Partner marketing is a powerful tool for business growth. To do it successfully, you’ll need good communication and collaboration between all parties.
Partner marketing, also referred to as alliance marketing, is a relatively recent addition to the marketing field; however, it is rapidly gaining popularity among accomplished marketers. Hinge’s 2022 High Growth Study reveals that partner marketing holds a significant position among the top ten influential marketing strategies for professional services firms, surpassing popular techniques such as social media networking and educational webinar presentations.
Partner marketing refers to the collaborative efforts of multiple organizations to promote and sell a product, service, or concept, with the aim of benefiting all parties involved. In essence, it entails pooling resources such as knowledge, expertise, brand recognition, and funding to minimize inefficiencies and tap into untapped markets.
Creating and Optimizing Partner Ecosystems
Business ecosystems or partner ecosystems are often formed by technology companies to collaborate on new technologies. These collaborations involve the integration of products from two or more companies to enhance data, establish innovative workflows, or jointly develop go-to-market strategies.
Not embracing business ecosystems can put companies at risk of lagging behind the competition, as partner ecosystems are progressively essential for driving innovation, achieving efficiencies, and collectively creating more customer value.
In order to drive business growth, it is essential to do more than just take part in your ecosystem. It is necessary to optimize your partner ecosystem as well, which involves examining your partner relationships and identifying the actual value they contribute. This evaluation guarantees that you are collaborating with the appropriate partners and allotting the appropriate resources to each partner within your ecosystem. Partnering with others can unlock substantial market opportunities, but only if you have assessed how they align with your business growth strategy and go-to-market strategy.
Setting Up Your Partner Marketing Team
The new technology is jointly promoted and sold by the partner marketing team, which is comprised of marketing professionals from participating companies. Certain companies have partner marketing managers specifically assigned to carry out their partner marketing campaigns, while others depend on their existing marketing teams. When tech companies unite in their marketing efforts, they enhance the strength of their business and expedite growth for both organizations.
Partner marketing campaigns offer numerous advantages. However, similar to any type of relationship, the process of co-development creates distinct obstacles. The successfulness of the partnership relies heavily on the level of coordination during co-innovation, highlighting the importance of collaboration.
1. Make Greater Use of Your Customer Data
At three different stages, it is highly beneficial to consider the information you possess about your customers in order to develop improved programs, enhance offers, and tailor messages to take advantage of favorable market prospects. Your first-party customer data is an exclusive asset that aids in gaining a comprehensive understanding of your customers and ultimately results in better program development and improved outcomes.
- PRE-CLICK What sorts of offers and information are the best motivators of first actions? How do you message for different stages in the buyer journey?
- POST-CLICK/PRE-PURCHASE What measurable signals do anonymized shoppers provide to us before they buy? Are we collecting the information necessary to leverage buyer behavior for more effective tactics? Think in particular about their product searches, add to carts, and places in the buyer journey that users seem to get off track or lost. Consider also the laws and regulations regarding the collection and use of customer and prospect data in the regions in which you do business. Rules and conventions vary and it is essential you keep those in wind as you formulate your plans.
- POST PURCHASE What insights do we have about our actual buyers versus our shoppers? Do they skew differently? Do there appear to be different buyer segments among our purchasers? To cite an example use case for the travel industry, this could also mean insights from booked versus consumed reservations.
In this process, it is crucial to take into account the data being collected at present and the potential data that could be gathered. If you are currently focusing solely on purchase value, incorporating data on product searches, items added to the cart, and basket contents could enhance the effectiveness of your approach.
Data Makes a Difference
Internal analysis of data can lead to program improvement on a collective scale. Alternatively, by joining forces with partners and sharing insights, you enable them to enhance their messaging for better outcomes. The use of data holds significant potential, and it is crucial to identify the most pertinent information to capitalize on important business prospects.
2. Understand and Leverage the Strengths of Your Leading Partners
Establishing a solid foundation in which you familiarize yourself, communicate effectively, make timely payments, and cultivate direct connections with your most important collaborators is vital for developing mutually beneficial strategies that benefit both you and your partners. Although this may seem simplistic, personal connections are the backbone of the partnership sector. There are various methods through which partners can be acknowledged and motivated, with the potential to be deliberately crafted to stimulate customer acquisition, accelerate conversions, enhance lifetime value, facilitate trial-to-subscription models, and so on.
Personalized Communication Makes a Difference
Personalized communication is essential for revitalizing underperforming partners and reconnecting them with your program. By directly engaging with your partners and understanding their objectives, you can establish a mutually advantageous program that can rapidly expand for increased progress.
3. Explore Technological Solutions to Market Opportunities
In the ever-changing martech industry, it is increasingly important to integrate with the latest emerging technologies. It is essential to find a cost-effective method to stay updated on relevant technologies for your business. This could involve receiving periodic points of view from your team or agency, or gaining knowledge about recent third-party tech integrations or internal product enhancements related to your tracking solution or network.
4. Collaborating to create the campaign
Some marketers may have reservations or lack the time when it comes to leading efforts in partnerships. However, for a joint campaign to be successful, teams need to establish a consistent method of collaborating to ensure that everyone shares a common understanding of their objectives, as well as their specific duties and obligations.
Hiring an external specialist to facilitate discussions and maintain an unbiased approach can often benefit both parties. Meanwhile, establishing a consistent schedule of meetings allows for aligning campaign messages, media, production, timing, and budget.
5. Executing the campaign successfully
After the teams have collaborated and reached a consensus on messaging, the campaign can be implemented. Although the task of launching the campaign brings excitement, it is crucial to continue evaluating its performance to determine its level of success, just like any other campaign.
Calculating the return on investment (ROI) is crucial in evaluating the effectiveness of your campaign in terms of the time and budget invested in achieving the desired goals and projected outcomes (such as website traffic, content downloads, leads generated, or closed deals). This information allows you to assess the actual worth of your partnership and make informed decisions about resource allocation in the future.
6. Identify and Pursue Top Tier Strategic Brand Partners
Smart, strategic partnerships between leading brands are becoming increasingly common as a means of co-marketing and cross-promoting products. SurfStitch and Hawaiian Airlines, both influential brands in their respective industries, have recently formed an alliance that exemplifies this trend. We believe that brand-to-brand partnerships have immense potential for generating revenue in the future, and we strongly encourage all of our clients to consider exploring such partnerships with other prominent brands.
When we mention leading brands, we are referring to brands that are different from affiliate publishers. These are brands that primarily focus on providing products or services and are involved in complementary fields or have similar consumer bases. It is important to consider your own brand and target audience in order to determine the appropriate brands for your business. Various factors must be in agreement and effectively communicated before a fruitful brand partnership can be established.
7. Telling a story that fits both businesses
Creating your message may appear to be an easy job since you are the one who knows your story best. However, it can be challenging to construct a flawless joint message that highlights your strengths without diminishing your partner’s, or underselling yourself. Certain marketers may be enticed to skip this step or try to combine their individual value propositions while creating content. Nevertheless, without a mutually agreed-upon message, sales and marketing teams from all aspects are prone to conveying conflicting narratives to customers. This can be perceived as perplexing or unprofessional, both of which are detrimental to business.
To launch a successful campaign, it is crucial for partner marketing professionals to comprehend the significance of discovering a mutually acceptable message that benefits both businesses. By obtaining input from experts in the field on all fronts, you gain a comprehensive understanding of the functionality of the product or service. This guarantees that the joint message is not only enticing but also based on accurate information. It is also important to refer to your individual messaging and search for any similarities in your narratives. This facilitates the identification of shared strengths, enabling you to highlight them in your joint message. The presence of an approved joint message is imperative for the launch of a fruitful campaign.
