Recruiting partners: Inbound vs outbound recruitment

  • Updated

Who is this article for?
This article is part of a series intended for anyone who would like to grow their program and recruit additional partners.

After selecting your partner type and building out your commission structure, you’ll be ready to start recruiting partners. Finding the right partners for your program is key to a thriving partner program.

Types of recruitment

There are two types of partner recruitment:

Inbound partner recruitment Outbound partner recruitment

Partners discover your program through:

  • Your partnerships landing page on your website PartnerStack Marketplace
  • Inside your product (for customer ambassadors)

You discover and reach out to partners through:

  • Searching on popular platforms (e.g. Google, YouTube, LinkedIn)
  • PartnerStack’s partner discovery tool
  • Competitor’s partner directories (especially for agencies and consultancies)
  • Your existing customer contacts (for customer ambassadors)

What to focus on first

Between inbound and outbound recruitment, which should you focus on first? The answer is both!

Inbound and outbound recruitment are two halves of a single solid recruitment strategy. If you rely entirely on inbound partner recruitment, you’re likely to see a slow start to your program as it takes time for word to spread and reach your ideal partner persona.

Outbound recruitment can be incredibly effective and is especially valuable at kickstarting your program early — but it’s difficult to scale up and won’t reach everyone.

For more information on inbound partner recruitment including best practices for creating a partner landing page and customizing your PartnerStack Marketplace listing see the Recruiting partners step 3: Inbound recruitment tactics support guide.

For more information on outbound partner recruitment including how to use the PartnerStack discovery tool see the Step 4: Outbound recruitment tactics support guide.

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