5 Tips to Remember When Creating A Brand Partnership or Co-Branded Giveaway
A brand partnership is a great way to promote your product or service while building relationships with other businesses.
Strategic brand partnerships involve two companies with similar target audiences, that are not direct competitors, working together to create a fun, engaging campaign. For example, our team secures brand partnerships for our client Weck Jars with incredible brands like Bob's Red Mill, Bee’s Wrap and more to create unique campaigns that showcase both Weck Jars and the other company's products. Often, brand partnerships can be followed by a co-sponsored social media giveaway.
Small businesses receive amazing benefits from participating in strategic partnerships. A successful partnership can double your outreach and engage a larger, wider audience while increasing awareness and conversion of your products. Business partnerships also present the opportunity to reach similar target audiences that would be difficult to access otherwise and can help enhance your overall brand perception. Collaborating with a like-minded partner brand can add value to your own business as you share resources, grow your network and learn from leaders in other industries.
To create a successful collaboration that delivers business growth for both partners, there are several important things to know. Let's discuss five key factors when considering a brand partnership with your business.
1. Know Your Product
First and foremost, you should understand your product or service and its relevance well enough to identify the right partner so your collaboration "makes sense." If you want to partner with another brand, an effective way to start is by evaluating your own product and brainstorming which potential partner offerings would be relevant for both your and the other company's customer base.
Hot Tip! A successful brand partnership strategy offers a mutual benefit for both parties and should never take place between competitors. A great example of a co-branded campaign is "Soundtrack for Your Ride" between partners Uber and Spotify because each company offers different products. Uber and Spotify’s products are relevant to each other's customers and the partnership invites new customers to each brand. Conversely, a good fit between separate brands would not be possible between Spotify and Apple Music or between Uber and Lyft because each company is a direct competitor to the other.
2. Align Your Values and Audience
It is important to see if your business' core values and audience align with those of a potential brand partner to solidify a shared vision. A partnership should associate your business with a complementary partner that will enhance your own branding. These values might align in the literal products or services provided or by having the same ethics or values. Aligning these values also helps your partnership consider consumer relevance and ensure that your partner brand is able to resonate with your audience.
3. Define Shared Goals
When beginning a partnership, we recommend establishing a shared business goal or objective. Shared goals might include increasing brand awareness for both partners, launching co-branded campaigns and more. Similar targets, objectives and goals can help identify commonality across different brands that complement one another.
4. Identify Skill Sets
Like with any joint venture, each partner should identify their unique skill set to create an original, engaging collaboration for a broader audience than either brand could not reach alone. To identify what each brand can bring to the table, each should assess their online presence, social media following, customer base, reputation and more.
Hot Tip! Smaller businesses may have a special relevance in local communities whereas larger businesses may have more widespread brand recognition. Strategic alliances between the two types of brands could reach new audiences in exciting ways by utilizing the strengths of each business.
5. Establish Clear Communication
Lastly, when entering into any type of partnership, it is necessary to establish clear communication channels and finalize all legal agreements. The best brand partnerships define the roles, responsibilities and expectations of each party early on in the process. You and your partner business should determine how to measure the success of the partnership as well as decide how potential challenges or conflicts will be resolved. While this fifth factor may seem obvious, you need to be able to trust the partnership and be transparent with one another.
At the end of the day, partnerships make excellent marketing strategies that bring the best of different brands together in fun, innovative ways. Knowing your product, aligning values, defining shared goals, identifying skills and establishing communication are just some of the best ways to ensure that your brand partnership will help both parties grow.
