I currently work at an organisation that provides embedded insurance services to businesses. Put simply, this means we give tech companies the tools to provide and access insurance within their products.
In the first week at my new job, I was approached by a member of the team to get my opinion on how to solve the problem of low transactions. Our partners were integrating insurance services but their customers weren’t transacting, and we needed the customers to transact to get commissions, which would be split between both parties.
So I came up with an idea for co-marketing. Where we would work directly with the companies to market/sell insurance to their customers. Both companies working together to reach our common goals.
It was majorly an experiment, with a lot of lessons learnt along the way- lessons that I’m pretty happy to share here.
Before we go on, please keep in mind:
Co-marketing only works where there is a shared benefit
Partners will only be willing to use their channels and resources to sell a product if it’s mutually beneficial. This doesn’t mean mutually beneficial in your own opinion- the partner needs to know and believe that there’s a shared benefit. And if they don’t? Find out why so you don’t repeat the mistakes.
A good example of this is when both parties get commissions from a sale. Or another benefit in our case was giving partners’ customers the ability to protect their goods and services and by extension removing the burden of risk from our partners.
That said, here are some tips on how to carry out your co-marketing plan.
1. Start out by getting buy-in from your partner and understanding their customers
Before you flesh out a co-marketing plan, start out by understanding your partner’s customers in and out. Schedule a meeting with the following objectives:
Understand their business goals: What do they want for their business and how will your co-marketing plan help them achieve these goals? This part is extremely important as partners are very likely to drop off or not commit if they believe your plan only helps you.
Understand the numbers: For comarketing to work, you need to be able to track the effectiveness of the campaign. If the campaign is being run on your partner's channels, they need to buy into sharing their numbers before and after the campaign with you, whatever this means. It could be link clicks, landing page visits or even page views on the app. You need the right numbers and won’t be able to track this if your partner isn’t on board.
Get buy-in from the relevant stakeholders: Comarketing will not work if the only person on board is your partner’s marketing manager or product manager, you need people in the C-suite to buy in. People that understand the positive effects on their business and can make co-marketing a company-wide objective.
Ask the right questions: Your partner knows their customers best so ask them about the right and best ways to reach them and on what channels.
2. The “Co” in co-marketing is extremely important
When we first started co-marketing, I thought it would save our partners’ time if we created the content ourselves and then shared for feedback. We felt that we would be taking time off their hands and they would be more willing to go forward. In the end, this may have not been the best decision as the content still came from us.
Now, co-marketing has taken a different shape. After our first meeting, both parties figure out how best to reach the relevant audience and then craft a joint calendar/doc based on shared ideas. This way, the partner is carried along right from inception and it doesn’t feel like you’re just pushing your ideas to them.
3. Chase the right objectives
At the end of the day, co-marketing isn’t a magic band-aid to fix ALL problems. For instance, if you’re partnering with a bigger partner and revenue is the objective, it really shouldn’t matter if your company is mentioned on their channels or not. What should matter is that each party is taking out time to promote the product and that marketing is actually translating to revenue. If the goal is brand awareness, then joint campaigns can actually move the needle.
In this context, co-marketing is about working together to achieve a common objective so it’s important to pick your battles.
4. Track partner satisfaction:
Run polls, surveys or even just pick up the phone to find out how the campaign is going and your partner’s general thoughts on what needs tweaking. Calls are especially important because though co-marketing is for business objectives, it’s important for partners to know you care and are looking out for them.
5. Make sure your partner/team has the capacity to execute
Co-marketing can only work if your partner’s team and/or yours has the capacity to actually carry out the plans. This is why apart from being sold on the benefits, your partner needs to have team members on board that have the capacity to dedicate the necessary time to see the plan succeed.
These tips are based on personal learning from executing co-marketing at work. If you have any thoughts on how best to execute please hit me up here. Will be happy to hear it!