How To Attract The Perfect Partners
You’ve got a great product or service. You know who you want to work with to help you generate leads, and you’re certain they’re the right type of strategic partner. You’ve also got all the systems, processes, and materials ready to support them when they come on board.
So now it’s just a case of going out there and getting them.
But it’s where many people fall down. Often due to poor targeting of potential partners, and more often than not because you haven’t positioned the opportunity in the right way.
I’ll take you through some top tips to help you overcome this, so you’re never having to sell a collaboration again.
A Couple of Fundamentals
The Real Why
Positioning is everything. In all your marketing, be it in person, digital, print, make it clear to them that you’re looking to work WITH them, for the benefit of them and their audience, rather than just trying to get access to their data base to sell to it.
The ‘real why’ is the value you add to them outside of whatever commercial reward you may provide as an incentive. It’s something many businesses fail to focus on, to their peril.
Whilst the commercial piece is normally essential, the real why is what will inspire your perfect partners to want to work with you.
Trust
Concentrate on building the relationship, and forming trust. A great way of doing this is if you can show social proof. Case studies and testimonials from both clients, and other partners, can prove invaluable here – and even better if the clients match their audience and the partners are of a similar sector to them.
And be yourself. Partnerships should be founded on honesty.
Partner Marketing Materials
However you come across a new potential partner, there’s a good chance they will want to see some more information about who you are, what you do, and how you do it. Make it easy for them to do this!
Website
The first port of call many potential partners will have of you (other than the communication, that drives them there) is your website. Make sure you have a clearly signposted page for potential partners on your website.
A good partner page should do the following:
· Make it easy for partners to get in touch
· Paint a story of value to their audience
· Tap into the Real Why of why they would want to work with you
· Highlight why you’re the ideal partner
· Show your values and why you do what you do
· Reference the rewards available
· Highlight the support you provide to your partners
· Demonstrate social proof of partners like them that are getting value from working with you
It should also be completely congruent with your brand. If a prospect gets one impression from your website, but the experience is something completely different (or visa versa) you’ve created an immediate diss-connect, the opposite of what we’re looking to achieve when building trust.
Partner Brochures
So many organisations fall into the trap of sending potential partners their standard company brochure. It goes into great depth about the service you offer, and why you’re a great company. This is all useful stuff, but it falls very much into the ‘what’s in it for me?’ category of misplaced marketing if it’s all you send.
A partner brochure (like any partner marketing material) should focus much less on the technicalities of you and your service. And much more on the partnership benefits themselves.
· What’s the problem you’re solving for them. The Real Why.
· Why can you do this better than someone else
· How will you treat their customers and what type of results will you get for them
· What level of support can they expect to receive from you
· Just how easy is it working with you
· Who else just like them has been benefiting from a partnership with you
Outbound Content
When reaching out to potential partners the formats are as endless as when your marketing your own service directly.
Digital or print, calls or emails, letters & direct mail, social media, SEO and paid adds, referrals and recommendations or even IN PERSON! (remember that!)
The same rules apply here as they do for the static materials mentioned above. Keep it congruent with your brand and focus on the real why. The value that you can deliver to them and their audience. And, where possible, provide some social proof of that.
The important thing to remember is to test and measure and see which channels give you the best return on your time and money.
A good place to start can be to look at how they themselves typically market and mirror that.
Niching your content
To get the best results from your marketing content you need to make it as specific as possible. If you’re approaching people in different target sectors then it makes sense to provide tailored materials.
But this isn’t as scary as it sounds. The template remains the same, you may just need to tweak your tone, imagery, quoted figures or case studies & testimony
Where to Find Your Partners
Right, you’ve got that sorted – just need to get this stuff in front of them now and start having some conversations. So where are you looking?
A good place to start is to spend some time brainstorming where your potential partners hangout. Where can they be easily found in an environment where it’s appropriate to engage with them.
· Your own network – be it your company database, your LinkedIn or other social networks, groups and associations you’re a part of, or just people you know or meet going about your business. It can be all too easy to overlook what’s right under our nose and not leverage it effectively
· Social Media – can you pro-actively look to start connecting with your prospects? Are their groups they’re a part of where you can go and demonstrate value to build relationships
· Are their groups, events, or other membership organisations & clubs where they often congregate? If it’s appropriate for you to be a part of those as well then, I would suggest doing so!
· Publications (on and offline) – are there places you can get your content featured that may spark inbound enquiries
Referrals
Only a small percentage of your own audience is likely to be your target market for a partnership. However, it’s a reasonable assumption that many more of them will know of people who are.
If you’re already asking your network for referrals for clients, why not try mixing it up and looking for introductions for partners.
This often produces better results as people feel more comfortable passing on the information of someone when there isn’t going to be a sales pitch involved!
It’s a great strategy for using at events as well.
Partners for partners
You can take this step further and look at people like associations, events, or publications where they have a high percentage of your prospects and see if there’s a way you can work with them.
The same partnership rules apply. What’s the real why? How can you add value to their audience in a way that makes them look great or solves a problem, and at the same time allows you to start building relationships?
So, there’s some of my top tips for engaging with potential strategic partners.
If you’d like to know more about this, or any of the essential stages mentioned right at the top of the article, then please get in touch.