7 Ways to Leverage Marketing Partnerships for Growth

Attract new customers, increase sales and grow your pipeline instantly by partnering on marketing projects with other businesses. Here’s what you should look for in marketing partnerships.

7 Ways to Forge Strategic Marketing Partnerships that Actually Get the Job Done

Marketing partnerships will only be as good as the strategies and work that goes into them. Here are the characteristics of marketing partnerships that actually get the job done.

Many business professionals attend local networking events with the hope of finding others they can partner with in order to grow more quickly. Like any other type of partnership, the success of informal marketing partnerships between businesses hinges on the strategy and work that goes on behind the scenes.

Marketing partnerships may be short-lived or fizzle out quickly if it is not mutually beneficial in helping both businesses grow. Conversely, when an informal marketing partnership goes well, it can produce significant benefits for all of the organizations that participate.

Why Bother? The Benefits of Effective Marketing Partnerships

There are many benefits that make the work required to build a strong marketing partnership worthwhile. There is the implied endorsement that goes along with it, as well as the potential for web site back links and social shares, all of which can enhance an organization’s reach, improve consumer brand perceptions and even provide a boost to SEO (search engine optimization) efforts.

In the whitepaper “Mind the Marketing Gap” by The Economist’s Intelligence Unit, 30% of consumers cited referrals from trusted websites as their initial introduction to a product or service they purchased. In fact, trusted websites even came in ahead of in-store promos when it came to introducing products.

7 Key Characteristics of Mutually Beneficial Marketing Partnerships

Overlapping Audiences

Ideally, the customers and prospects of your marketing partners will overlap in some way with your own target markets and ideal buyer types.

Active Communication Channels

Look for marketing partners who are active and consistent in communicating with their customers and prospects on a variety of channels, including email, social media and other channels where your target markets are represented.

Web Traffic

BIA/Kelsey reports that 90% of consumers research local products (and services) using internet search engines. Look for marketing partners who have content-rich websites and blogs and be sure that exchanging website backlinks (this could even be written up as a guest blog post) is part of your strategy.

Displays and Demos

Exchanging lobby, sign, shelf or display space with your marketing partners can help expand your brand’s reach and introduce your business to new customers. One other example of how this can work would be to partner with organizations that would let you come and demonstrate your products or services in their business.

Become Patrons

Since your customers will infer that you are endorsing the business of your marketing partners, it’s probably a good idea to actually try their products or services yourself!

Look for Logical Tie-Ins

Partner with organizations that would represent a natural next stop (or preceding stop) for your own customers. One example of this would be a marketing partnership forged with a business that sells add-ons or accessories or provides maintenance or repair services for the types of products you sell. Finding businesses that have a logical tie-in to yours also increases the likelihood that you will have similar “ideal buyer types” and target audiences as well.

Offer Preferential Treatment

Extend customers that come to you by way of your marketing partnerships with preferential treatment, automatic inclusion in your own member benefits or a special offer.

Alignment

Ultimately, if you are going to recommend another business to your own customers, you want to be sure that they will treat your customers as good as you do! Choosing marketing partners whose organizations have similar values and standards can help ensure that you don’t lose face by sending your customers to an organization that might disappoint them