The Power of Collaboration in Marketing
Everything you need to check before taking your new website live - plus a handy checklist to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
Hey marketer! 👋🏻
Today, let’s explore a topic that keeps coming up not just in marketing, but in business overall — the power of collaboration. Many entrepreneurs and marketers tend to see others primarily as competition. Yet collaboration can hold enormous potential.
When you look at major brands, you’ll find plenty of examples of successful partnerships — Apple with Nike, or BMW with Louis Vuitton. And if these connections work for big brands, they can be even more beneficial for smaller projects and entrepreneurs. Collaboration can significantly help the smallest players — by joining forces, they can better compete, make more efficient use of their limited budgets, and gain a stronger voice.
Why Collaboration Works
I was recently listening to a podcast where someone talked about how important collaboration between content creators is. Everyone has their own audience, their own experience, and their own perspective. When these connect, something far more valuable can emerge than when everyone creates alone in their own bubble.
By combining two different viewpoints and experiences, you can gain access to a new audience, enrich your perspective with different experiences, and most importantly — offer customers interesting added value. Plus, you’ll save on customer acquisition costs.
What Does Collaboration Look Like in Practice?
Imagine a coffee shop that partners with a local yoga instructor. The instructor can use a nearby grassy park for morning yoga classes, and the coffee shop offers participants a special healthy breakfast after their workout. For the coffee shop, this means new customers during otherwise quiet morning hours; for the instructor, it’s a chance to offer clients a pleasant place to relax and refresh after exercise. Participants start their day with movement in nature and finish it with, say, avocado toast and fresh juice.
Such collaboration can take many forms — the coffee shop could easily arrange with the instructor for a free half-hour of yoga once a week for the public. People come to exercise, get introduced to yoga and the instructor, and afterward enjoy something delicious at the coffee shop. It’s actually a clever promotional event for both sides. The coffee shop gains new customers, and the instructor gains new participants for paid classes. Outdoor workouts in parks are completely normal abroad, and they’re becoming a natural part of city life everywhere.
Everyone benefits — the coffee shop, the instructor, and people who love combining an active lifestyle with healthy eating. And both have content for social media and local press.
What to Watch Out For
The key is finding someone who has a similar target audience but doesn’t offer the same service. Look for synergies — what can you offer your partner, and what can they offer you? The collaboration must make sense for both sides, so it’s important to clarify terms upfront and communicate openly.
It’s also wise to set measurable goals and continuously evaluate results. That’s the only way you’ll know if the collaboration is bearing fruit.
Where to Find Such a Partner?
Start in your own circle. Who offers complementary services to yours? Who do you already work with on another level? Who do you know? Sometimes you just need to look around and not be afraid to approach someone with an idea for a joint project.
I’ve gained many valuable experiences and contacts through collaborating with other creators. The newsletter you’re reading right now is also the result of sharing know-how and mutual support within a community.
A Real-World Example
A great example of how this can work was shared by a friend — a web developer and careful curator of a food newsletter. Here’s what he observed:
During a long cycling trip, he visited 17 zero-waste stores. One in a small town really stood out. Right at the entrance, he was struck by a generous, sunlit space that the zero-waste shop shares with a vegetarian bistro. This created a very interesting connection between two businesses that support each other — not just by sharing space costs, but also by attracting a similar target audience.
He sat there for a while. During that time, several people brought the shop owner bags with empty jars labeled with what they wanted filled. Then they ordered lunch. Before they finished eating, their shopping was ready. They exchanged a few friendly words with the owner, paid, and went on their way. That shop had by far the highest concentration of customers of all the zero-waste stores he’d visited — not just on that trip, but overall. And he visits zero-waste stores abroad too.
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So, can you think of someone you could team up with? Go for it — sometimes all it takes is picking up the phone or sending a message.
See you in the next article! ✌🏻
Jan Barborik
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