Who are you reaching out to?

Friday is always a good day to talk about things you’ll need to be doing next week. I like taking the last hour or so in the day outlining the things I need to get accomplished the following week.  Well, like I’m doing right now writing this blog.  One of the questions related to this that we most often get from our clients is who are we reaching out to next week?  Who are our recruiting targets and who are our activation targets?

So let me flip that on you.  Do you know who you are reaching out to next week?  Affiliates – what merchants/networks are you reaching out to move your business forward?  Affiliate managers – who is on your list to call/email/tweet that is vital to your success, and whom will you contact that you have something to actually offer of value to them?

Maybe it’s time to take a few minutes and write down 20 people’s names on your task list now, so you don’t forget when the hussle and bussle of Monday comes around.  I’ll wait, take your time.    … … … …

That’s great, got 20 people?  No?

Well let me walk you through how our team figures out who we are going to contact.

It starts with the very first week we work with a client.  During that first week we create our Success Roadmap, a detailed and comprehensive strategy document that outlines not only the what’s but also the who’s.  We determine every affiliate that used to be active, could be more active and isn’t yet in the program.

We have a proprietary tool that keeps track of these lists and our team’s progress on each and every one.  After we determine those lists, we add them to our list manager and then we add 5 a day to our task list to reach out to, 4 days a week.  You can imagine how many days worth of contacts we’ll have if we identify several hundred partners to reach out to.

But it doesn’t end there.  Each Friday or Monday our teams provide reports to our clients.  In those reports are listed affiliates who have underperformed, need more attention, need unique offers/creative/copy/tools/etc, new affiliates etc.  Those are then added on Friday or Monday to our task lists.

Sounds like a lot right?  Well, it is.  But, we have a system and supporting systems in place to make this happen.  So it’s actually quite easy.  Each week, everyone knows how everyone is going to contact.  Create the system and then work that system.

Now, that process won’t work for affiliates, necessarily, but maybe it would.  What do you think?  Affiliates do you create a list every (enter period of time here) of merchants who have fallen off the map, grown dramatically, have horrible creative?

How do you know who you need to contact?  Would love to hear your methods.