THE POWER OF COLLABORATION

With many competing pressures such as time, resource, budget and competition in the professional services sector, many firms are missing marketing opportunities and in particular, the value of collaboration.

Finding businesses or networks to collaborate or partner with who share the same target audience as your business is an ideal way of opening doors to potential clients and growing your business and brand.

How do you go about collaborating?

• Identify who it is you want to target
• Find relevant partners that have existing relationships with that target audience
• Set out what your partner will get from working with you
• Develop and build a partnership strategy
• Manage the partnership effectively

What are the ways in which you can collaborate?

• Hosting a joint seminar 
• Hosting a joint webinar
• Creating an actual or online network for a select industry or sector
• Refer work to one another
• Becoming thought leaders and sharing content through social media, joint/guest blogging, video and email marketing
• Producing industry research together

What are the benefits?

• Warm introductions to otherwise cold contacts 
• Partnering saves time and cost which can be shared
• Increases brand awareness
• Helps to acquire new clients
• Extends reach to new market segments

To make collaboration work, it must be a “win win” relationship for both businesses. There must be equal value to all involved, as well as be a natural fit that can easily be understood by and make sense to the target audience.