Whether your agency is just getting off the ground or you’re looking for some new ways to promote your existing brand, agency partnerships can be one of the best ways to spread the word.
However, in my experience, the success of your brand comes down to creating the right partnerships. When it comes to building a stronger presence, forming the right relationships can lead to results.
Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as calling up other business owners in your area and asking for help promoting your services. In order to truly build a brand that gets engagement and converts leads into customers, be strategic about the companies you pair with and the commitments you agree to.
Here are my tips to help you create agency partnerships that can boost your brand.
1. Determine A Mutual Goal
The best agency partnerships share a common goal — which also means sharing a common problem. When you both have something you’d like to solve and you’re both working toward accomplishing the same things, your partnership will flow more smoothly.
Look for partners who want to accomplish the same goals as you and your team. Discuss your goals for the partnership before beginning any agreements to make sure you’re all on the same page.
2. Work With Supplementary Brands — Not Competitors
When looking for an agency to partner with, you don’t want to connect with an organization that offers the exact same services as you. After all, you don’t want to compete for new business — you want to share it.
Identify agencies that offer work that supplements your own. In these cases, your new leads may be interested in using both of your companies. For example, if you offer content writing and search engine optimization, you may want to partner with a video creation agency or a social media agency.
3. Agree On A Promotion Plan
An agency partnership should be mutually beneficial. If only one of you is actually promoting the other’s services, the agreement can quickly become pretty one-sided. To ensure everyone is getting what they need out of the partnership, create a promotion plan ahead of time.
In this promotion plan, lay out how your partnership will work. This might include how often you’ll promote your partner on social media or when and where you might pitch their services. Set clear expectations, and develop a plan that allows you to check in on your accomplishments every once in a while.
4. Share Your Data
Your customer data is precious, but getting an inside look at your audience from a different perspective can be incredibly informative. If you’ve created a partnership with another agency you trust, you may want to exchange information so you can both identify better ways to attract your audience.
However, when sharing customer data, be careful about complying with privacy laws. While you may not want to share names and phone numbers, giving your partners some insights on how your target audience likes to connect or where you’ve gotten the most results with past campaigns can be all the information they need.
5. Talk To Your Audiences
Sometimes, the best thing to do to boost your brand is to connect with your audience. When you’re working in a partnership, you have double the audience members to talk to, meaning you can get insights from both current and potential customers.
Poll your clients and your partner’s audience to gauge interest in new ideas, directions of your brand and other ideas you may be considering. Connecting with these individuals can help save you money and keep your agency moving in the right direction.
Conclusion
Creating a partnership to boost your brand takes work and investment. You can’t expect your brand to take off just because a partner simply shared your name and information with their audience. In order to incentivize partners to help build your brand, provide them with some benefit as well.
Be picky about the agencies you choose to partner with. Make sure you’re connecting with organizations that fill in your agency’s gaps and supplement the products or services you provide. Ideally, you should share the same audience but not compete for projects or business.
Also, be sure to connect with organizations that share your goals. When everyone on your team — both internally and externally — is working toward the same accomplishments, you can get more done and see better results.