How Marketing Partnerships Drive Content Strategy

Partner marketing is a fast-growing marketing tactic that drives content strategy and shows customers the authenticity that they desire from brands they love. When two companies cultivate a genuine relationship and use data to produce fresh, relevant content that is valuable to both audiences, everybody wins. 

Looking ahead to the future of content marketing, it's clear that building trust with your audience, genuinely engaging with them, and using data to guide content creation will be the foundation of success.

Let's explore what makes a winning content strategy and how you can use partner marketing to strengthen yours.

What is Content Strategy?

Content strategy is the continuous process of creating a plan from business objectives and goals using content as the principal means of attaining those goals. Your strategy must build up from a base of objectives and goals specific to your business. Otherwise, it will fail. Part of creating valuable content is establishing what forms of content will resonate best with your audience. 

Content marketing strategy doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's so much more than producing well-written content on a regular basis. It's meant to guide the formation, distribution, and continued tracking of relevant, engaging content that gains customers' trust and keeps them coming back for more. 

What is Partnership Marketing?

In the simplest terms, partnership marketing means coming together with another business to collaborate on a new marketing campaign that benefits everyone. This marketing tactic has skyrocketed in recent years. In fact, according to a study done by Partnerize, 54% of companies report that partnerships drive over 20% of their total revenue. 

Types of Partnership Marketing

There are several methods, but the two most common and effective are:

• Affiliate Marketing: This form of digital marketing is a collaboration between brands and publishers. The publishers promote products and services to their audience, giving brands access to new customers. Agencies are continually growing their access to relevant publishers and affiliates to foster increased brand exposure. 

• Distribution Partnership: This method allows partners to bundle their products or services and cross-market each other's products. The value of a trusted brand marketing a new product to their loyal customers is unmatched. It turns out, brand-loyalty can be a transitive property. 

What to Look for in a Marketing Partner

Partnership marketing has become especially effective for social media marketing, where it is difficult to break into new markets because users get to curate their own content. Marketing partnerships allow you to put your product in front of an entirely new audience, which means you need to think very carefully and strategically about who to partner with. Here are three key things to consider when selecting a partner:

1. Non-Competitor

At the very least, your partner shouldn't be a direct competitor. Instead, they should compliment you. Some examples of excellent complimentary marketing partners include:

Vox and Spotify

National Geographic and Tourism New Zealand

HubSpot and Chatfuel

2. Overlapping Audience

Make sure there is plenty of overlap between your target audiences and how you reach them. Choose a partner who reaches an audience similar but slightly different from yours, and you're more likely to expose your brand to a new but still receptive audience. There also needs to be overlap in how you reach your audiences. Both parties will benefit if their audiences prefer similar forms of social media and content. 

3. What Drives the Partnership?

Similar to content marketing strategy, a strategic marketing partnership is built on concrete, actionable objectives and goals that guide the entire process. Do you want to attract a new audience? Increase time spent on your site? Drive new sales? Seek out a partner who can help you achieve your goals and you theirs. Create a framework for what you want to achieve together and establish expectations and accountability protocols for transparency. 

4 Ways Marketing Partnerships Drive Content Strategy

There are many factors external to content strategy that can propel it forward, and marketing partnerships have proven to be a winning approach. Whether your goals focus on cost-savings, business growth, sales, or anything else, partnerships are an effective way to supplement a successful strategy. The following list outlines four ways a marketing partnership will advance your content strategy:

Broaden Your Audience

Partnerships give you the opportunity to connect with a whole new audience that may be interested in your products or services, creating the potential for an influx in new, loyal customers. As your content reaches new audiences and buyer personas, you gain new insights that can be used in future marketing campaigns, strengthening your future content strategy. 

Co-Branded Content

Co-creating an original marketing campaign with entirely new content allows both businesses to share exposure, credibility, and brand affinity. Fresh content created alongside a trusted, authoritative partner can increase your content's relevance and authority, which increases customer trust and loyalty. Providing your audience with valuable content is a foundational piece of content strategy. 

Build Brand Identity

Marketing partnerships boost brand identity and positive brand association, especially when small brands partner with well-recognized brands. Well-known brands can also gain the attention of the smaller brands' niche audience that they may not have been able to access alone. A strong brand identity is necessary for a brand's survival in today's economy and required to build an effective content strategy.

Stretch Your Advertising Budget

According to studies from PartnerPath, 84% of vendors with brand partners offer them money for co-marketing expenses, and 30% of vendors offer co-marketing reimbursement if their brand partner can prove ROI. When you partner with another brand, top-notch content that drives your strategy will come at a lower cost. The money you save can be used to reach other strategic goals. 

Boost Your Content Strategy

Partnership marketing builds strong relationships that benefit both partners and inspire audiences. While partnership marketing is a great way to drive content strategy, if you're still trying to create your brand identity and content strategy, you're probably not ready to engage this tactic. At JBD, content strategy and brand consulting are our specialties. Visit our website to learn how content strategy can unlock your business's potential.