In the past 12 months, Apollo’s affiliate program has seen a staggering 576% revenue increase! Which resulted in a 1,127% increase to the commissions paid to their valued partners.
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PRINCIPLES
Copy-paste doesn’t work
The days of silos are over.
It’s not enough to have one “X-led growth” motion, now you have to have multiple motions that work together as one cohesive strategy.
And partners are one critical component of that strategy.
Lizzie Chapman (VP of Tech Partnerships & Channel at NextRoll) pointed out on the Nearbound Podcast,
A lot of people pay lip service to partnerships. But partner-led growth doesn’t work unless every other team is also focused on partnerships. Product led growth does not work unless everyone believes in the product. Sales led growth doesn’t work unless you have a good product, good partnerships, and good marketing.
She continued,
There’s no rinse and repeat strategy for partnerships. It looks different for every company.
You determine go-to-market strategy by listening to your stakeholders.
Listen to the episode here.
And check out Lizzie Chapman and Dimitris Adamidis’s RevTech podcast, focused on the significance of processes, management, and technical alignment.
TACTICS
Apollo’s affiliate program sees a 576% jump in revenue
In the past 12 months, Apollo’s affiliate program has seen a staggering 576% revenue increase! Which resulted in a 1,127% increase to the commissions paid to their valued partners.
And the stats just keep getting better…
- Partners onboarded grew by 315%!
- Signups driven by partners grew by 354%!
- New customers generated by our incredible partners grew by 477%!
I saw this shoutout to Darryl Yearwood (Affiliate Partnerships Manager) on Apollo.io’s LinkedIn page and I thought I’d do some digging.
So I went directly to Darryl and asked him, “How did you do it?!”
He shared a few things.
The team here started to roll out some additional channels and features in the partner dashboard to help cater to the different needs of our partners.
We launched a refer-a-friend program to engage with our customers and focused on partnering with our best customers. We leveraged lead forms for certain partners who wanted to be able to directly submit a referral to our sales team vs having that referral signup with their link.
Another shift was moving from 90 days to 30 days for paying out our partners.
The product itself has really been leading a lot of our growth as well. Partners are organically joining our program thanks to the positive press (G2 rankings and badges).
Then I asked, “What incited those changes?”
He responded,
What moved us was feedback from our customers and partners really. Customers were enjoying the product, so much so that they wanted to be able to refer their networks. And our partners were joining and enjoying the program, but wanting a shortened payout cycle.
Here’s a company that’s figured something out with their referral program.
Read the full LinkedIn post here.
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TRENDS
How is AI redefining startup GTM strategy?
HubSpot recently released a report exploring just that.
In the report find stats like:
- 59% of early-stage startup founders say AI has helped them reach qualified prospects more efficiently.
- 43% of startup founders surveyed have found AI tools to be the most impactful in marketing within GTM.
- 66% of startup founders plan to hire additional employees with AI expertise within the next year.
And read how other companies and departments are taking full advantage of AI capabilities.
Download the FREE report here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Stuff you don’t want to miss!
- April 10th—Setting up Partnerships Amongst Mission-Aligned Companies— Join Nicolas Alexander (Head of Partnerships & Policy at Thallo) and Scott Pollack (CEO at Firneo) where they will dive deep into aligning commercial terms with your company’s values for sustainable partnerships. Register here.
- April 24th—Partnerships Secrets: Cory Snyder Teaches Partner Recruitment—Teamwork.com’s Head of Partnerships, Cory Snyder, spills the tea on how he’s growing his partner program in 2024. Powered by PartnerStack. Register here.
- Nearbound Summit 2023 Recordings—The future of GTM is Nearbound. Watch the recordings to hear how B2B leaders across departments unite with Nearbound strategies and tactics. Listen here.
You’re all caught up.
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- Howdy Partners #69: Why Fractional Partner Management? with Pat Ferdig
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- Partner Up or Perish: A Review of the Nearbound Book by Antonio Caridad
See you tomorrow
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