The Washington Post. An internal team of about 20 Wix employees worked together to book travel and lodging to help about 500 Ukraine-based Wix employees and their families to flee the country amid the conflict and is in close contact with the workers who remain in Ukraine. Wix kept a close eye on the developing conflict weeks before Russia invaded the country, and started helping employees evacuate to Poland the second week of February. Since Ukraine restricted men ages 18 to 60 from leaving the country, Wix is unable to evacuate all of its remaining employees but is still actively helping families flee, paying employees their salaries in advance, and providing refugees with food, cash, diapers, and other essentials.  

Getting customers involved

The Chicago-based phone company Mode Mobile, which was founded in 2017, allows users to earn points through an app or smartphone that rewards them for activities like streaming music and reading or playing games, which they can redeem for gift cards in value up to $600 per year. On March 3, the company started offering its users the ability to donate a set number of points toward an individual $5 donation to the Ukrainian armed forces through the charity savelife.in.ua. Mode says it will match up to $1,000 in donations--a number it has already hit--and will send funds in Bitcoin to the charity via Coinbase.

LET YOUR CLOSERS CLOSE AND YOUR SALES TEAM MORE PRODUCTIVE

Your sales team could be selling more.

Did you know that InsideSales found that salespeople on average spend 60% of their time on tasks that aren't actually selling?

This brings into question what types of tasks your sales team is actually be doing. Here’s the problem: Good sales talent is hard to find and if they’re only spending 30% of their time on actually closing sales, is that the best use of their time (and your budget)?

This blog post will show you how to build out a sales development team that allows your closers to focus on what they’re best at closing.

First, let’s take a look at what sales teams actually spend their time on.

In most cases, they’re doing lead gen, prospecting, and admin work. Incredibly, according to Hubspot, salespeople actually spend 66% of their day on admin tasks.

Frankly, that is a shocking statistic. Your sales team is a valuable asset that needs to use its experience and skills to close sales. Not prospecting. Not doing admin work. Your sales team needs to be the hunter, not the gatherer and you need to provide support for them to be able to focus on hunting, or in other words, on spending more time on using their talent to close sales.

Outreach.io agrees,

“Since a hunter should have one job and one job only — hunting — your team should be
comprised of members in supporting roles whose job is to give your hunters the tools
they need to work as effectively as possible at all times.”

If you feel that your sales team isn’t as productive as they could be, or that they are focused on tasks other than closing, it could be indicative of a deeper problem…

Ask yourself: Is your current sales process actually standing in their way?

It may be.

Here’s why:

Sales pros spend only 36% of their time on selling-related tasks. (Salesforce)

And...

42% of sales professionals say prospecting is the hardest part of their job. The rest say it’s closing (36%) or qualifying (22%). (Hubspot)

What this means is that most B2B businesses have their sales team spending 60% of their day doing tasks that:

A. Are not the main reason they were hired.

B. Are what 60% of sales professionals struggle with the most.

So not only are your closers doing work that does not directly result in revenue, you are also risking burnout by having them do tasks that they do not fit into their core competencies.

Frankly, it’s likely that your sales team could be selling more.

You should care about this. Here’s why:

According to Forbes Agency Council, “Optimistic sales professionals outperform pessimists by 57%. That’s even true when pessimists have better selling skill sets.” (Forbes, Seligman)

If your best salespeople are spending the bulk of their day doing admin tasks, they are likely underperforming. The numbers will show.

Your closers should be closing.

Not tinkering around on LinkedIn. Not writing and sending one-off emails. Not prospecting. Not cold calling a leads list.

Overloading your sales team leads to missed opportunities and communication breakdowns with prospects.

4 EXPERT TIPS THAT WILL SKYROCKET YOUR EMAIL SIGN UP RATE

If you’re like most of us, you want to boost your email signup rate. Email marketing is a powerful way to connect with new prospects and loyal customers alike. A list that’s populated with engaged leads can help you drive traffic to your site, learn about your audience, increase sales, and much more.

However, it’s almost impossible to go from 0 to 10,000 subscribers overnight. As a result, many marketers get discouraged and think that their company isn’t suited for email marketing. I’m here to tell you that this is not the case.

Online businesses across all industries can benefit from building a robust lead list full of active subscribers. The thing is, this process takes time, effort, patience, and a little ingenuity.

Today, I’m going to explore several strategies you can use to skyrocket your email signup rate. I’ve successfully used these tips across our brands, and I’m confident they will work for you too.

Let’s dive in!

Publish Relevant, Actionable Content

Have you ever finished reading an article from a newly discovered brand and thought to yourself, “I’d like to get more content like this in the future. I should subscribe to their email list!” I believe it all comes down to value. A brand that offers valuable content and offers to their readers are more likely to have an active lead list.

Your goal is to give visitors this same feeling when they find your website. The easiest way to accomplish this task is through blogging. There’s a good reason why brands that blog get twice as much email traffic as non-blogging businesses.

The key to getting more email signups from your blog is to write for your target audience. If you write with your audiences’ goals, pain points, and interests in mind, you’ll have a better chance of convincing them to sign up for emails from your business.

I suggest reviewing your on-site analytics, customer feedback, and buyer personas to write blog posts that captivate readers and keep them invested in your brand. Use what you learn from this data to connect with your readers and address their questions and concerns. If your posts resonate with your audience, you can bet that you will see a surge in new email subscribers.

Include Well-Timed Popups

When used correctly, popups are an excellent way to turn visitors into subscribers. You may be wondering, “don’t popups have a bad reputation?” The simple answer to that question is sometimes. The two big differences between good popups and bad popups are relevancy and timing.

Timing is crucial because you want to reach your visitors when they are most likely to join your email list. For instance, a random popup that’s not based on an action taken by your user could do you more harm than good.

However, if someone is looking at a specific product, a well-timed lead magnet that promotes the benefits of your product or service will likely lead to a boost in engagement. The timing and relevance match what the visitors were doing on your site, so popups can be an extremely effective growth tool in this situation.

There are many ways you can personalize your popups for first-time visitors and repeat customers. I suggest using your buyer personas to create popup campaigns designed for visitors based on what they need from your brand.

So, if you have an online pet store and you want to reach as many customers as possible, you would likely make popup campaigns for individuals who own cats, dogs, birds, and so on. These targeted popups are a great way to show your audience that you understand what they need and want to deliver on your value proposition. If you need more convincing that this strategy works, consider this; 80% of shoppers say they want more personalized content and offers from their favorite companies.

Use Social Proof to Convince Cautious Visitors

Social proof is another powerful way to convince visitors to join your email list. In marketing, social proof is the idea that people are more likely to engage with a business if they see evidence that other people followed in their steps and saw positive results.

The most common form of social proof is user reviews, but you’ll be happy to know that there are other options. If your goal is to boost your email signup rate, I suggest using a number counter to show visitors how many people are currently subscribed to your list.

I found that people are far more likely to complete your signup form if they see that thousands of other people made the same decision. You can even include a testimonial or two on your registration page if you want to further incentivize users to give you their email address and name.

You should also consider the benefits of trust seals. Trust seals, also known as trust badges, are basically signals that your business is trusted and respected by other well-known companies, such as McAfee or PayPal. Many people build bonds with companies that they use for an extended time. So, when users see a seal of approval from PayPal, a brand they’ve used for years, they are far more likely to complete the signup process.

Host a Social Media Giveaway

If you want to quickly get more email signups, look no further than social media giveaways. We’ve had tremendous success hosting contests where we give away full licenses for our products. People who are on the fence about your brand will likely enter your giveaway because there’s zero risk involved.

Social sites like Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are excellent places to promote your event. Believe it or not, the average user spends around 2.5 hours on these platforms every single day. In other words, if there’s someone out there who may be interested in your product or service, there’s a good chance they could stumble across your contest.

The rules you establish for your giveaway are how you’ll grow your email list. You’ll want to allow visitors to enter by liking and sharing your post, but that’s not enough. I like creating several entry methods that enable users to enter however they want. I also encourage our followers to participate through all entry methods because they will get additional chances to win.

You can ask your followers to sign up for your email list and get a value-packed lead magnet or promotion for their time. When you consider that this will boost their chances to win, and they get something that they can use
immediately, it’s not hard to see how these events can result in an explosion of new leads and paying customers.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to skyrocket your signup rate and grow your lead list.

I want to mention one more tip that I think will help business leaders and marketers get more value from these strategies. You should always experiment with the various aspects of your campaigns. A/B testing, or split testing, is a great way to get started.

Essentially, a/b testing is when one or more elements of an advertisement, signup form, or page are modified to achieve stronger results. For instance, you may decide to change your call-to-action to see if this decision impacts your signup rate.

If, for instance, you change your CTA from “Sign Up Now” to “Get My Free Ebook,” and you see significantly more traffic, engagement, and registrations on the changed version, it’s safe to assume that your change had an impact on your conversion rate.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with different elements of your email marketing campaign. There are countless opportunities to fine-tune already successful campaigns and turn them into something truly remarkable.