4 Tips to Have a Successful Marketing Collaboration

Marketing is a crucial element to any business’ success. However, with the fierce competition today, both in the offline and digital space, it’s important for brands to adopt a multifaceted marketing strategy in order to stay competitive. For small businesses, it’s often a challenge to take on all of the marketing tasks single-handedly for various reasons: limited resources and manpower, scarce budgets, lack of specialized skills and knowledge, and so on.

One of the most cost-effective ways to overcome this challenge is forming strategic marketing collaborations with agencies that specialize in marketing. A marketing agency can help you co-create new products and services, run marketing campaigns, or cross-promote each other’s businesses — the opportunities are endless.

Collaboration, however, is not as easy as it seems. This is especially true when you partner with an offshore agency, but even more so for any two businesses that doesn’t work in close quarters together on a regular basis. With today’s advanced technology however, coupled with a solid communication strategy, it’s very possible to have a seamless collaborative effort between two or more businesses. Here are a few tips for a successful marketing collaboration:

1. Establish clear goals

A successful marketing strategy starts with everyone involved having a clear idea of what you want to achieve: Do you want to expand your reach? Improve brand reputation? Promote a new product or service?

Whatever your goals are, it’s important to establish clear objectives at the onset, and have key performance metrics in place so that you can evaluate whether you’ve achieved your goals or not. Miscommunication often happens when team members have no clear understanding on what you’re trying to achieve, leading to an ineffective marketing strategy.

2. Make use of available technology

Technology has made it easier for remote teams to work together. The problem is, not every business makes use of the available technology, and would often rely on emails only, which is usually not sufficient in managing the whole collaborative process.

Use project management platforms such as Asana, Basecamp, and Trello — to name a few — so that key collaborators are always on the same page communicating about task management and progress. Communication apps such as Slack and Skype are also good tools to use for instant messaging, meetings, and brainstorming.

3. Set a regular communication schedule

Communication is key to every collaborative effort, and more so for remote teams in different time zones. However, without a regular communication schedule in place, important milestones may not be promptly communicated, which could lead to disastrous results.

At the beginning of the partnership, establish a schedule for when you want to receive task updates; it could be every day, twice a week, or once a week. The important thing is that it’s set regularly so that team members know when to expect communications and are always kept up to date.

4. Document key processes

Marketing involves lots of activities — social media marketing, digital marketing, inbound and outbound marketing, influencer marketing, and the list goes on. For different parties of a marketing collaboration effort, it’s often taxing to keep up with all the information if these are not properly documented.

Make it a point to religiously document key processes and strategies for a more efficient workflow. Don’t just write them down in a lengthy email; organize everything in a centralized hub where everyone in the team can access for reference at any moment. Utilize Google’s G Suite or other similar software where you can easily share important documentation online through Google Drive, Docs, and Sheets.

In Conclusion

Partnering with a digital marketing agency can help you expand your reach and broaden your marketing potential. With all the aforementioned tips in mind, the most important strategy for a successful marketing collaboration begins with choosing a reputable and trusted marketing agency who understands your brand and your needs.

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