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Trying to boost your brand? While you’re free to try paid ads, blogs, or email marketing, sometimes your marketing team needs an extra boost. When you have to get more results with less time and fewer resources, it’s time to set up a brand partnership campaign.
With brand partnerships, your business teams up with another entity (whether that’s a complementary business or an influencer) to promote both brands at the same time. Successful brand partnerships are a symbiotic relationship where you both put in an equal amount of effort and split the results to increase sales.
After all, marketing is a lot of work. Whether you split the load with a complementary brand or an influencer, brand partnerships cut your work in half while doubling your reach. Learn why brand partnerships are a boon to your business and four tips to successfully navigate your first brand partnership.
Why Brand Partnerships Are So Valuable
Yes, a brand partnership requires collaborating with people outside of your business. That does take a little extra elbow grease, but brand partnerships are definitely worth your time.
In a market saturated with other brands’ influencer content and busy social media feeds, brand partnerships help you:
- Reach a new market: Did you know that 57% of brands use partnerships to acquire new customers? If you’re a new kid on the block, brand partnerships will help you build trust faster with a new audience.
- Offer more value: Consumers will only stick around if they find your brand valuable. Fortunately, brand partnerships offer more value in the form of exciting content, innovative products, and fun experiences. And consumers love it! In fact, 71% of customers say they enjoy co-branded products and experiences.
- Save time and money: Effective marketing requires a lot of time and effort—not to mention the financial resources. It’s much easier to market yourself when you share the work through a brand partnership. Brands that use partnerships say they generate 28% of the business’s revenue, while more expensive tactics like paid ads generate just 18% of revenue.
3 Examples of Effective Brand Partnerships in the Wild
Not sure what brand partnerships look like in practice? Plenty of big-name companies use brand partnerships to build buzz while expanding their audience:
- Starbucks and Spotify: Starbucks curated its own Spotify playlist to give users the vibe of dining in one of its cafes. The two brands have completely different products, but their audience overlap made this a successful experiment in co-branding.
- RedBull Stratos and GoPro: Who could forget this death-defying brand partnership? In 2016, RedBull and GoPro teamed up on a SuperBowl Ad where a daredevil skydived from space. Since both RedBull and GoPro appeal to active consumers who love extreme content, this famous brand partnership is still generating buzz over five years later.
- Nike and Airbnb: In the UK, Nike and Airbnb partnered up to create a running club during the pandemic. With Airbnb rentals down during the pandemic, its forays into experiential brand partnerships kept the brand top of mind.
When it comes to brand partnerships, the sky’s the limit. As long as you choose your brand partner carefully, you can execute bigger, more creative marketing campaigns that get results.
4 Tips for Successful Brand Partnerships
Brands big and small rely on partnerships to split the work while doubling their reach. Follow these four tips to make your first brand partnership a smashing success.
1. Partner With a Brand or Influencer Who Shares Your Brand Values
Influencers like the Kardashians might have a lot of followers, but would it make sense for your brand to partner with them?
Before you do anything, make sure you partner with the right brand or influencer. Your values and mission statements need to line up perfectly. Even if you’re two completely different brands, like Spotify and Starbucks, you can find a way to work together as long as you have a similar target audience and shared values.
It’s just as important to make sure you don’t partner with someone who goes against your ethics, too. For example, if you’re a vegan beauty brand, you wouldn’t want to do an influencer brand partnership with an influencer who posted a picture of themselves grilling meat.
Do your research. To make sure this is a smart partnership, check your potential partner’s:
- Social media analytics
- Metrics like follower count, engagement rates, and conversions
- Posts and blogs
- Customer demographics
- Reviews (if any)
2. Take a Multi-Channel Approach With Your Brand Partnerships
Although brand partnerships certainly lighten your load, they still require a lot of planning and logistics. If you’re putting in the effort to partner with a brand or influencer, squeeze as much out of the campaign as you can.
The best way to increase your reach is to take a multi-channel approach. Instead of promoting a brand partnership with a one-off email or a press release buried on your website, promote it on all of your channels.
Depending on your goals, this might mean sharing content via:
- Podcasts
- Emails
- Paid ads
- Short-form and long-form videos on YouTube
- Blogger outreach
- Social media like TikTok, Instagram Stories, or Instagram posts
Make sure you and your partner are on the same page, though. If you want to post the same promotions on your TikTok at the same time, create a shared content calendar or Trello board with their team. Complex campaigns have a lot of moving parts, and the easier you can make it for your partner to coordinate promotions on multiple channels, the more results you’ll see from the campaign.
3. Try Co-Branding
Co-branding injects a lot of star power into your brand partnership. While potential customers might already like your makeup palettes, they’ll go crazy for a collaboration with an influencer like Manny MUA.
Co-branding takes on a lot of forms, so feel free to get creative. This might mean:
- Planning an event that promotes both you and your partner
- Rolling out a product that you both contributed to
- Creating content together, like an educational video series
- Partnering with a non-profit and donating a percentage of your sales
4. Use a Platform for Influencer Brand Partnerships
Partnering with another brand can definitely give you more traction, but influencer marketing will give you an immediate “in” with a new audience, too. Forty-nine percent of consumers depend on influencer recommendations, so your brand needs to partner with influencers, too.
Remember, your influencer partnership needs to offer value to your consumers. While a sponsored post or endorsement will definitely boost brand awareness, you should work with your content creator to:
- Offer discount codes
- Create a unique hashtag challenge
- Give their followers exclusive access to sales or content
- Build excitement with a free product giveaway
Fortunately, you don’t have to do everything by yourself. A platform like Markerly makes it a cinch to partner with content creators and Instagram influencers who will grow your brand for you.
Master Your First Influencer Brand Partnership
Brand partnerships are a great way to tap into new audiences while saving time and money. Whether you partner with another company or with an influencer, a brand partnership gives you a prime opportunity to grow your biz with less effort. If this is your first brand partnership, follow our four tips to get the most ROI out of your marketing strategy.
But we know that influencer campaigns aren’t easy. If you’re running a scrappy marketing team that needs to see results, kick off your brand partnership campaign with Markerly.
