Part 2 of 3
In Part 1 of The Ultimate Guide to Partnership Marketing, Ashley Mason explained that partnership marketing, also known as “a collaboration between two companies or brands to reach a broader audience base and mutually benefit both parties,, according to Wordstream (https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2022/10/26/partner-marketing).
In this 3 part series, Ashley gives the lowdown on partnership marketing: getting started with it, understanding its success, and bringing in
support to facilitate it.
Part 2: Select the Format of Your Offer
There are several ways to format your offer, but it all comes down to your audience’s preferred way to consume content as well as which form will help you reach your goals. Additionally, it may depend on the resources you have available. Examples include:
Blog Post
If you’re looking for a way to collaborate with a professional that doesn’t require a lot of work while still making an impact, a blog post is a good choice. There are a few options for blog posts:
- An interview, where you interview the professional on various questions and include their
responses - A guest blog, where an expert writes a blog post to publish on your site
- A contributed piece, where you write on a specific topic and include quotes from one or more experts related to that topic
Oftentimes, the blog post is evergreen, which means that you can continue to share it indefinitely, helping to leverage it and bring awareness to it as much as possible. Blog posts help to establish thought leadership and drive website traffic.
Webinar
Webinars are an extremely effective way for teaching and educating your audience on a certain topic. Held virtually and typically lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour, webinars make it easy for individuals in any location to tune in and learn. Additionally, the webinars can be recorded, which makes it possible for registrants who missed the live option to watch the replay and allows anyone who may not have registered for the webinar originally to get access to it at a later date.
Webinars demonstrate expertise, build an email list, and potentially drive leads.
Podcast
Podcasts are one of the best long-term forms of partnership marketing. If you have a podcast that brings on a new guest with each episode, it gives you the opportunity to partner with several experts within the niche of your show. Additionally, you could consider starting a podcast with another expert as the co-host, which you can lead throughout an indefinite period of time.
With podcasts being a convenient form of content to consume while multitasking — such as commuting, exercising, or cooking dinner — podcasting has only increased in popularity throughout the past few years, according to Buzzsprout. Podcasting supports ongoing brand awareness and credibility with its consistent publishing.
Events
If you hope to bring a group of people together and build a community through your partnership, events are an easy way to accomplish that. Whether you hope to plan an educational event — such as a workshop or a conference — or a networking event, this format unites people with similar interests, leading to established connections for years to come.
Although events tend to require more work due to the logistics of planning, they can be effective for generating leads when done strategically.
Develop a Promotional Plan
Your offer is only going to be as effective as your promotional plan for it. Once you have selected the right expert(s) for the partnership and determined the offer, it’s crucial to develop a marketing strategy that will help you to reach the audience you’re looking to attract. Although the exact marketing tactics will likely depend on your topic and the format of the offer, these are a few you can consider:
Write a Social Media Content Calendar
Social media can be the easiest and fastest way to get the word out about your offer. Write a handful of posts with coordinating visuals in a content calendar that both you and your partner can use to promote what you’re creating across various social media platforms.
Submit a Press Release
Research publications that your ideal audience for this offer consume and submit a press release to them. Although it may not be guaranteed that it will be picked up for a piece, free press can do wonders for expanding your reach. Plus, this earned media can also position you as an expert.
Reach Out to Your Network
What’s better than promoting the offer yourself? Recruiting other people to promote it for you! Reach out to folks within your network who could either benefit from the offer themselves or may know people within their own network who might find the offer useful and could share it with them.
Send a Newsletter
If you have an email list, here’s your time to use it. Craft a newsletter to send to your subscribers that gives an overview of the offer and shares information on how they can get access to it. Encourage them to forward the newsletter to any colleagues who may be interested in the offer as well.
Run Paid Ads
If you have funds available, running paid ads to guarantee access to a targeted audience larger than your own is always an option. Before running the ads, however, ensure these two things:
- The audience is aligned with your ideal clients or customers so the right audience is seeing the content
- The page you’re directing people who see the ad to is optimized for conversions to prevent lost traffic
Paid ads can especially work well when other marketing tactics are already executed.
ginning this partnership.
