Like the Beatles sang, we all get by with a little help from our friends. In business, those friends might better be called partners.
Behind every successful company are people whose partnerships strengthen it and help drive its growth. Yet good partners are tough to find and tougher to keep, and building lucrative partnerships requires a lot of resources and time. That’s part of what makes content such a valuable tool for partner programs — it’s scalable, which saves you time, and (if you’re doing it right) it’s engaging and high-quality, which sets you up for success.
Content is a tool, and it’s evolved beyond the marketing department. It can be used by different areas of your company for different purposes: PR trends have made content especially valuable for that department, and it’s also useful to your recruiting efforts, sales enablement, and partner programs. And partnerships is one area where I see a lot of companies missing out on opportunity.
As with any tool, though, content’s effectiveness depends on your ability to use it. If you want to build better relationships with partners — those people who want to support your company — then you need to learn how to use the best tool at your disposal. Here are three ways you can use content to start building partnerships that benefit your company and your partners’, too:
1. Open the door to conversation and new opportunity.
Working with another organization or leader in your space to create something that’s helpful to you both — and your shared audiences — is a natural way to start building partnerships. One way my team does this is through co-branded projects, like webinars.
What we do is identify who we’d like to partner with and reach out with content. We don’t just say, “Hey! Let’s do a webinar — when works for you?” That would get us nowhere because it’s not very helpful, and it does nothing to demonstrate we’re even worth partnering with.
Instead, we use content to showcase our expertise in our space and get the conversation started. We send examples of previous webinars, as well as published thought leadership content and press mentions, to build trust.
This approach can be applied to webinars, research reports, interactive content, or any other project. When you do your part and your project goes well, a couple things can happen: You get your brand in front of a new audience and generate leads, and you have an ally in your space who understands your expertise (and can let others know, too).
Just like you wouldn’t one-and-done any other member of your audience, you can’t neglect these new relationships, either. You’ve got to nurture them to stay top of mind — which brings me to my next point.
2. Fuel existing conversations to stay top of mind.
Partnerships don’t work when you just ask for favors and introductions whenever you want them. That’s not a relationship; those are transactions. There has to be some level of ongoing communication, and content is one of the easiest ways to maintain that at scale.
So enter your partners into a campaign that consistently delivers the right content at the right time to help them more fully understand who you are as a company, why you do what you do, what your abilities include, and how you can help.
Email is a good bet here because it’s simple to put together, analyze, and make changes to if you discover you need to adjust, but you can use social media, too. There are plenty of free social media tools to help you distribute your content to this segment of your audience — take advantage of them.
Be careful, though: Your content needs to be specific to this audience, what they find valuable, and what they need to know to be the best partners they can be. The content you send partners may not be the same content you send to your leads or clients, so make sure you curate the right pieces for this audience.
In time, a solid email newsletter that consistently pushes out the right content to the right partners at the right time will bolster trust. It will also make it easier to ask for and receive introductions and favors because nothing will be coming out of the blue.
3. Build and scale an effective referral system.
Last year, 15 percent of new sales at Influence & Co. came from partner referrals, which reinforces the fact that partners who refer clients your way are basically members of your sales team. And just like your sales team, your partners need content to enable sales, answer questions, overcome objections, and make the case for working with you.
Use your content to help them identify who the right introductions and clients would be, and give them the same kind of sales enablement content you’d give your sales team to talk to leads: the kind that knocks down trust barriers between you and your audience, answers their questions, and addresses the most common pain points and objections you hear.
This is something my company is ramping up this year with a page on our website
dedicated to describing our formal partner program, rewards, ideal clients, industries, etc. — basically, anything a partner would need to be the best partner possible. Pair that with consistent sales enablement content, and your partners have the tools they need to identify good fits for you, make introductions, and advocate for your brand.
Partners want to support your business and help you succeed, but they can’t do it alone. It’s your job to give this audience the tools it needs to fully understand your mission, identify the right opportunities, and connect you to them. And with content, you can encourage your partners to come together — and grow your company.
