How can you measure the impact of a strategic partnership on customer acquisition?

1 Define your objectives

Before you can measure anything, it is essential to have a clear idea of what you hope to accomplish through your partnership. Consider the specific outcomes and benefits you expect from the collaboration and how they align with your overall business strategy and customer acquisition plan. Common objectives for strategic partnerships include increasing brand awareness and visibility, generating leads and referrals, cross-selling and upselling products or services, enhancing customer value and retention, and creating new revenue streams or reducing costs. Once you have defined your objectives, identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you track and evaluate your progress. KPIs are quantifiable metrics that reflect how well you are achieving your objectives; for instance, website traffic, social media followers, media mentions, email subscribers, contact forms, or sales calls could be used to measure success if your objective is to increase brand awareness or generate leads.

2 Establish a baseline

To measure the impact of your partnership, you need to have a baseline to compare it with. A baseline is the current state of your customer acquisition before the partnership starts. It gives you a reference point to see how much your partnership is improving or changing your situation. To establish a baseline, you need to collect data on your KPIs for a period of time before the partnership begins. For example, if you want to measure the impact of your partnership on website traffic, you need to know how much traffic you had before the partnership. You can use tools such as Google Analytics, CRM software, or email marketing platforms to gather and analyze your data.

3 Set up a tracking system

In order to measure the impact of your partnership, you need to have a tracking system that allows you to attribute customer acquisition results to your partnership activities. This system involves identifying and measuring the sources and channels of your customer acquisition, so that you can determine which partnership actions are driving the most customers to your business. To set up a tracking system, you should use tools such as unique landing pages or URLs for each campaign, customized promo codes or discounts for each audience, trackable links or buttons for each communication, and surveys or feedback forms to ask customers how they heard about your business.