Partnership marketing is a strategic collaboration between two or more businesses or organizations to reach mutually beneficial marketing goals. These beneficial goals often include:
- Building brand awareness
- Generating leads
- Increasing sales
- Expanding into new markets
- Reaching a new audience
- Improving customer loyalty
Partnership marketing can be a powerful way to achieve these goals because it allows businesses to leverage each other’s strengths and resources to accomplish them. For example, one business might have a stronger brand and a larger following, while another business might have a unique product or service that is popular or in high demand. By working together, businesses can reach a wider audience and achieve their marketing goals more quickly and easily.
There are as many ways a company can partner with another company. Most companies begin their partner marketing efforts by collaborating with a keystone partner. A keystone partner in partnership marketing is often referred to as an influencer. It’s a large, well-established business or publisher with a large following or audience. These types of partners can be a valuable asset to smaller businesses because they can help to reach a wider audience and generate more leads.
Loyalty communities are another popular choice to partner with. Loyalty communities are a type of partnership marketing that involves two or more businesses collaborating to create a community for their shared customers. These communities can be either online or offline and can be used to promote products and services, share information, and build relationships with customers.
B2B partnerships are increasingly popular for companies trying to drive sales with small and medium-sized businesses. B2B partnerships are a type of partnership marketing that involves two or more businesses collaborating to promote each other’s products or services to their respective target audiences. These partnerships can be a great way to reach new customers, increase brand awareness, and generate leads.
And there are what we call transformational partners. Transformational partners in partnership marketing are brands that bring something unique to the partnership that can transform your company’s go-to-market strategy. These partners are often not companies you might immediately suspect as being focused on lots of partnerships. They may be from different industries or target audiences, but they have something that can offer your company a significant advantage.
Why Consider the Partnership Marketing Channel?
Did you know the partnership channel accounts for roughly 16% of all ecommerce sales? It’s true. Perhaps this can be partly attributed to the fact that there is no other digital channel quite like it. Partnership offers a wide publisher reach and distribution making it easier than ever to build profitable partnerships that help supply efficient ROI and ROAS. And since partnership is all about creating connections and building on these mutually profitable relationships, there is a strong desire for publishers and influencers to protect brand integrity.
Additionally, our latest Partnership Growth Index research found that there was a 70% average revenue increase year over year from the partnership marketing channel.
Partnership Marketing Clarifying Complexities
Partnership remains a somewhat of misunderstood marketing channel. Partnership marketing can clarify complexities. With a deep understanding of what the modern marketer needs, we’ve reconfigured performance, elevating the channel in ways no legacy provider can. We provide marketers with the software and service practice that enables them to deliver on their brand and their performance marketing objectives—all while driving profitable growth via unparalleled automation and data analytics.
Successful eCommerce Partnership Marketing Case Studies
Many CMOs are now taking advantage of the partnership channel to increase customer acquisition and improve their ROAS. Here are two examples of brands who gave partnership marketing a seat at the CMO’s table when they started working with Partnerize:
SurfStitch
- Increased partnership marketing revenue by 19% YoY.
- Implemented successful brand partnerships with Hawaiian Air and Surfbox.
- Increased ROAS to 17:1.
- Focused on high-value partners, increasing AOV by 17%.
Emirates
- Increased partnership marketing sales by 118%.
- Centralized tracking and report to benefit from data-driven insights.
- 270% increase in transaction volume.
- Implemented individual commissioning tactics to incentivize partners to sell target routes, generating 190% more revenue vs previous launches.
Marketers deserve the best from their partnerships in a brand-safe, high-engagement environment and it is for all these reasons that the partnership channel can confidently take its seat at the CMO’s table delivering on trust, transparency and ROI value—hallmarks of every effective marketing strategy. It’s time to turn your partnership channel into a profit center.
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