To say 2020 is not quite going to plan is somewhat of an understatement. COVID-19 has impacted our lives in countless ways and the impact of the virus will almost certainly leave permanent changes to the way we work and live.
My position in Customer Success at Partnerize means that during this period, I’ve been in constant communication with some of the world’s most well-known brands and that’s resulted in not only a view of what individual brands are doing in response, but also a view of where the industry is in terms of dealing with the issues being presented to them.
Armed with this view, I now feel that the initial reactive period has started to taper off and we’ve now entered a phase that serves as an opportunity to become proactive, i.e. a period where brands reflect in their plans some of the changes that have been forced upon them.
With that in mind, I wanted to share some suggestions on how this time can be utilized to help ensure your campaigns are well-positioned for success.
Perform tracking fixes and/or upgrades
If the internal technical resources are available, tracking fixes and/or upgrades can be performed with reduced sales risk.
Tracking is often an area that’s overlooked when it comes to optimizations and an area that’s allowed to run despite issues being present. It never seems to be the right time to tend to this when times are good. Taking this proactive measure now by making tracking fixes or needed tracking upgrades will be lower risk and a massive help in the long run.
Review your campaigns
Although all campaigns should be subject to constant reviews, this downtime can be used to perform a more thorough review of your campaigns’ makeup to ensure they’re in the best possible place to succeed.
Get to know your campaigns, dissect them, and understand all the moving parts. What’s lacking? What can be improved? What processes can be optimized? What does best-in-class look like and how does the campaign compare? Ask the right questions and make changes where appropriate.
Ensure partner diversity
Linked to the review suggestion, but worthy of a separate section: take steps to ensure your partner portfolio is diverse.
If your campaigns are too heavily reliant on a small number of partners and partner types, now’s a great time to address this. Diversification will help ensure your campaigns don’t fail should you suddenly find yourself Needing volume from other sources.
Get creative
Necessity is the mother of invention, and during these uncertain times, we need to be more creative than ever to drive revenue.
Get your team together (virtually, of course) and brainstorm some revenue-driving ideas. Generate a list of ideas and create a plan to test them. If you find something that works well in this current climate, it may well perform even better once things return to normal.
Communicate with partners
Your partners are exactly that – partners, so communicate with them.
A lot of partners have been doing their best to deal with the situation positively, so reach out, find out what their plans are, find out what they need from you, help each other and make a plan for now and when things back on track. Open communication, whether good news or bad, will lead to a stronger relationship longer-term.
Focus on recruiting
In terms of driving growth, partner recruitment is one of the most powerful tools available.
Many partners have been reducing tenancy fees and cutting implementation costs. Reach-out and on-board new, relevant partners and ensure they’re set up and ready for when you go back to your full plan. Link these efforts to the previous diversification point and you’ll be well aligned for success as we exit this situation.
Dive into your data
Finally, take a deep dive into your data.
Customer lifetime value, incrementality, conversion rate optimization, cost of sale analysis – the list of things to measure goes on. If you have access to this data, there’s no shortage of learnings to be found which can lead to optimizations that can have a major impact on your channel’s performance.
Depending on your company’s particular circumstances, some or all of the above may not be possible, however, if you have the time and resources available, why not look to improve and optimize your partnership campaigns? The changes you make today can have a long-lasting positive impact on your campaigns; ones you’ll likely thank yourself for once we’re all through these highly unusual times.
