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BEST PRACTICES | february 2009
Back to Basics: How to Run a Successful Recruitment Campaign by Lindsey Eis
As you’re ramping up in the new-year, many of you are focusing on publisher acquisition as a 2009 goal. This is a great time to implement a recruitment campaign; however, it is important to target publishers that will fit your program. Remember that it’s quality over quantity! While having a large number of publishers in your program may feel like an accomplishment, the more accurate metrics include orders, sales, and conversion.
In order to run a successful recruitment campaign it is important to follow some top level guidelines. I’ve listed some tips below:
Incentives:
- First determine the type of incentive you would like to provide for your publishers. Below are a few ideas, but also try thinking outside the box!
- Create an exclusive coupon or promotion that you only offer to the publishers on the recruitment list (This is great if your list is relatively small)
- Set up a private rev-share offer to extend to the group as an incentive to join. (Join today and receive a 10% private offer for three months)
- Simply extend them the Mirror baseline – This may not seem like much of an incentive but it takes one extra step out of the work on their side. Added bonus: they won’t be waiting for approval!
Goals:
- Set goals and targets on whom to recruit by publisher type. When preparing for the campaign, it is important to set goals in order to track whether or not it was successful. Possible goals: increase overall publisher total; increase number of blog sites.
Recruitment List
- Decide who you would like to recruit into your program by publisher group. Would you like to increase the # of coupon sites in your program? Maybe you want to get more content /blog sites involved. It is important to sector these into groups as you will communicate to each group differently.
- You can also seek out sites that are not in your program and feature your competitors. (Talk to your LinkShare Account Manager about putting together a list of publishers that are not in your program but perform well with your segment or in the network.)
Recruitment Campaign Communication
- The final and perhaps most important step is to present your recruitment campaign to your publishers either through a newsletter or a personalized email. The communication should act as a written sales pitch, detailing why they should join your program. What’s in it for them? Put together some sales points highlighting the strengths of your program (high AOV, conversion, brand recognition, etc.)
- It is important to know your audience and what makes them tick. For example: If you are targeting coupon sites you should push your promotions and, if you can, offer exclusive coupons. For loyalty sites, you may want to highlight a private offer or an available data-feed.
- Lastly, make them feel special! If you are offering an incentive, don’t forget to highlight this in your title or header.
Always Measure Your Success
- After you have communicated and followed-up with the selected publishers it is very important to measure your success. How many publishers joined your program? Did you get any feedback about the incentives offered? Was the timing right? These are all things that will make the next campaign that much more triumphant. Remember – work smarter, not harder.
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