WRITTEN BY LOUISE SANSOM

Every brand can benefit from being seen by more people. Reaching a bigger audience can lead to higher engagement, stronger brand advocacy, loyalty, and of course, sales.

How can you give your brand visibility an instant boost?

One highly effective way is by teaming up to collaborate with other brands and personalities.

Here’s how to find the perfect partnership:

• Identify complementary brands: look for brands that align with your target audience and have similar values and positioning. For instance, if your brand is centered around sustainability, or education in your space, then look out for others that hold the same priorities. It’s worth bearing brand visuals, tone and identity in mind. A little bit of contrast can help you brand out and reach new demographics, but choose carefully – partnering with brands that are too different to yours will feel jarring to your existing customer base. Choose brands that are too similar and you risk working directly with competitors, and spending precious time preaching to an already converted audience. Aim for the sweet spot in identifying brands that complement rather than compete.
• Choose the right partner: a good tip for life in general. Once you’ve identified some potential suitable partners, spend time on your short list to narrow down to the best fit. Think about their demographic, see how they engage with their audience, and pay attention to their online presence and reputation. Look for a strong following and positive brand image.
• Make it mutually beneficial: put together a proposal that outlines the benefits and value of partnering with your brand. What can be achieved by working together? Whether it’s greater reach, higher engagement, or a strengthened brand position, the benefits should work both ways. Partnering with the right people can inject life into both of your brands, so conversations together should lead to enthusiasm, new ideas, and energy.
• Highlight any added value and incentives: are there any additional benefits that you can offer each other by partnering together? Think about things like resource-sharing, skill-swapping, extra promotion, or access to your brand through personal offers and discounts.
• Agree and define your goals: talk about what you both want out of the partnership – it’s important to make sure you both want the same thing! What’s the ultimate desired outcome? Make sure the objectives work for both parties: discuss, agree, and then set your goals out in writing. This will help to keep you on track when it comes to designing your campaigns, and to measuring your success at the end.
• Co-create your content: work together to design and craft your content so that it shows off the best of both brands. Play to each of your strengths; is one great with copy, another brilliant at video content? From snappy social media posts to long-form blog content, videos, vox-pops and even events – make the most of the opportunity to combine your strengths. Teamwork makes the dreamwork.
• Combine and amplify: there’s strength in numbers, so get your message out there and have your voices heard by sharing your campaign across each other’s platforms. Thanks to the previous steps, your content should align nicely across both brands.
• Expand reach by working with influencers: spread the word further by collaborating with suitable influencers or other key personalities within your industry. Similar rules apply in identifying those who are aligned with your brand and campaign. Work together to create sponsored content or even host joint events to skyrocket your reach and get your message directly to a new and dedicated audience. Get more tips on how to work with influencers in our guide
• Check the metrics: you’ll want to get a feel for the outcome and the level of success as defined by your agreed goals. Did you manage to reach a new audience, get more email sign-ups, meet new followers, or boost your engagement? Did you achieve something unexpected? Pay attention to and review your metrics, such as website traffic, follower count, and of course, sales, to get an overview of how things went. See how effective your collaboration was, celebrate any surprise outcomes, and think what to improve on, to set yourself up for future perfect partnerships

Like any good relationship, the most successful partnerships are the result of time, effort and authenticity. Seek out new connections, nurture existing relationships, and collaborate to maximise your reach for long-term success.