Four steps to successful net partnerships: Pairing up with dot-com partners can be a profitable means of securing new subscribers

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Jan, 2002 by Christopher Wilkes

Each week, circulation marketers get countless pitches from Inter-net companies. They call. They send e-mail. They send direct mail. Some are selling e-mail lists. Others are offering banner and link ad space. Some pitch sponsorships. Few, if any, of these opportunities will pan out for publishers. Response rates are often low, which inflates acquisition costs. In the end you're better off seeking new customers elsewhere.

To find new customers via the Internet, circulation marketers should seek out partnerships rather than wait for alliance opportunities to come to them. Closing the deal and, more important, keeping partnerships going, requires careful planning and execution. During the past six years, I've identified four tips that can lead to successful and long-lasting partnerships.

Hunt for a bargain. There are few proven strategies online right now; therefore, everyone is testing. But this kind of experimentation can be risky and expensive without the help of savvy negotiations.

Banner and text ads, e-mail lists and sponsorships can work, but they usually require a more comfortable bounty or per-order arrangement. The sales teams pushing this space are trying to meet goals based on set CPMs, so successful negotiating usually doesn't start with them. Instead, identify key people at target companies that are ultimately responsible for bringing in revenue. Given the recent trends in the Internet economy and the increasing pressure on dot-coins to produce profits, the chances of reaching more desirable terms are much improved--if you can find the right person to bargain with.

Plus, the decline of traditional agency sources and the increasing costs of direct mail have caused subscription acquisition costs to skyrocket. Publishers need new subscription sources, and dot-com companies need to produce profits quickly. This leaves more room for bargaining on both sides of the table.

Create realistic goals. It's essential to negotiate a mutually beneficial arrangement, but it's just as important to have the right plan in place to achieve your goals. In many situations, the dot-com partner will have no experience with response rates to direct marketing on the Internet. Even fewer will have experience marketing magazines. Therefore, setting realistic goals--and proven plans to meet those goals--is a must. Agreements that once looked good on paper become useless when an unattainable goal is agreed upon or marketing plans are misunderstood.

The best way to ensure against this is to learn as much as you can about response metrics to all kinds of Internet-based promotional opportunities, such as banner ads, buttons, text-link ads, e-mail ads, direct e-mail, Internet-directed direct mail, sponsorships, registration integration and point-of-purchase upsells. Then apply what you know to the marketing plans on potential partner sites.

Monitor results. Once the marketing begins, it's important to monitor results and share them with your partner. Creating and distributing easy-to-read reports frequently will assure partners that you are watching closely, and will provide a great learning tool for both parties. Take advantage of the dynamic nature of the Internet and change your promotions often, testing what works best as often as possible. Monitor trends and make adjustments as needed. Response to Internet marketing can be much more volatile than traditional offline marketing, especially as marketers experiment with all the many demographic segments the Web has to offer.

Create timely, detailed reports. Finally, reconciling bounties due is a key to keeping partnerships strong. Generate weekly reports that update your partner with the results of the promotions on their site. Be detailed, and point out what's working and what's not.

Highlight the revenue earned by the sites and make sure the partner sees that, while you are ultimately trying to generate leads for yourself, you are also working hard at finding ways to exceed goals and maximize their take. With strong and timely reporting, partners should not only feel that they have found a successful revenue producer, but also that they have forged an important relationship with a valuable marketing teacher.

Christopher Wilkes is Internet and partnership marketing director for Ziff Davis Publishing.