For many businesses today, returning to the office seems less and less likely. Even within today’s remote work environment, collaboration has become an increasingly important part of marketing strategy.
Whether you’re a mid-range tech or startup company looking to scale your growth marketing or a CEO seeking to hit aggressive revenue goals, collaborative marketing allows you to reach a wider audience and boost sales. And it also creates opportunities for learning and growth.
Today’s blog post will explore the benefits of collaborative marketing in a remote environment and provide tips for getting started. Let’s dive in.
What Is Collaborative Marketing?
Collaborative marketing is a strategy in which two or more like-minded brands, companies, or individuals unite to create and promote a product, service, or campaign.
Collaborative marketing can be utilized in many ways, including co-creation of content, joint promotions, events, or product development. The ultimate goal of collaborative marketing is to create a win-win situation for all parties involved by combining resources and expertise to achieve mutual objectives, such as reaching a broader audience, building brand awareness, and driving sales.
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Benefits of Collaborative Marketing
Of course, collaborative marketing offers a chance to gain new customers and leads, increase engagement, and drive conversions. However, it isn’t just a way to get creative with your strategy. There are several benefits that come with any fruitful collaboration.
With collaborative marketing, you can do the following:
- Build trust and credibility: 57% of buyers say thought leadership builds awareness for a new or lesser-known brand. Uniting with established, well-respected brands is a surefire way to build trust and credibility for your brand, even as a startup or lesser-known industry figure, which is essential for growth and survival.
- Gain access to a wider audience: 64% of marketers say word-of-mouth advertising is more effective than other tactics. Through collaboration, you can tap into your partner’s audience, increasing the likelihood of positive word-of-mouth about your brand.
- Build industry relationships: Your business can strengthen relationships with others in your industry through fruitful collaborations, opening opportunities for future partnerships.
- Increase efficiency: When two (or more) teams come together, the combined skills can allow for a much more productive work environment, sharing expertise to overcome obstacles more efficiently.
For instance, when popular social media management tool Buffer partnered with social media marketing agency Social Chain, the report they created garnered more than 17,000 page visits in one week (significantly higher than their average article), generating more than 3,000 shares across social media. This effectively increased both brands’ visibility and status as thought leaders in their industry.
Sounds good, right? Before getting started, it’s important to set your collaboration up for success with some key principles.
The Principles of Collaborative Marketing
By combining skill sets with a like-minded company, collaborative marketing can be a fruitful way to maximize your marketing strategy and meet your business goals.
No matter what marketing initiative you have in mind, from co-creating a single social media post to a full-scale marketing campaign, it’s important to grasp the fundamentals first.
Successful collaborative marketing ventures need:
- Shared goals with mutual benefits: All parties involved must agree upon the objectives they want to achieve, and have something to gain from the collaboration, whether it’s increased brand exposure, boosting customer engagement, or increased sales.
- Transparency and trust: Successful collaborations require open communication, which builds trust and ensures everyone remains on the same page throughout the process. Be clear on deliverables and timelines and communicate often throughout.
- Flexibility and adaptability: All successful marketing campaigns require adjustments in approach when necessary, and this rings even truer in collaborations to ensure all parties are satisfied.
- Resource sharing: Each team should bring unique assets to the collaboration, like expertise, data, or technology that benefits all parties.
- A data-driven approach: By utilizing data-backed insights, such as customer analytics and market research, partners can confidently make decisions that serve everyone and ensure the shared goals will be met.
With these foundational tenets in mind, your brand can approach any collaboration with clarity and confidence.
Remote Collaborative Marketing Unlocks Major Potential
Collaborative marketing can maximize the potential of your strategy, but that’s just the beginning. As remote work experts, we know remote work is becoming the new normal, which only increases the potential of collaborative marketing.
Here are some reasons why collaborative marketing with a remote team unlocks major potential:
- Partner with the best: Physical location is no longer a limiting factor for your business, giving you access to a broader talent pool. Now you can strategically leverage companies that will balance out your brand’s weaknesses, even if they live across the globe.
- Diverse perspectives and enhanced creativity: Collaborating remotely means members can come from different backgrounds, bringing fresh perspectives and unique ideas that can help enhance marketing strategies.
- Lowered costs: With remote work, there’s no need to travel anywhere or host physical meetings. Collaborating also means you share resources, expertise, and costs, effectively lowering overall expenses. In fact, Forbes says collaborative marketing “can help instantly grow your customer base without spending a ton of money, a perfect plan for cash-strapped startups.”
- Learn from industry leaders: By partnering with experts from different locations, your team can gain valuable insights that might not have been possible through traditional in-person collaboration. This knowledge will stick with your business long after the partnership is done, providing value for the long term.
- Built-in flexibility: Remote collaboration provides inherent adaptability, as team members only need a Wi-Fi connection to reach one another or access the project files. This allows your business to stay nimble and responsive in today’s fast-paced marketing landscape.
By leveraging the unique perspectives and expertise of teams located anywhere, collaborative marketing can create more effective marketing campaigns that generate better results.
Tips for Getting Started with Collaborative Marketing Today
Collaborative marketing can be a game-changer, but getting started might feel intimidating. Here are some practical tips and strategies when getting started:
It’s Okay to Start Small
There’s no need to collaborate on an entire campaign immediately. Find a company with a complementary service or product to create a social media post about how your products work together to benefit the consumer more. If the post performs well on both channels, you can expand the collaboration into an email campaign, potentially reaching even more customers.
Leverage Consumers
By giving consumers a platform to interact and contribute to your brand’s marketing campaign with user-generated content, they can boost your campaign by providing authenticity and trust, generating organic growth for your brand.
Find the Right Partner(s)
When looking for the right collaborators, you want to find brands that align with your brand’s values and goals. Consumers are seeking brands that align with their values — two brands for the price of one is especially convincing.
Think Complementary, Not Competitive
Your partner should offer services or products that complement yours rather than directly compete. This is how you effectively expand your reach and target new customers while avoiding conflicts of interest and confusing the audience.
Set Clear Goals and Expectations
Define what you want to achieve with collaborative marketing and communicate it clearly to all team members involved. List expected deliverables, roles, and responsibilities. Who’s managing the project? What’s the timeline for this collaboration? What resource does each brand bring to the table? Make sure everyone is on the same page from the start to ensure success.
Communicate Consistently
Collaborative marketing requires efficient communication and sharing of ideas. Designate regularly scheduled times for video calls or email updates, and utilize collaboration tools such as Slack, Trello, or Google Drive to facilitate seamless communication and file sharing.
Be Flexible and Ready to Learn
Remote work and marketing both require adaptability. Be open to new ideas and ways of working, and be willing to adjust your strategy as needed. Offer your expertise where needed, and accept your collaborating team’s knowledge when they offer it. This will allow both parties to not only meet the shared goals but also learn from each other and gain new insights that can be applied to future projects.
Measure and Analyze Results
Come to an agreement on what metrics you will use to measure the success of your efforts. Analyze the data to see what’s working and what’s not, and make adjustments accordingly.
With clear goals, effective communication, the right tools, and starting with an easily accomplished project, collaborative marketing doesn’t have to be as daunting as it may seem.
To help you get started, consider using some of the following recommended tools.
Recommended Tools for Remote Collaborative Marketing
Effective collaboration requires the right tools to support communication, project management, and document sharing. Thankfully, there’s a plethora of remote work tools available today.
Here are some of the best remote collaboration tools that can help your partnership flow seamlessly:
- Slack: A messaging platform for real-time collaboration and communication
- Asana: A project management tool that helps teams organize tasks and track progress
- Trello: A visual project management tool that uses boards, lists, and cards to help teams collaborate and manage tasks
- Google Docs: A cloud-based document sharing and editing tool that enables teams to work together on documents in real time
- Zoom: A video conferencing tool that allows teams to hold virtual meetings and collaborate remotely
- Mural: A digital whiteboard tool that enables teams to brainstorm, collaborate, and share ideas visually
By choosing the right tools for your team’s needs, you and your collaborators can stay connected and work together effectively, no matter where everyone is located.
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
In today’s digital landscape, businesses need to be agile and innovative to succeed. Thankfully, as remote work continues to grow, collaborative marketing is more possible than ever before.
It’s time to start thinking about how your business can benefit from collaborative marketing. Whether it’s through co-creating content, participating in webinars, or collaborating on joint marketing initiatives, there are plenty of opportunities to work together with other brands to achieve greater success.
Physical location is no longer a limiting factor for your brand — with the right strategy, your potential for growth is limitless.
