Partnerships in Marketing: Why Working Together Can Provide Amplified Results

I truly understand the difficulties of marketing. When you first start out, you’re trying to push lead generation to increase sales. The tactics I use to build brand awareness include extensive content marketing, but results take time. Enter: brand partnerships….where you bring together different brands’ diverse audience base in order to drive sales growth and mutually strengthen their image for mutual success.

Partnerships can have many benefits, including allowing brands to:

• Market to larger audiences

• Stay on task

• Extend the reach of a company’s target audience

• Twice as nice: increase marketing exposure

• Save on marketing spend

• Acquire new customers in new market segments

Some unions that worked out

Partnerships have been used by some of the world’s largest brands:

• Nike and Apple: Two of the largest brands in the world, Nike and Apple, decided to work together over 14 years ago. Nike wanted to leverage Apple’s iPod technology at the time. Today, Nike+ is powered by Apple offering activity tracking in clothing, basketball, shoes, armbands and more.

• Amazon and American Express: Amazon has over 2 million businesses that sell products on their platform. Co-branding with American Express to offer a credit card to these businesses while offering data insights on purchases allowed American Express to tap into a major market while also boosting sales for Amazon.

• AirBnB and Lego: Airbnb gave budding builders the opportunity to put their imagination to use in their competition ‘What would you build with your family if you had an infinite supply of LEGO bricks’. The prize? A night in the newly opened LEGO House in Billund, Denmark.

• GoPro and Red Bull: GoPro manufactures action cameras and Red Bull makes energy drinks. They share a common target market who are into adventure sports and high adrenaline activities.

• H&M and Luxury Fashion Designers: Since 2004 H&M has been collaborating with top designers to create limited edition co-branded collections, including Stella McCartney, Jimmy Choo, and Marni. The Swedish fashion and home retailer has worked with all of these designers (and others) in the past, and continue to release collaborative collections with new designers annually.

• Christie’s presented "Say it Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" a virtual exhibition celebrating international Black artists, in partnership with amazing curator Destinee Ross-Sutton and spearheaded by a group of Christie's colleagues who collaborated to bring this show to fruition (100% of the sale price of each work will go to the respective artists)

4 Key Benefits of Co-branding and Partnerships Partnerships would never be my only form of building brand awareness and marketing – you're tied to your partner (through thick and thin) during the campaign – but the benefits are too good to pass up. 1. Increase your reach. Both brands can expand their reach instantly. Nike was able to leverage Apple’s reach and Apple was able to tap into the profitable fitness sector. When you partner with complementing businesses, you’re able to increase your reach into new markets. 2. Lower expenses. Working together allows your business to save money on the cost of content and marketing. Sharing marketing costs enables you to create larger marketing campaigns, secure better pricing and reach a larger audience. 3. Shared resources. Two businesses working together allows you to bring the brightest talent from both teams on to the same project. You'll be expanding your talent pool and create better marketing campaigns as a result. 4. Branding boost. Smaller brands get a massive branding boost when they co-brand with larger companies. Both brands can leverage their co-branding to increase sales and boost market share. Who do you partner with? I know first-hand that partnerships work, but you must know about your partner and their mission. Your reputation, while the partnership is in place, will be tied to the other brand. If the brand goes through a scandal, this can tarnish your reputation. Select brand partners carefully as it directly impacts your range of influence. If you’re looking for a quick fix to increase sales or a one way referral system then partnership marketing is not for you and your business. Consider:

• Positioning in stature: I recommend partnering with a brand that has a similar positioning in their competing category (e.g. Nike and Apple can both be considered in the #1/2 positions in their categories depending on the day)

• Target market overlap: there should be some overlap in audiences for this to work.

• Shared Values and Ethics: where does each brand stand on important matters (such as the environment, sustainability, diversity etc.)?

• Consumer relevance: even though co-branding can bring a wider audience, some consumer relevance should exist. It won't benefit your brand or your customers to partner with another brand that is unable to connect with your audience in the right way.