When I started my first online business, The Baby Diaries, I literally made every mistake in the book (plus a few new ones). One of those mistakes was paying for “hope” marketing such as print advertising. I even paid for the inside cover of a magazine… and guess how many sales that advert converted to? ZERO. Finally after lots of trial and error I came up with what I call the “6 ingredients to shine”. These business ingredients are essentially the difference between having a business that was going nowhere fast, and a company that is now doing multi 6 figure deals with national retailers and looking to expand globally.
One of those ingredients is the BEST marketing strategy I’ve used in over 25 years of business. In fact by using this strategy alone, and spending nothing on advertising, or anything at all except a small amount of my time, this strategy had The Baby Diaries promoted to 1 million of my ideal customers and my sales increased by over 400%.
So what is this magic pill? Partnership Marketing!
Simone Novello of Partner2Grow is a partnerships guru. She reports that there are 10 types of marketing partnership strategies. Today I’m going into detail about the 3 strategies I used to get in front of those 1 million customers. Once you’ve finished reading this you’ll be ready to start getting some simple partnership wins under your business belt as well.
1. CONTENT partnerships – where one partner provides content such as blogs, how-to videos, articles, chapters that would be of value to the other partner’s customer base. An example is my partnership with BornOnline. They provided expert blog content that I distributed to my database providing great value. In return BornOnline received exposure to my database. Added value is that I’m having my blogs written for free, and BornOnline also shared the blogs, with links to my app to their database. Win Win!
2. BENEFIT partnership – examples include my partnerships with Bubba Bags Nappy Bags and Mum2Be Hospital Bags. I promoted their products to my database via promotions, prizes and discounts, and they promoted my App via social media and by placing my brochure, which is the same size and shape as an iPhone, into every bag sold. Win Win!
3. CO-MARKETING – this is simply where each business promotes the other business to their database. I was fortunate to secure Gymbaroo for this type of partnership. They promoted my app to their 500,000 mums and I promoted their new online program to my database. Win Win!
Each of these marketing partnerships had a few things in common. First they were all equitable. I didn’t go cap in hand, even to Gymbaroo who are a global company.
Another commonality was that The Baby Diaries shares the same ideal customer as each of my partners. The App is recommended from pre-birth to 2+ years. So not only could I have the App in front of my ideal customer at the exact time that they need it through partnerships, the App was recommended to my ideal customer from someone else that they already know, like and trust.
Another partnership you may see a lot is the Affiliate Partnership. This model will see one partner promoting or selling the other partners product or service (such as an online course) to their database, usually in return for a commission. Both parties receive revenue, but, if you’re the partner with the product/service, having your offering promoted by your marketing partner to their well-established database is like a form of testimonial.
There is no other system that I’m aware of that would provide this level of exposure with this level of impact without spending a cent. This is why I get really excited at the potential that marketing partnerships have to change your business almost overnight.
Getting Partner-ready is essential. First you need to be clear on your ideal customer. It’s also important to understand what stage of growth your business is at. For example as a start-up you may have a small database and social media following. So perhaps a partner to help you reach a larger audience quickly is valuable. Then once you’re up and running you may want to maximise your exposure via larger partners. Or your strategies could become more sophisticated and include things like co-branding or white labelling.
The best place to start is by writing down all of the businesses you can think of who are providing products, services and apps to your ideal customer at the same time, or just prior to, the customer needing you. Then circle any of these who you already know, or who you have a connection with. You now have your list of potential partners!
If you’d like to learn more about Partnerships and how they can transform your business, I encourage you to do what I did and download the free Partnership System from Simone at Partner2Grow.
Have a wonderful month!
Tara x
About our Ausmumpreneur Expert :
Tara O’Connell is creator of the globally successful App “The Baby Diaries”, now downloaded on every Continent in 15 languages; and creator of her signature training program “6 Steps to Shine Online” where she helps female business owners to achieve and enjoy online success. Tara is an award winning entrepreneur, author, speaker and CEO at Tara-OConnell.com where she inspires and empowers female entrepreneurs around the world to take action and achieve business success.
