4 Smart Ways To Grow Using Brand Partnerships

Guest Author

What does the relationship between bees and flowers have in common with Brand Partnerships?

Stop smirking. You know that’s not what I mean.

I’m talking about mutually beneficial partnerships.

In the first example, the bees get to eat nectar, and the flowering plants get to reproduce by distributing their pollen.

In the case of brand partnerships, you get to find a like-minded brand that targets the similar customer demographic that you also target, allowing you to leverage this and grow your own audience without relying on Facebook ads alone.

It’s not a new concept. Huge brands such as Apple & Nike, Spotify & Starbucks and even BMW & Montblanc engage in mutually beneficial brand partnerships.

So what’s stopping you from doing the same?

Ego comes into play. You automatically assume that any brand that targets the same type of customer must be your competition, right?

Here’s a simple way you can go around this obstacle: find brands with values and beliefs that align with yours, and, here’s the tricky part – make sure they’re offering products/services that are not direct alternatives to yours.

Obviously, partnering with a brand that tests on animals may not be a pretty good idea if your business is anti-animal testing, so make sure that the brand you want to partner with has values and beliefs that align with yours.

This way, when you get exposed to their audience, and vice-versa, you can connect with them on a deeper level.

The key here is bartering.

In an effective brand partnership, both brands exchange valuable offerings. You find what you have, they find what they have, and you exchange value. Since you’re exchanging what you already have, you don’t need to increase your marketing spend, and ROI is generally positive.

In today’s video, I’m going to talk about four smart ways you can grow your brand and your business by cleverly using bartering techniques:

[youtube=https://youtu.be/t5inclTMbmw&h=360]

4 Smart Ways To Grow Using Brand Partnerships

1. Cross-posting Content Marketing

How to do this: Post and share your partner brand’s content on your social channels. Do this vice-versa.

Doing this can help you:

– Expose your audience to new but relatable and valuable content without investing on content production; and,

– Test the waters and find out which partner brands resonate with your audience, based on their content and how your audience connects with it

2. Newsletter or Email Exchange

How to do this: Both partners craft an offer to be pitched to the partner’s audience. Brand A will send a newsletter pitching Brand B’s offer to their audience.
Brand B will do the same and pitch Brand A’s offer to their own audience.

In this way, your product or service gets exposed to a new set of similar audience with like-minded values so they’re more likely to do business with you.

Use this tactic to your advantage by refining your offer and making it highly targeted and customized to your partner brand’s audience. Make sure your message resonates well with them.

Try looking into your partner brand’s frequently bought items – what product or service can you offer that’s complementary to their best-sellers?

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3. Co-Hosted Bundled Products Giveaway

How to do this: Put up a bundled product (from your brand and your partner brands) and pitch this giveaway to both audiences of both brands.

This is where platforms such as ViralSweep help you host your giveaway and encourage viral “word-of-mouth” marketing to promote it to your target audience.

This technique can help you:

– Reach two sets of audiences;

– Boost your mailing list audience (assuming that anyone who joins the giveaway consents to signing up the mailing list);

– Work with multiple partners (3-5 brands) that will promote the same bundled product giveaway and expose your product and your brand to new sets of eyes – and since you’ve done your research like a good old Boy Scout, you can be sure that their audience will be like-minded and generally similar to your brand’s target audience

4. Facebook Audience Sharing with Your Partner Brand

How to do this: Track visitors to your Facebook page and create a custom audience for this. Share this data with your partner brand so they can create ads targeted to your audience.

Since the audience is highly defined, the leads generated will be better qualified.

Rather than shooting ads blindly with no specific audience in mind, your partner brand can reach your audience, so it’s more specific and their ads can connect with their target audience more.

Don’t spill your tea just yet. There’s a bit of a gray area in this tactic.

a. Don’t overuse this. The more partner brands target your custom audience, the higher your ad spent may be.

b. Check your GDPR legislation and find out if it’s allowed in your privacy policy.

I hope you got some ideas and inspiration from this video today! Have any questions you need to be answered? Feel free to let me know via the comments below. See you next week!

Tweetables

Here’s how the relationship between the bees & the flowers can help you grow your brand. Share on X Want to be successful as Apple & Nike, Spotify & Starbucks and even BMW & Montblanc when it comes to brand partnership? Check this out. Share on X In an effective brand partnership, both brands exchange valuable offerings. This boosts your exposure to like-minded audience without spending more on marketing. Share on X