Embracing Partner Marketing To Drive Results
By Cory Treffiletti
, Featured Contributor, mediapost
There’s an often-overlooked tool in your toolbox, an element that can
bring massive returns when executed correctly: partner marketing.
Marketers
fail to make use of this tool
for two reasons. First, it’s a long play. Partner marketing requires
an investment of time before it bears fruit. Second, it’s hard and
requires focus. Partner
marketing is like native advertising, where you have to learn about the
channels at your disposal and customize approaches for each one.
Though many companies have varying definitions
for what a partner is, in my view it’s either:
-- A corporate partner, ranging from investment to distribution.
-- A sponsorship partner, or someone you are specifically spending money with.
-- An execution partner, ranging from your agency (and its holding company) to law firms, and more.
-- A channel partner, who becomes an avenue for you to distribute your product or service.
-- A sponsorship partner, or someone you are specifically spending money with.
-- An execution partner, ranging from your agency (and its holding company) to law firms, and more.
-- A channel partner, who becomes an avenue for you to distribute your product or service.
Your definition also depends on whether your partners have
subsegments that also may be valuable customers. In my case I am a B2B
marketer, but I take a consumerized
approach. I am selling a tool used for meetings, and every company we
are involved with has meetings. Not only do I want to reach the
customers of my partners, but also the employees in these
same companies, because they are our target audience, too.
In
the case of a CPG brand — maybe someone selling a new snack bar — your
partners are also your customers.
If you work with a large holding company agency, that holding company
has up to 4,000 employees, each of whom snack and are your target
audience.
Recognizing these partners as channels to
reach customers is one step, but the hardest step is understanding what
to do to speak to them. This is where your partner marketing has to be
less prescriptive and more descriptive. You
need to engage your partners and understand the mutual value you offer.
How
can your product be positioned contextually and authentically to the
customers and employees of these
partners you work with, without seeming to take advantage of the
relationship? For example, is it unethical to negotiate upfront with
an agency to say that in order to win your business,
they have to buy x amount of your product over the course of a year?
The CPG company mentioned before could not have an agency buy 5,000
cases of its energy bar in exchange for the contract as
AOR. That would be unethical.
However, once you’ve chosen an
agency, it’s certainly fair to ask, “How can we expose your employees to
our energy bar and see what
they think?” Or, “Can we set up a tasting for our bar and provide you
with some samples for your offices over the course of the year?” This
is logical and actually in place
with many agencies. Just look at the agency relationships for Coca-Cola
or Pepsi: What beverage do you think they have on site and in their
refrigerators?
Sometimes partner marketing is
about volume and broad messaging, but other times it’s about sparking
the flame of viral marketing. Taste tests and spreading the word about a
product through the hallways of your partners
can be just as valuable as seeding content online or pushing messaging
out through social. In fact, you can tie the two together and probably
get even more bang for the proverbial buck.
Is your team overlooking partner marketing, or are you simply
offering a “Chinese menu” of options for them to choose from? That menu
can only take you so far. You
have to find time to dive in deeper, working with your partners to come
up with ideas that would be interesting for both parties.
If you
take the time, allocate the resources, and enter
the relationship from a more descriptive perspective upfront rather than
a prescriptive approach that only focuses on certain elements, I think
you’ll find significantly more success in the long
run.
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