Bailey Beckham, Senior Partner Marketing Manager at CallRail is a strategic, action-driven partner leader who is innovative through co-selling and B2B influencers. In this featured play, expert Beckham breaks down exactly how CallRail launched their B2B influencer program and how they use PartnerStack for this co-selling partnership experience.

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Here is a step-by-step guide for how CallRail set up their B2B influencer program and activate and optimizes their co-selling partner experience with PartnerStack at CallRail:

Build a foundation: Match B2B influencers to strategic verticals using data

CallRail started their B2B influencer program by applying a key principle: treat influencers like strategic co-sell partners — not paid promoters.

At CallRail, the partnership team recognizes professionals with the right experience need to be put in the right roles. This is why the partnerships team brought an influencer onboard to support launching their B2B influencer program. Bailey Beckham emphasizes they take a data-driven research approach, led by their manager, Simone Reid, who also has an influencing career. This is a key component to success.

The program focuses on aligning with CallRail’s strategic verticals like agency, home services, legal and healthcare, seeking authentic thought leaders who organically resonate with their audience. The goal is to work with individuals who are truly validating their audience’s needs, rather than engaging in ‘spam campaigns’. 

It’s important to do the work of deeply understanding an influencer’s audience and connecting it with internal expertise and company goals. The process involves personalized one-to-one outreach and product demos to ensure influencers truly understand the value and product-market fit before engagement. 

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Execute personalized outreach and engagement

Performing authentic one-to-one outreach that is customized for each influencer matters. Avoid automated messages, as they are likely to be dismissed in the B2B influencer space; personalization matters.

For those who fit, set up product demos where your internal specialists can showcase the product. During these calls, discuss how the product can benefit both the influencer and their audience.

Encourage influencers to start a trial with your product. It's crucial that they actually use and understand the product's value before speaking about it. This ensures authenticity, as you don't want people speaking about your product from a high level if they don't understand its value.

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Activate co-selling: Combine content and referral monetization

Introduce your partner program — for example, the PartnerStack and referral link/affiliate model once the influencer genuinely believes your product is a fit, understands its value, and expresses a desire to go deeper or work together. This serves as a milestone.

Blend content-based engagements with monetary referral commissions. Influencers can be compensated for content pieces (video, social posts, etc.)  — and if they see traction and want to continue, offer additional monetary referral commissions through affiliate links.

Next, differentiate commission structures by partner type. For influencers, commissions may vary and often differ from other programs like general affiliate or customer referral programs.

Here’s how CallRail gets co-selling with influencers right:

• Drive both top-of-funnel awareness and co-selling opportunities. While influencer programs are primarily for audience engagement and brand awareness, the blended model allows you to bring them in to co-sell. This involves them engaging with your sales team and experts, advocating for their audience's business needs from initial awareness all the way to understanding bottom-of-funnel conversions.
• Leverage agency thought leaders as an overlay. Many thought leaders in the agency space are already part of existing agency programs. Tap them for co-marketing efforts such as articles or webinars to blend the influencer mindset with these agency partnerships. These agencies often resell your product to their clients or involve your sales experts directly to help close deals, providing a clear co-selling motion that ensures the end-user understands the full value.

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Manage and evolve the B2B influencer program effectively

CallRail runs its B2B influencer program directly through PartnerStack as part of their mix — leveraging its ability to segment programs, track performance and manage payouts at scale. Beckham explains that it’s important to maintain multiple, distinct programs within your partner management platform, best done on PartnerStack, for different partner types like influencers, affiliates and customer referrals. While there might be overlap, tracking them separately with tailored terms helps manage them effectively.

To effectively evolve this type of partner program, it’s help to:

• Strategically ramp up commission-based participation among influencers. While the percentage of influencers actively participating in the commission structure might start low, acknowledging that they also gain non-commission benefits (like brand alignment) is important. Focus on growing this aspect over time.
• Utilize a flexible and user-friendly technology stack like PartnerStack. Agencies, for instance, prefer PartnerStack over other platforms like Impact due to its ease of use, simple UI, and seamless integration with existing processes, making it less like "another system you have to manage".
• Have dedicated internal roles to manage and advocate for your partner management platform, ensuring its capabilities are maximized across all partnership types, including influencers.

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