Carly Ries
I’ve said it once and I’ll probably say it a thousand more times: Just because you’re flying solo in business doesn’t mean you’re alone. You don’t need to be the only one working to increase exposure and revenue for your business. That’s a lot of pressure, especially if you’re trying to grow and scale.
Why put yourself through that when you can utilize other companies to help support you in these efforts?
That’s why I want to talk about the value of strategic partnerships. There are a lot of ways to team up with other businesses to help you streamline your business efforts (especially marketing as you’ll see below) and share audiences and resources.
There are a lot of benefits to partnering with other brands as a growth tactic. It could even be worth replacing some of your current business and marketing efforts.
In fact, did you know that strategic partnerships exceed paid search as a growth channel? That’s just one example!
There are a plethora of strategic partnership opportunities for solopreneurs, but if you’re just getting started with this concept, I’ve narrowed them down to three options that can help you get started the most effectively.
Intrigued? Let’s dive in.
How Solopreneurs Can Use Strategic Partnerships to Grow Revenue
Before I discuss my favorite ways to utilize strategic partnerships, let me start off by saying strategy needs to be involved. You can’t just say “ooh, I like this company. I want to partner with them.”
No.
In order for strategic partnerships to work and be effective, you need to find companies that can add value to your audience. Your goals should be aligned and the relationships should feel so much more than just a transactional one. If you’re looking to have a long-term relationship with this partner, it’s also important your company cultures are aligned and that you enjoy working with each other. All of these components combined are a recipe for success.
At the end of the day, both companies need to be able to grow and benefit equally from this partnership if it’s going to work.
Strategic Partnerships for Solopreneurs - 3 Low-Hanging Fruits to Grow Your Business
1. Affiliate Marketing for Solopreneurs
You know how a lot of small businesses put ads on their website to generate income? Not the best user experience. With affiliate marketing, you can make money by promoting other companies without those obnoxious banners moving across the screen, and that’s not just a personal opinion!
In fact, 84% of millennials distrust advertising. Additionally, 80% of business decision-makers prefer articles to advertisements.
Knowing this, affiliate marketing can be a fantastic alternative for people who want to make money on their website or use others to promote their products and services without having to pay upfront.
I used to think affiliate marketing was just for bloggers and social media influencers, but as I began doing my research into this type of partnership for solopreneurs, I quickly realized that simply isn’t the case, and any small business can really get into this, provided you’re strategic about it.
Let’s start from the beginning. What the heck is affiliate marketing? Chances are you’ve heard the term, but let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how it can help you.
At its core, affiliate marketing is where you recommend a product or service you believe in, and in return, that company compensates you by paying you a percentage of the revenue from that sale that you helped generate. It’s a win for the company paying you because they only have to pay after a sale is made, and it’s a win for you because, well, you get paid. And vice versa if you are the company offering the affiliate program.
If you want to put affiliate links on your site from other companies, start by finding products to promote that would benefit your audience and put a list together, then reach out from there. With some companies, you may need to negotiate the affiliate terms whereas others may already have an affiliate program.
One of the things I love most about affiliate marketing is the reporting. It can be so easy to measure and track these efforts on both sides through the unique links so that you can learn and grow with the data you have.
My advice for this type of partnership? Keep it simple. Do some trial and error and then stick to what works best for your company. Otherwise, it can get super complicated and become time-consuming, which affiliate marketing doesn’t need to be.
For a good listen and to learn more about affiliate marketing for solopreneurs, check out our interview with The Affiliate Guy himself, Matt McWilliams.
2. Co-Marketing for Solopreneurs
Marketing is tough, especially for people who don’t have a lot of experience with it. I recently had a conversation with a fellow solopreneur who said there are just so many options, it’s hard to know where to get started.
This is so true, especially when you’re trying to do all of it alone. Instead of marketing everything by yourself, consider co-marketing with another company to help carry the heavy lifting. There are a variety of ways you can co-market with other companies, but for today, let’s discuss co-branding and content marketing partnerships.
Co-Branding Partnerships
Co-branding is essentially when two companies brand a marketing campaign together and leverage each other’s audiences and reputations so that both parties benefit. It’s a great way to spread awareness about your company and grow your audience.
Like strategic partnerships in general, the key thing here is to partner with a company that shares a similar audience and to find somebody with a positive reputation. This probably goes without saying, but you don’t want to be associated with a company that has negative reviews or a negative connotation associated with its name.
Content Marketing Partnerships
Full disclosure, my background is in content marketing, so I was nervous I was going to give you a biased opinion about this type of partnership, but after doing my research and talking to other solopreneurs, turns out, it really is just a great way to expand your reach without exerting too much additional effort.
In a nutshell, you can partner with another company in an effort to promote each other’s products and services by sharing valuable and engaging content with each other's audiences. It’s not only great for building awareness and building your reputation, but when the other company shares your content, the links that drive back to your site can help with search engine optimization (search engines see backlinks like a popularity contest and like to reward those sites with higher rankings).
One example of a content marketing partnership is guest blogging. If you blog on another company’s site, they benefit from having another person create content for their site and then having another company promote the content to their audience. Your company benefits because they’ll promote the content to their audience and you’ll have a backlink driving to your site (provided you include one in the content, which you should). Same scenario if you are the one hosting guest blogs on your site. It becomes a win-win!
One thing to keep in mind, co-marketing can produce incredible results when done correctly, however, it isn’t nearly as easy to track as affiliate marketing, so keep that in mind and strategize how each company can gauge whether the partnership is working or not.
3. Incentive Marketing Partnerships for Solopreneur Success
Odds are you’ve seen this kind of partnership a lot, but just never knew what to call it. An incentive marketing partnership is when a company offers incentives for specific customer behaviors with offers for their partners.
How does each company win? The one offering incentives can reward desired customer actions which can improve retention and ultimately increase revenue.
The company whose products are being featured gets exposure.
This type of partnership is easy to track and easy to implement.
Some examples of incentive marketing include offering:
- Vouchers
- Cash back incentive
- Discount codes
You get the idea.
Again, these three types of strategic partnerships are just a few to get started with, but if the concept of forming relationships with other businesses intrigues you, you can also consider:
- Referral marketing partnerships
- Sponsorships
- Distribution marketing partnerships
- Product placement partnerships
- Influencer marketing
The list goes on, but keep in mind, some of these can get quite complicated. Make sure these other types of partnerships are things you can organize without getting overwhelmed.
Remember, sometimes, the hardest part is just getting over the hurdle or fear of reaching out to a company to establish that partnership, and I don’t blame you! It can be an intimidating thing to do, but, if you can pull it off, the rewards can be plentiful.
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