From the tech geekery of DreamForce to the alpacas of Outdoor Retailer—from Farm Progress in Illinois to Event Track in San Francisco—we’ve been to some cool conferences in our time. And our next stop on the conference circuit was Content Marketing World. You may have heard about this, because it dominated the Twitterverse for a solid week (#CMWorld). The annual conference is a coming together of content marketing wizards looking to share what they know and learn more. And what we learned is that there’s a lot of benefit to partnering up (“co-marketing,” as it were).
One of the sessions that we felt was emblematic of the conference as a whole was Lisa Toner’s on leveraging marketing relationships. Here’s what we gathered.
Why partner up?
“Relationship marketing is when two entities join forces to create marketing that’s targeted to their mutual audience in order to achieve their respective goals.” For instance, HubSpot co-branded and co-promoted eBooks with LinkedIn, Twitter, and EventBrite, and they wound up generating three times’ as many leads. I guess the question becomes, well, why not partner up?
So how do you find the right partner?
Research, research, research. And when you’re perusing LinkedIn, Follerwonk, and Buzzsumo, rank potential partners in terms of:
- Reach
- Resonance
- Relevance
Once you’ve found the right partner, what happens next?
Good old-fashioned outreach. That’s what happens next. Send an email, introduce yourself, tell them what you’re thinking, and invite them to discuss the matter further over the phone. Be sure to include some idea or example of what’s in it for them. Once you’ve sealed the partnership deal, execute the campaign. Success! High-fives all around! Don’t forget to include them in your other campaigns, share their content, and invite them to guest post. This keeps the relationship up and running so you can collaborate on future ventures.
Thanks again to Lisa Toner for gifting us with these gems of wisdom! Check out the slides from the session here.