How to Build Best-in-Class Brand Partnerships

Building best-in-class partnerships is one of the most potentially rewarding pathways for increasing reach and engagement. Though they require some work up front to find the right partner and reach equity between them, established brand partnerships can be one of the tools in your marketing toolkit with the highest ROI. In fact, mature brand partnerships exceed growth generated by paid search more than 55%.

BENEFITS OF PARTNERSHIPS

According to a study by Concur, a popular B2B travel software provider, 77% of companies participating in brand partnerships saw an increase in profits. What makes them such a powerful tool? They have the ability to use another brand’s audience and name recognition to reach new customers, raising the value of both brands together.

Partnering up can grow your list database, expanding reach by utilizing the other brand’s audience. But, increasing engagement once you’ve attained the customer’s attention creates even deeper attachment. Josh Perlstein, our CEO, is a strong advocate of the power of partnerships. He says, “[We do] high quality customer acquisition and super engaging relationship building through data-led CRM. Excelling here drives up open rates, response rates, click rates, and ultimately buy, loyalty, and advocacy rates.”

A more engaged customer is more likely to buy, buy from the partner brand, and become an advocate for your product to others.

ROLE OF AGENCY

It can be a daunting thing for an internal marketing team to have to figure out potential partners and equity. Depending on the size of your organization, it’s usually best practice to leave the searching and negotiation to a third party. According to the Art of Strategic Partnering by Mark Sochan, 60-65% of brand partnerships fail within the first year, usually due to mismatched expectations. Agencies like us can arbitrate these discussions and run the partnerships long-term or let the brands manage or renegotiate from there.

A lot of the work in partnering successfully is understanding your audience and the audience of the other brand and determining the type of partnership you want to explore. Types range from internal partnerships for companies under the same umbrella, to charities, licensed products, and content or data sharing. Having a data-forward agency determine the brands and types of partnerships that could have the most impact is a huge step forward.

GET THE FULL WHITE PAPER

For an in-depth look at successful brand partnerships, including the skills and expertise necessary to extract the most value, types of partnerships, and how to measure their long-term success, download our white paper today.