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Partnerships can be very important to startups or small businesses looking to grow. When two companies come together they can expand their reach, offerings, content and message to a wider audience. Partnerships can also increase profits with revenue sharing. When your business sends traffic to the partner, you get a portion of their revenue.
There are many different types of partnerships: cross-marketing partnerships, product collaborations, brand partnerships, influencers, and more. If you are wanting to grow your audience, you may want to consider cross-marketing, brand and influencer partnerships. Influencers can cost a bit of money, but they are not called influencers for nothing.
When looking at cross-marketing and brand partnerships with other businesses, you will want to at partners that share the same target audience as you or have the audience you are looking to reach. You will want the partner company to have the similar values, goals and objectives.
A partnership is a relationship. Like all relationships there are things that will need to be communicated and consider before entering into a partnership. Like what are you looking to get out of the partnership, what will you need to give towards the partnership, will there be revenue sharing involved, how with the two companies work together, how will decisions be made, etc.
At eShipGlobal, one of our biggest audience is international students and international student advisors. Over the summer we launched a new initiative, UEMSConnect, to help build a closer relationship with our audience. One of the ways we are looking to grow this community is through partnerships.
When looking at partners, we look at what services and products they are providing and if they can help our audience. Our partners have the same audience as we do, or they are looking at reaching our audience. We have several different types of partnerships and are looking to grow our partnership program to include more services/products.
One aspect of our partnership program is cross-marketing and content sharing. Our partners are highlighted on newsletters, our website, and through various marketing promotions. We are also included in some of our partners marketing efforts. In addition to cross marketing, we share content. We allow our partners to produce guest blogs and we write guest blogs for them as well. We also have exclusive content and offers that are provided to our users and theirs.
Our partnership program is new and still growing, but the possibilities that are open when two companies work together are amazing. If you are looking at growing your startup or small business, you may want to consider partnering with another company. After all, they say two heads are better than one.
By Ashleigh Cue
