Hi everyone!
Firstly, thank you all so much for your response to the last couple of interviews I’ve posted. Reddit has been the main driver of growth for readers/newsletter subscribers/social media followers for How the Fxck – another reason I love the Reddit community! The blog even got featured somewhere on YCombinator and the Profit Well SaaS community.
This week’s interview
This week, I talked to the CMO of Peyk (a London-based instant courier service – essentially Uber with motorbike/cyclist riders who pick up and drop off items instead of people).
He had a lot to say about partnerships. Last year his company came in the top 5 European startups (voted by Startup Grind), and while there he met tons of companies that, if integrated into Peyk, would add a lot of value to his customers.
That led this CMO on a pathway to creating a number of partnerships, and even starting a partnership department.
Here are the unique learnings I got from Ali:
– Partnerships are an authentic way to grow brand awareness. They give you something to shout about and allow you to tap into your partner’s network to grow your own. Especially in COVID-19 times when your customers are acutely aware of your marketing authenticity.
– Partnerships are a great way to improve your service/value proposition to your customers. If you expand your service offering via a partnership (for example, if a small marketing agency partners with a specialist SEO agency), then you enhance the value you offer to your customers without having to build the functionality yourself. You could also negotiate a sales fee, so you add another revenue stream to your business. At Peyk, they partnered with a drone delivery company, meaning they got to launch into a new market: cross city delivery using drones.
– Consider what you can offer to a partner deeply. Ali discovered that he could use his knowledge of the UK market to help international startups launch there. So, he would help them launch into the UK, help them set up, and they would hit the ground running by integrating into Peyk. A win-win situation.
– Winning partnerships is all about expressing your offer in their terms. What value will they get from partnering with you? What return on their initial investment will they see? Although it seems simple (pretty much a golden rule in sales/marketing), Ali has developed a 5 step process for winning new partners.
Here’s the link if you want to read the story. Again no ads on the website.