Tech

How to use partnerships to grow your small business

For unknown brands, it’s very difficult to gain PR and marketing traction in new markets without spending a lot of money on agency and keywords. Costs are rising as more and more brands switch online, and privacy changes are making it even harder to reach audiences.

Additionally, consumers are fed up with intrusive digital advertising. Instead, we rely more and more on peer reviews, comparison sites, and word of mouth for recommendations of products and services to buy. In fact, the study revealed that five out of the top six channels online shoppers use to research or discover brands are not paid ads.

Partnership as a Growth Strategy for SMEs

This is where partnerships can play an important role in a small business marketing strategy. Finding the right partner can help you reach new customers in an efficient and effective way and work across all stages of the marketing funnel. Partners also bring trust and credibility to their audience that small businesses can leverage and build on.

Partnerships are versatile and the range of partnerships available is vast. You can choose to partner with influencers (macro and micro), affiliates, or commerce content opportunities (such as Yahoo’s shopping portal or News.com.au’s Best Of). Another strategy is to partner with charities as part of corporate social responsibility, or partner with another business to extend both brands.

Manage SME partnerships at scale

Managing and scaling an effective partnership program has been out of reach for many small businesses as finding, contracting, paying for and managing all the different types of partners can be very time consuming. .

But thanks to technological advances over the past decade or so, partnership management platforms today do all the heavy lifting for brands, making them fully accessible and affordable for businesses of all sizes.

Additionally, since this is a performance play (i.e. partners don’t get paid unless they deliver the desired results), it also means SMEs can try new audiences and quickly move on if it doesn’t work. increase.

Implementation of partnerships for SMEs

Australian SMEs who have used partnerships to grow their business include: LVLYis a dynamic Australian start-up that has transformed the traditional flower and gift industry with fast, affordable, stylish and personalized flowers and gifts. We use our partnership management platform to automate processes and put diverse partnership programs at the center of our marketing mix to engage customers across different touchpoints. This has allowed the company to increase the number of partners by 80%, and partnership revenue has increased by 127% for him year-over-year.

Another success story is Zero Co, whose mission is to ‘free the planet’ through a range of refillable cleaning and beauty products. We have created a “Sustainable Stay” partnership program to encourage the use of reusable containers in hotels and other vacation accommodations. Property owners are rapidly eliminating single-use plastic and can also generate additional income by offering guests discounts on Zero Co products.

With the help of automation technology, the program can now be managed by a single person, allowing you to focus on building deeper relationships with existing partners and finding new ones. In his first three months, Zero Co has acquired 46 new partners who own 578 of his properties. This resulted in a significant increase in brand awareness and product sales significantly exceeded targets.

Small businesses such as LVLY and Zero Cohave help consumers enjoy, increase revenue and positive brands by finding compatible partners with complementary business goals and values, and similar or shared customers. Created a customer experience that helped drive association.

This is an effective strategy that complements traditional sales and marketing activities and brings real value to small businesses in Australia.

How to use partnerships to grow your small business

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