What Is Partner Marketing? Explained With Examples
No matter what you are selling, there will always be another company that will fight to reach the same customers. So, it is not easy to establish a business in the digital era. To build a brand, one of the best options is Partner Marketing. The term is also called Partnership Marketing. With this strategy, you can boost your business, gain new customers, and reach different market segments.
What Is Partner Marketing?
Are you starting a new business? If you are into business for a long time, this strategy will definitely help you to grow your business. When two different businesses share their interest in increasing brand awareness, finding the right consumers, and promoting their products, in that time, the businesses use partner marketing.
Most of the time, common consumers don’t know about one partner’s identity. It is called a white-label partnership. And sometimes, we know that two different companies are partners. It is more challenging when it comes to marketing for a company alone, but this strategy is a great solution to share tools and resources for marketing.
Facts have shown that partnering marketing is beneficial and act faster and quicker. Also, you can save a lot of money and effort. You can find so many marketing strategy partner in New York, if you want to grow your business in the Big Apple.
Partner Marketing: Different Types
There are different types of partner marketing that are proven to be successful. Here are the top ten different strategies.
1. White Label Marketing
In this strategy, two different businesses make a partnership, and the white label company works behind the scenes. In this type of marketing, the public has no idea about the white label provider. The provider is an extensive part of the partner company’s marketing team. The strategy offers additional services and products and can create great revenue to carry the brand.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Partners get rewards by promoting the client’s brand. When two businesses have the same audience, this marketing can help both businesses. You can take Groupon as an example, it partners with other businesses to promote products and services. And it gives discounts to get more customers. People use affiliate marketing in their social media awareness.
3. Content Development
Simply put, content development marketing contains different strategies, like making videos, images, articles, podcasts, and visual assets. Businesses make content and then share those with the target audience. This strategy also contains co-creation and link sharing also.
In addition to organic content creation, businesses may also utilize sponsored content as part of their marketing strategy. Sponsored content involves collaborating with publishers or influencers to create content that promotes their products or services in a subtle and authentic manner. This approach allows brands to reach new audiences and leverage the credibility and authority of the publisher or influencer to enhance their brand’s reputation and visibility.
4. Distribution Partnerships
Businesses bundle their services and products with the help of distribution partnerships. The partner marketing strategy contains promotions, giveaways, coupons, and discounts. The strategy is widely known and one of the most practiced methods. When you want to adopt this partnership strategy with a company, then you should talk with the partner marketing manager of the company.
5. Retention Marketing
Retention marketing is also called a technique for loyalty programs. The reward is based on how much a customer buys. In this strategy, partners give discounts or sometimes products, the program also works vice versa. You can take Nordstorm’s Nordy Club as an example. They provide member benefits, private events, and shopping points, and people can get cash discounts for those.
6. Shared Stores
Another example of partner marketing is shared stores. In this strategy, businesses team up for offline and online stores. You can take Etsy as an example of an online shared store. And an example of an offline shared store is Starbucks, as they open their outlet in grocery stores.
7. Charitable Partnerships
When a company makes a charitable organization its partner to increase brand awareness, the strategy includes public events, exhibitions, news stories, award shows, and more. Product placement and licensing can also be done with charitable partnerships.
8. Joint Products
You have known about this partner marketing for sure. When two businesses create or alter new products to give more value to the customers, that is called joint products strategy. A recent example is the Apple Watch Nike+, where Apple and Nike have joined their brand to create products, kits, apps, and a training community also.
9. Product Placement
We have watched this strategy so many times in movies and TV shows, but we have never realized it. Product placement can be a box on a shelf, and there will be a brand name on it. You can take celebrity endorsements as examples of product placement in partner marketing.
10. Sponsor Partnerships
When a brand has a goal to improve brand reputation and recognition, they take help from the sponsorship partnership. For example, suppose you have a brand, and you sponsor a baseball team at the national level. The strategy will help you to build the credibility of your brand. There are local causes, events, sports, media, and many more sponsorships. Sponsor partnership is great for partner marketing.
Partner Marketing: Potential Risk
The more you will do a partnership collaboration, is more likely to get the best success in marketing. You need to know one thing before planning your partnership with another company, and that is you need to share information. There are companies that do not want to share their information, so they avoid partnership marketing.
A successful partnership includes transparent communication and mutual trust. You also need to lose control over the marketing. Also, the partnership needs to be long-term and solid. Otherwise, there will be no outcome of any strategy. It is a commitment that you need to follow. So, make sure that you are aware of the risks and benefits of partner marketing.
Partner Marketing: Benefits
Though there is a potential risk of partner strategy, there are more benefits than risks. These benefits are as follows.
1. Increase Value Proposition
A marketing partnership helps to promote and connect multiple goals. Partnership marketing combines value propositions and increases the power of organizations.
- Gain shelf space
- Broaden sales avenues
- Enhance customer experience
- Engage new audiences
- Deliver new content
2. Increase Leads and Audience
When it comes to partner marketing, companies share their customers with each other. So, there is an increase in audience, and the lead quality will also improve.
3. Revenue Channels
With different partnering strategies, the revenue channels will also improve and increase. Your partnering brand can help you to resolve any bugs and issues. You will get a lot of marketing support.
4. Collaboration
Working with different brands will give you experience and practical knowledge. One way or another, you will get so many benefits. Collaboration is a great way to do cost-effective marketing.
Partner Marketing: Choose The Right Brand
When it comes to making a partner, there are a lot of things to keep in mind. Here I have discussed a few factors to look at that will help you to find the best marketing partner for your brand.
- Identify KPIs and Goals
- Understand Audiences
- Align the Industries
- Set the Expectations and Tone
- Go for Transparency
- Partners are not Competitors
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
We have narrowed down some most asked questions. You can find these interesting.
1. What Is An Example Of Partner Marketing?
Right now, most companies do a partner marketing strategy. Though there are a lot of examples, in simple words, when two companies help each other in their marketing, that is called partner marketing. So, for example, if you are at Starbucks, you will see that Google is sponsoring free wi-fi there.
2. What Does A Partner Marketing Manager Do?
A partner marketing manager is responsible for managing and planning marketing activities between two companies, and they also need to keep a few factors in their minds, such as deadlines, guidelines, and budget.
3. How Do I Find A Marketing Partner?
One of the best ways to find a marketing partner is LinkedIn if you are running a small to medium size business. You can find people from the same industry and talk about the partnership, goals, marketing, and your ideas. LinkedIn is a platform that allows you to make a large network.
Enough To Start Marketing Plan
Nowadays, partner marketing is trending, and most brands use different partnership marketing strategies to grow their business. For example, if you want to do Facebook marketing, you can get help from a Facebook marketing partner. With time, you will be experienced for sure.
If you have any questions regarding the topic, feel free to ask in the comment section below.
Thank You.
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Mashum Mollah is the feature writer of Search Engine Magazine and an SEO Analyst at Real Wealth Business. Over the last 3 years, He has successfully developed and implemented online marketing, SEO, and conversion campaigns for 50+ businesses of all sizes. He is the co-founder of Social Media Magazine.
