10 tips are provided to acquire customers through strategic partnerships: 1) Establish commission structures to incentivize customer referrals from partners. 2) Consider trading referrals with partners so referrals go both ways. 3) Track referrals carefully to attribute sales and referrals. 4) Create co-branded landing pages so partners' customers feel comfortable with referrals.

1. 10 Tips to Acquire Customers through Strategic Partnerships<br />by Inside Small Business <br />What is the single greatest problem facing small to medium sized businesses? Customer acquisition.<br />Many great business plans have been brought to market to simply fizzle out over time due to scarcity of customers. So how does a business acquire customers? Search engine marketing, word of mouth, social networks, blogs, and traditional media are all valid avenues. However, these outlets seem to be crowded and often too expensive. Truly savvy businesses are able to create strategic partnerships to help grow their business and acquire customers.<br />Here are 10 tips to help you get started with strategic partnerships:<br />Commission structure. Know how much commission you can pay a partner for a referred sale. The more bounty you can pay the easier it will be to find and keep partners.<br />Trading. Some partners may want you to refer customers to their business. Look at creating a place on your website where you can feature your partners or determine if there is a way you can refer customers to your partners. If you can create business for them they will be much more willing to create business for you.<br />Tracking. Set up tracking to ensure you can accurately track all sales from your partners. Google analytics and Omniture both offer sufficient solutions. Also, consider giving each partner a unique phone number to track phone sales.<br />Co-branded landing pages. Some partners will want you to create a co-branded landing page with the partner’s logo and a brief explanation of the partnership. The co-branded page helps the partner’s customers feel more comfortable with the transition.<br />Sites with high traffic. Find partners who are leaders in the industry. Often you can determine which sites do well by looking at their rankings on Google.<br />Common sense. Use common sense to identify complimentary industries. For example, if you are a window cleaning company you will want to ask yourself what other businesses are in contact with your customer near the time of your visit (carpet cleaners, painters, disaster cleanup, and other home improvement companies).<br />Create a list. Once you identify industries of interest, make a list identifying your top targets in each industry. Go through the list and find the best contact information you can through the potential partner’s website, domain registration who is data, and social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook.<br />Persistence. Keep contacting potential partners until you speak with the decision-maker. Do not leave voice mail or email with an open-ended invitation for the partner to contact you if they are interested. Instead, say you would like to explore a partnership and set up a time for a discussion.<br />Negotiating. Listen to your potential partner and ask questions about their business and what they seek to gain from a partnership. Be creative in assessing if you can provide solutions to their problems.<br />Testing. Some partners may be willing to start small. Get your foot in the door and your chance of a deeper integration will increase.<br />