A company can use brand partnerships to grow awareness to their business or causes they support. Either way, brand partnerships are a crucial way to demonstrate your company's values and influence on the world. So how do you make sure you're creating super successful relationships for your brand?
1) Choosing The Right Brands To Partner With.
Having a list full of contacts is one thing but having the right relationships for your specific purpose is another. When you're considering a partnership with another business, make sure your company values align in a way that works. Don't waste you time trying to find relevance in a company just because you have someones contact. Do your research and make a list of companies that would be AMAZING partners. Find partners that can actually help you achieve your goals, whatever they may be. Decide how they can help you, figure out what value you can offer them and then make a top 10 list of the most sensible brands to partner with. Start pursuing your top 10 list and focus hard on getting those partnerships before moving forward. Gigantic un-targeted lists never helped anyone.
2) Understanding Your Goals And How To Achieve Them, Together
When approaching your partner prospects, you have to understand their business and why it would make sense for them to partner with you. You also have to understand that you don't know everything about your prospects business or goals. By doing your research ahead of time you can develop good questions (see my article on good questions here) and get answers to things you can't find online. Take calls and meetings as an opportunity to learn from your prospect and develop trust. Think about why your prospect would want to engage with you and your company and find out if your suspicious are correct.
It's not easy to come up with the perfect partnership, it does take time. Understand that people hate wasting time, so make each meeting count. This whole process is a negotiation and both parties must satisfy some sort of need. Be flexible and learn to develop the perfect partnership together with your prospect. Make sure to listen carefully to your prospect, they might reveal information that could lead to a better partnership than you originally imagined.
3) Keeping Relationships Fresh And Relevant
Once both parties have agreed to partner the real work begins. Maintaining the partner relationship is might be more challenging than gaining the partner in the first place. Launching your first campaign together with be a lot of work. You'll get to know each other very well and you'll have to understand how to best work together. Just remember, when things get tough, your partner will appreciate a positive attitude. The real challenge will be maintaining creativity and motivation and developing not just one but multiple unique and engaging partnership campaigns. Working with you partners, motivating them and surpassing your goals can lead to amazing results for everyone. Plus it will keep your partners close and coming back for more.
By choosing the right partners, understanding common goals and working together to stay creative, you can create a win win situation for everyone involved. Your own brand values will become clear and well defined and your brand will influence will grow stronger.
Creating and maintaining solid business relationships, no matter what industry you're in, can be tricky. Stay tuned for more articles related to sales, marketing and retention. Please Like, Comment and Share!
This article was written by Quintin Ford, a recruitment entrepreneur located in Playa Vista, CA. Quintin is the Founder of OCEAN | STREET and avid blogger and social media guru. Learn more about Quintin on LinkedIn.
