The contemporary business world is highly crowded and competitive, and the growth of global corporations has prompted the creation of new complex business strategies. Now, every business is striving hard to develop an ideal marketing strategy to help them stand out from a pool of competitors.
Brands are now exploring opportunities to engage with prospective customers and gain market share more than ever. Marketing strategists alike are thinking differently, and many are now considering working together with other brands to execute innovative and influential marketing campaigns.
Even with the competition, there are endless opportunities for business collaboration that your small business can tap into. Regardless of which industry you operate in, collaboration can be a powerful tool to help your small business grow its network, get new inspirations, save you money, and solve complex business problems.
How to Collaborate With Other Businesses:
Cross-Promote
Cross-promotion can help you mutually collaborate with other businesses to increase your customer base and sales. You can also cross-promote online through social media, whereby you incorporate social media influencers or podcast hosts to attract more customers jointly.
You can also create a joint advertisement for a newspaper or split a booth at a trade show or business event. Incorporating unifying telemarketing efforts through VoIP can also help you conduct effective telesales campaigns to increase revenue and profit. But, how does a virtual phone service work? Before anything else, make sure that both parties understand the dynamics of virtual phone service technologies such as VoIP for telephony, cloud PBX, and other virtual communication tools.
Offer Discounts and Specials
Consumers love a bargain and are always looking for discounts and special offers. To make the best out of collaboration, therefore, you can partner with your suppliers and come up with special offers that entice your customers. Include such discounts on your invoices, or you can offer free shipping to customers who place orders from both businesses.
Suggest Co-Branding
Co-branding is a strategy that captures the synergy of two companies or brands. When co-branding, companies share their brand names and logos on a single project or product. Co-branding combines resources and marketing power, and can also be a unifying factor for several products under a single marketing campaign. In other words, co-branding introduces a new product or service whose characteristics are deeply rooted in the attributes and competencies of two collaborating brands.
An alliance between two companies births greater trust and shared risk. Bigger budgets, combined advertising campaigns, and marketing strategies offer a greater reach and high sales income. To benefit more from co-branding, you need to ensure that both businesses understand each other’s strategies, goals, vision, and public profile. Failure to factor in the above could make collaboration a disaster, and this could result in a marketing strategy that is confusing and disengaging.
Guest Post on Niche Websites or Blogs
Guest posting or blogging is when you get featured as a guest author on another website or blog. Guest posting allows you to share your best content with a wider audience, and it gives you a chance to be seen by more people interested in your content or your products and services.
Collaborating with blogs and websites that publish content related to what you offer can be an excellent opportunity to raise awareness about your brand and help you reach a broader audience. Guest posting can skyrocket your business reach as it helps you get attention on social media and keep your customers up-to-date with your offerings.
Readers trust bloggers. If a reader’s favorite blogger trusts your company, they will most likely trust in you too, and this can eventually lead to more sales. Guest blogging can also boost your SEO. Creating high-quality blogs can help you gain quality backlinks, boosting your ranking on search engines. Continuously sharing useful and valuable knowledge across different blogs and websites can position you as an industry expert and connect you with industry influence.
Who to Collaborate With?
The success of business collaboration depends on who you choose to collaborate with. Therefore, when looking for the right business partner, consider companies you respect that have demonstrated effective marketing. Choose a business partner who subscribes to the same values and goals as you do and that compliments your business. For instance, if you run a real estate company, you can connect with financial advisors or solicitors.
