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Collaborations are one of the most effective ways to boost your marketing efforts. Most companies and startups know this and invest significant resources in collaborative activities. When they first hear about collaborations, many immediately think of influencer marketing campaigns. You think of celebrities sharing products on Instagram and athletes endorsing sports brands. While influencer marketing is a leading form of collaboration, there are other forms of collaboration that can skyrocket your marketing efforts. In this article, we’ll go over five ways to use collaboration effectively:
1. Co-hosted webinars
Many companies conduct webinars. The problem is that most companies don’t understand how to do this properly. They usually start with some general industry talking points, then say how great their company is and why you should use their products. What they should be doing is focusing entirely on the consumer, providing as much value as possible, and making sure they are providing actionable insights to their webinar audience.
To encourage this, you can host a co-hosted webinar, meaning you can have someone from the industry moderate the webinar along with your leadership team. it can be a customer, a prospect, or a leading advisor in your industry. The idea here is that by co-hosting the webinar, you can reach a larger audience and the spread of the webinar will be more significant. The webinar itself will also be more successful as there will be more angles, perspectives and knowledge to share and this will result in higher audience satisfaction as well as more brand trust and authority.
See also: 6 Marketing Collaboration Tips from the Experts
2. Building a movement
An effective way to create awareness about something is to start a movement, and by adding partners to that movement you can expand it and reach more people. This creates strong momentum and increases brand awareness. An example of this is what sales demo creation and optimization platform Walnut did with their #weareprospects movement, which aimed to effectively optimize the B2B shopping experience.
Think about something your industry needs and find a way to create an effective movement that contributes to your customers, prospects, and brand.
3. Newsletters
Platforms like Substack have revolutionized the publishing industry. The ability to email newsletter articles directly to your subscribers has opened the doors for many writers looking to freewrite without editorial approval. Substack has also become a great tool to bypass social media algorithms by sharing your content directly with your followers. Many companies have sponsored newsletters to target hyper-targeted audiences. Authors could also benefit financially from a brand’s contribution and audience from the brand once they shared the article on social media.
See also: 5 tips for successful brand collaborations
4. Brands and Media Cooperation
This is probably one of the better known forms of collaboration. Brands actively push content to media publications, TV stations, radio shows, etc. That’s PR, and PR is a great tool for brands and media. Why is that? Because the brands can leverage the authority and audience of the publication, while the editors and reporters are exposed to stories and article ideas that can contribute to their work. There are far more PR agents than reporters these days – this means reporters think twice before deciding to write a particular story, and because they’re approached often, they have to be very selective. It’s important to understand this and be able to build an appropriate narrative for your brand.
5. Joint events
Earlier in this article, we talked about how you can organize a co-hosted webinar. Well, you can do something similar in a physical space as well. This can take the form of an industry meeting, a conference or a trade fair. The idea here is to partner with other companies in your industry to give your audience a great experience. Joint events are also being strongly intensified on social media.
Let’s say you have 1,000 people attending your joint event and 20% of them share something on their social media channels. This could result in millions of followers being exposed to the event. It’s such a great marketing tool. My bonus tip here is to really make sure you include the digital aspect of it. Social media can really amplify your impact with this.
See also: 3 tips for a fun and productive collaboration
There are many ways to use collaborations in your marketing activities. Remember, collaborations help you make a bigger impact by tapping into a wider network, audience, and expertise. Cooperation must be properly structured and implemented so that everyone involved is satisfied with the result. This is very important and increases the likelihood that other people and companies will want to work with you.
