Did you know every dollar you spend at Starbucks can earn you Delta SkyMiles? Have you ever wished you could listen to the music played in your favorite Starbucks and then discovered the Starbucks Playlist on Spotify? Maybe you checked into a Marriott and discovered you can combine your Marriot Bonvoy account with Starbucks to double up on points for your hotels and your lattes.
There’s a reason Starbucks touches more than your tastebuds. This is a company that has mastered co-marketing!
Whether your marketing budget is large or small, co-marketing opportunities can be a major win. Let’s take a closer look at the practice now.
What Is Co-Marketing?
Co-marketing is a collaborative strategy where two or more companies partner to promote each other’s products or services through joint marketing efforts. By sharing resources, audiences, and expertise, both companies can expand their reach and increase brand visibility without bearing the full cost of a campaign.
Co-marketing often involves creating joint content, running events, or offering bundled deals, providing value to both brands and their shared audience. It’s a win-win approach that helps businesses tap into new customer bases while strengthening partnerships.
Selecting the Partner of Your Dreams
Tinder dates at Starbucks might have you wishing you could dissolve as fast as the whipped topping on your piping hot drink, but selecting a co-marketing partner is SO much easier. After all, you’re not looking to settle down and move to the suburbs with your business partners. And the risk of starring as the topic of interest in a true crime podcast is much, much lower.
Entering into a business partnership for co-marketing campaigns means you’re ready to work with a brand, business, or organization that can be mutually beneficial to your overall goals. When you think about what co-marketing could look like, it’s important to ask yourself impactful questions, do some research, and approach your options pragmatically.
Consider the following 7 steps to finding your co-marketing companion:
STEP 1: Decide: What are your goals? What do you want to achieve through the co-marketing opportunity?
STEP 2: Look for a partner with an audience complementary to your existing audience. One that is full of a lot of the same needs and pain points, but not currently aware of how they can benefit from your product or service.
STEP 3: Determine your core values and the core values you want in a potential partner. Look for someone you can work with for the long haul.
STEP 4: If you have a partner in mind, dig deep to determine if there are any skeletons in their closet that could impact your product or service negatively. (Or have you become a topic on a true crime podcast, after all, we alluded to the fact that there was minimal risk, not zero risk). Reputation is important and you don’t want to bring in anything that could cause more damage than it is worth.
STEP 5: Consider your potential partners’ products and services. Will they enhance your own? How will the offerings work together? Will it open up a new set of customers or opportunities? Is there room for growth for both you and your partner?
STEP 6: Take a peek at your would-be partner’s social media. See if their audience is engaged with the product, service, or brand you want to work with. Determine if you can leverage a partner’s social media audience to elevate your own.
STEP 7: Gut-check the vibes. If you’ve established your tone and how you talk to your audience, your potential partner should have an audience that will easily relate to your tone and find value in what you’re offering.
According to data aggregated by AI from marketing experts on LinkedIn, if you can answer the questions above, you’re ready to move forward with your partner of choice. Just remember to always come back and analyze effectiveness, lest you end up with a Kendall Jenner and Pepsi situation to back away from.
Taking the Next Step
Found someone you want to move forward with? Reach out!
Schedule some time to get together online or in person and see if the chemistry is right for a campaign. It’s almost always far less awkward than meeting someone you might want to cohabitate with. Plus, it can result in super-successful co-marketing activities!
In these early talks (if they’re looking promising), it can help to align on a strategic vision. According to an article from Allbound, when done well, a co-marketing partnership exemplifies the following:
Strategic alignment: All entities in the co-marketing opportunity must have clear-cut goals and objectives that are understood by those involved. These goals could be brand awareness, increasing sales, or entering into new markets.
Brand synergy: All messaging relating to the co-marketing opportunity should align with the voice, tone, and messaging used by the entities involved to ensure consistency.
Creativity: With a co-marketing opportunity, feel free to get creative and come up with a product, special event, or content series to engage the audience.
Clear value propositions: Make sure the customers know what’s in it for them; why the partnership adds value to their lives. For instance, with Starbucks and Delta’s partnership, frequent flyers receive additional miles for each dollar spent with Starbucks, which allows for them to benefit off of something they were purchasing anyway.
It’s a Match! Moving Forward With Your Partner
Once you have your partner and you’re aligned on your goals, it is time to start your first campaign!
To ensure your first venture into the co-marketing campaign world is a success, make sure you have:
Effective communication: Make sure roles are defined to ensure all areas of the campaign are covered.
Multi-channel marketing opportunities: Social media, in-store promotions, events, websites - these are all ways to maximize reach and engagement. Use the channels of your partner (and vice versa) to ensure you’re reaching a wider audience through diverse touchpoints.
Clear measurement and analysis expectations: Understand what success looks like for you and your partner, and be sure to analyze what the metrics are telling you.
Customer engagement and interaction: Proactively seek out customer feedback and engagements by providing them with opportunities to fill out surveys, attend live events, or participate in contests. You will want to hear from your customers to strengthen relationships and ultimately build brand loyalty.
By aligning with your partner on these steps, your co-marketing campaign is ready to begin.
If you want additional help with moving forward, reach out to our team. We can help set you on your way.
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