How to partner with other businesses | 5 ways you can create strategic alliances that can benefit your business

Are you seeing lots of cool collaborations between brands you love and wondering how you can make something similar happen with your own business? We can help you with that. Here, we’ve got our top 5 ways to effectively partner with other businesses.

Peanut butter & jelly, rhubarb & custard, rosemary & thyme – some things just go together for the betterment of all involved, and the same can be true in business (and if they don’t already, you can manufacture it).

By forming strategic partnerships and facilitating joint promotional campaigns with the right brands, you and other like-minded entrepreneurs and decision makers can help each other grow your businesses.

1. Make a list of businesses it would make sense to partner with

If your business has never partnered with another brand before, the first step is to identify potential partners to approach.

Create a list of businesses whose products and services, as well as their values, align with your own. They can range from brands making complementary products, to those who cater to a slightly different audience that can benefit from your offerings.

When compiling your database of businesses to approach, you should also research decision-makers’ contact information to ensure your pitch reaches the right person.

Pro tip: You’re not looking for a prom date or asking someone to marry you. You can partner with more than one brand.

Don’t slow down your process of collaborating by pitching to one business at a time. Business is fast-paced, and a lot of leaders, much like yourself, will have their immediate attention invested across 3 or 4 major battlefronts at any given moment of the day.

2. Write a pitch email and put across how you can help them and how they can help you (the order of those is important)

You run your own business, or you’re a leader, a decision maker, or an intrapreneur within a business, so craft the kind of clear and concise pitch email that would get your attention. While it’s important to highlight the mutual benefit, which is to say, why you want to do it, you need to lead with what benefit they’ll get from the arrangement.

You need to spell it out. There really are no marks for subtlety or artistic nuance when you’re trying to highlight the value your organisation brings to the table and how collaboration can be mutually beneficial.

At the end of your email, suggest a meeting, either in person or over a video call, to discuss ideas further, showing your interest and readiness to take the partnership forward.

If you don’t receive an immediate response, follow up politely after a week or 2 to stay on their radar.

Pro tip: If you’re a plucky start up looking to partner with a big brand, don’t expect the bigger business to operate at the same pace or with the same agility you can – they have more moving parts – don’t be discouraged if you’re waiting a little while. Factor in a little more waiting time before sending your follow up email too.

3. Generate leads for strategic partnerships by hosting booths at industry events

Participating in relevant industry events is a great way to network and connect with potential partner brands. Gamification can come into play in a big way to make your booth memorable, create a positive first impression, and gather valuable contact information.

Why does gamification lend itself so spectacularly to industry events? Because it’s speaking a universal language. Take away all the pomp, branding and ceremony from an industry event and what do you have? A bunch of people in a working capacity with differing agendas all trying to play the room. Let’s be real: it’s kind of awkward.

Now say you’re coming in with a gamified booth, you’ve got a branded game of Pacman people can play on a terminal, and a leaderboard above your stand with the top 20 players. First and foremost, it draws people’s attention and is an immediate icebreaker. The leaderboard aspect also encourages people to come back and play again if they’re knocked off the leaderboard, giving you another chance to make conversation and talk about your business. Finally, with a data collection form, you can collect names and email addresses from every person who plays, as well as details about where they work and what industry they’re in.

4. Think through how to make the most of collaborations, particularly when they’re seasonal or limited to a single campaign

It’s imperative that you maximise the impact of seasonal or one-time collaborations through careful planning. If one collaboration is successful, it can open the door to future opportunities, and may attract other brands to approach you.

For example, let’s say you’re a sports watch company with models that offer music playback, and you partner with a headphone brand on their line of bluetooth headphones for active use. You could collaborate by supporting retailers to offer perfect partner discounts, and even do product demos at gyms, spin studios, and run clubs. The potential traction and brand awareness that could generate could keep the door open for future collaborations, and could also encourage other brands offering complementary products to reach out to you to do similar collaborative campaigns.

Pro tip: After you’ve done a couple of successful collaborations, more brands may start to pitch to you as you could get a reputation as a brand with a marketing blueprint they can benefit from.

When you’re in this position, it’s important to consider how each collaboration contributes to your business’s overall growth, and regularly tailor your approach for continued success. When chasing collaborators, you have to cast your net wide, but when fielding pitches, you need to be selective and only go forward with the projects that give the most significant return on investment. While you can collaborate with more than one partner, it’s entirely possible to overdo it.

5. Carefully measure the impact of partnerships on your business to identify ideal collaborator profiles

It’s important to understand the goals of each partnership. Sometimes it’ll be to enhance the customer experience, sometimes it’ll be to generate brand awareness, and sometimes it’ll all be about driving revenue. It’s also important to remember that two partners on the same project could have entirely different objectives.

For example, consider an up and coming tonic brand getting to be an official partner of a gin brand owned by a huge conglomerate at a big event. For the up and coming tonic brand, it’s all about raising awareness, being seen, and being remembered. For the gin brand, everyone already knows who they are, so it’s about having the complimentary product on tap to facilitate the customer experience.

Pro tip: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) in the development stages of each project so you can track how effective each collaboration is.

You can then use this data to refine your approach, determine an ideal partner brand profile, and find ideal collaborators.

Key takeaway

Partnering with other brands on limited edition products and promotional campaigns is a great way to help your business in multiple ways. The key lies in a combination of effective communication, and appreciating that you’re playing a numbers game.

You might be able to envision the perfect collaboration with a complimentary brand that you really admire, have a dead-cert idea of the upside for both businesses, but find their key decision maker completely blind to your vision – you may have to knock on a few doors before you find the holy trifecta of vision, upsides, and a simpatico decision maker behind the wheel.

The 5 strategies listed here are actionable for any business, regardless of size or sector, and are perfect starting points when looking for the first collaboration.