Free GTM Skills / Distribution / Playbook 19
Referral and partners
A referral program customers actually use, a tracker so every referral is credited and thanked, partner relationships with a lead exchange both ways, and one or two co-marketing campaigns a year that put the company in front of a partner's audience.
Why it matters
Referred deals close faster and at a higher rate than any other source, and in a vertical market the partners (associations, complementary vendors, consultants, resellers) already have the trust the company is trying to earn. This is the cheapest channel and the most neglected because nobody owns it.
Order of operations
- Pick the referral mechanism and the ask; write the campaign and the thank-you.
- Build the tracker: who referred whom, when, the status, the credit, the thank-you sent.
- List candidate partners by how many of the company's buyers they already talk to; agree a lead exchange with the two or three best.
- Plan one co-marketing campaign with each: a webinar, a guide, a joint case study.
- Relaunch the referral ask each quarter; review partner results on the agreed cadence.
Skills in this playbook
- Playbook1
- Play4
- Playbook
Referral and partners (playbook)
Routes the referral send, tracking and payout, and the partner lead exchange and co-marketing plays.
referral-partners - Play
Referral campaign
Produces the audience with suppression cleared and duplicates removed, the reward structure stated once, the page and email copy, the one-click intro mechanism tested on the audience's mail client, and the send plan.
referral-campaign - Play
Referral tracker
Produces the tracker row (referrer, referred, date, demo held, deal, payout status), the running totals, and the payouts due.
referral-tracker - Play
Partner lead exchange
Produces the reciprocal SLA (what, how many, how often, in what form, who receives), the intake into the CRM with the partner as source, the delivery log both ways, and the review.
partner-lead-exchange - Play
Co-marketing campaign
Produces the campaign brief (goal, audience, each side's contribution, the shared asset, the lead rules, the dates) and the run plan.
co-marketing-campaign