Competition is a powerful galvanizer, but it’s through collaboration where B2B partners can dramatically broaden their audiences while saving plenty of time and money. Let’s dive into what makes an amazing co-marketing campaign tick.
Where a co-marketing strategy begins
Before embarking on a co-marketing campaign, B2B leaders and managers should bear in mind that they will fail unless making sure they stick to these four principles:
1. Clarify common goals and focus on mutual value
First and foremost, you need to select a goal you’d like to achieve before reaching out for a co-marketing activity. Then, make sure your associates share the same objectives. Otherwise, the likelihood of meeting your targets will be slim.
Make it clear how both parties will benefit from the outcome. The plan should be punctiliously penned down from the early stages!
2. Identify your experts and role players
To ensure there are no gaps of expertise or communication, partners should take a little time to meticulously pick their team. Overlap is fine, but each team member should be bringing something unique to their team.
3. Brainstorm the common customer issues the campaign will solve
How can you know whether your co-marketing campaign’s message will appeal to your target markets? Identify common challenges areas where your customers are struggling and create a plan to overcome them.
This is where building out personas and testing possible solutions can help. If your partner is a good match, then they should come up with a similar set of personas in the same exercise.
Why co-marketing works: A statistical perspective
Since data is the lifeblood of any respectable modern business, here are some compelling stats that highlight the effectiveness of co-marketing:
- 68% of consumers were able to make buying decisions even before speaking to sales representatives after being exposed to co-marketing campaigns.
- 77% of businesses engaging in co-selling partnerships witness a rise in profits, either directly or indirectly.
- 54% of companies report that partnerships drive more than 20% of their total revenue
- 90% of companies find co-selling less demanding in time and financial resources than traditional reseller models.
- Microsoft established 9,000 partnerships in a year and earned $8 billion from its co-seller partner program in two years.
But wait, what about co-branding?
Co-branding vs. co-marketing? What’s the difference between these two, anyway? Both of them are great marketing strategies used to reach broader audiences, but here is the difference:
- Co-branding is about creating a new product or service and two brands work together to design and market it. One renowned example would be the Oreo McFlurry, a product made from Oreo cookies and McDonald's ice cream.
- Co-marketing is when two or more companies work together on marketing campaigns to promote each other's existing products or services. A well-known example would be the BMW and Louis Vuitton partnership, when a set of luggage was specifically designed for BMW’s i8 hybrid sports car.
So, how do we find the right co-marketing partner?
This stage requires significant strategic thinking and research capabilities, since it’s one of the most important pillars of the partnership. Correctly assessing businesses’ online presence, reputation, and successful collaborations takes not only in-depth knowledge, but also considerable experience.
Analytics
Your website traffic is definitely an important source of information! Business leaders and managers should identify the websites which are sending traffic their way and focus on the sources that access multiple pages and sections and take their time to do it.
Google Analytics’ engagement and events sections could provide very insightful data, for starters. These are potential partners whose audience might align with yours.
Your customers
Understanding your customers is always a great source of inspiration and direction. Sales and Marketing should work together to identify all the relevant trends and patterns. The blogs your audience reads, websites they visit, and influencers they follow are crucial data points.
Ideally, you should try to squeeze any preferred brands or companies names out of them, so your research doesn’t last too long.
Your own professional network
Networking communities are a great source of information, especially when many business owners and leaders are constantly trying to find professionals with similar interests, needs, expectations and goals.
Competition
Keeping a close eye on your direct competitors is another terrific information source: their partnerships, their collaborations, their marketing campaigns. You could try to reach out to brands that complement your services, but aren't direct competitors.
Social sites and forums
Social networking and content aggregation platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora and industry-specific forums might be a good place to look for co-marketing or partnerships-related discussions. Try to engage with professionals or businesses that resonate with your values and target audience.
How to run co-marketing campaigns
- Carefully choose your partner! Companies should join forces with a partner that offers complementary services, so that the consumers enjoy a larger array of perks. One of the most renowned examples would be the McDonald’s and Coca-Cola long-time partnership.
- Establish clear targets and roles. It is paramount for the teams to be provided with clarity and direction, both in terms of objectives, which ideally should follow the S.M.A.R.T. diagram (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-bound), and in terms of tasks, to ensure efficiency.
- Set up communication protocols. Speaking of efficiency, all successful businesses are built on the free flow of information and ideas. Team members should feel unrestricted and motivated to share their ideas, knowledge and blockers, but, preferably, this should be done within certain boundaries to guarantee respect and continuity in the working process.
- Align products and services. Partners should work together on promoting products or services that complement each other, to maximize the chances of success. Think about the BYGGLEK collection Ikea and Lego co-launched in 2020, which was a hit both with families and design enthusiasts.
- Determine a timeline. All effective marketing campaigns are time-bound, for three very good reasons: The team members are aware of what to expect in the near future, they know what they need to work every step of the way, and, last but not least, everyone should keep their eyes on the deadlines, so they won’t get missed.
- Agree on content sharing and promotion. Business partners should fully agree upon every single piece of content used during the campaign, from blog posts, social media, videos, to the details of their joint events.
- Measure and track results. Teams should agree from the start upon the key metrics of the co-marketing campaign, such as website traffic, lead generation, conversions, and customer engagement.
The benefits of co-marketing campaigns
- Larger audience exposure. Your content or brand details will be shared to both your audience and your brand partner’s, which translates into a stronger brand exposure compared to anything you could have done on your own.
- Increased brand awareness & trust. If prospects trust the brand you partner with, there are great chances they might begin to trust you as well following co-marketing campaigns promoting your name, logo, content, services and products. One notable example would be the Apple and Mastercard partnership when the Apple Pay service was launched.
- Cost-effective campaigns. When teaming up with another company, you might be able to split the costs regarding time, production and implementation, a strategy which saves a lot of money. Also, when small brands with strong social media presence join forces with bigger brands, the former might be able to have a larger budget for the campaigns, while the latter could be able to leverage a niche audience.
- Enhanced sales. Good co-marketing campaigns usually lead to more sales for both partners, because most stats show that this type of strategy translates into more relevant and consonant offers, promotions, or bundled products/services.
- Opportunity for innovation. Finally, as co-marketing campaigns often involve both the creation of new content, products, or services and the collaboration between skilled teams from different companies, brands are usually more likely to be open to explore new ideas, strategies, and market segments. Two fascinating examples would be the Spotify and Uber partnership, where passengers had the option to create custom playlists for their rides, and the Starbucks and Spotify parntnership, where customers were allowed to discover and save songs played in Starbucks stores.
Where to get co-marketing campaign support?
Co-marketing looks like solving a jigsaw puzzle with hundreds of small pieces together with hyperactive teenagers, doesn’t it? It could be much worse if the partners don’t share similar values and don’t carefully plan all the details in advance.
This is where an experienced agency like Macro can prove beneficial. With Macro, you’ll get:
- Strategic support to easier identify and plan your business objectives,
- In-depth assistance regarding the specific marketing activities you’ll run
- Data-driven follow-up campaigns
Talk to us today at Macro and let’s get your next co-marketing campaign started!