Brand collaboration is a planned-out partnership of two non-competing organizations to develop a new product or service. They carve out a new niche and leverage their competitive advantage in the industry. The sales synergy created by such a collaboration equally benefits all the parties involved. Although different from influencer collaborations, the aim to increase awareness of the new product or idea is the same. When done the right way, such collaborations offer customers better reasons to purchase from both brands.

Getting Your Business into a Brand Collaboration

The right collaborative partnership means striking the delicate balance between two businesses with similar work ethos and a completely different customer base. To find the best brand for such a partnership, look for one that is not a direct competitor but from a complementary industry space. It is best if you share a customer base. This means that although the products are dissimilar, the customers are likely to buy a supplementary product from your company.

If you have a company in mind but don’t know how to find the decision-makers for collaboration, use Leadar to find their contact details. Before settling on a brand, research to understand how it adds to your value chain. The objectives and mission of both businesses should be taken into consideration during cooperation negotiations.

Although brand collaborations could fail, the following advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Faster Establishment in the Industry

Sole proprietorships and startups struggle to establish themselves in a field with much larger competing brands. Hence, collaboration enables the business to compete favorably with market heavyweights. The combination of ideas, customer base, tech, and resources by the partners gives them an advantage. They enjoy mutual growth, which provides them with a rock-solid foundation and a say in the industry.

Customer Base Widens

Brand collaborations broaden your audience in numbers that could have otherwise been unachievable. Partnering with a business operating in a different marketplace gives your business automatic exposure to new markets. Joint forces make it easy to penetrate new and better markets, accessing fresh consumer bases that can be easily retained even long after dissolving the collaboration. This is a strategic marketing plan for the brand to establish a foothold in previously unexplored markets.

Better Brand Awareness

Collaborating with others is a great way to cross-promote brands and products. Teaming up with different businesses will promote your product to their customers. By creating custom stickers online featuring your brand and distributing them through your partners’ marketing channels—such as email marketing, social media, and outdoor platforms—you can effectively enhance your visibility and reach a wider audience. The unified front puts the involved businesses in a better place to make a buzz in a new market for a new brand or an already existing one. This is helpful if you form a partnership with an already established business in the industry and with a relatively bigger audience.

Quick Brainstorming of New Innovative Ideas

Collaborating with an expert in the field means bringing in additional brainpower. Leading brands have unique skills that keep them ahead of the pack. Hence, partnering with them benefits you with skills that would have otherwise been hard to access. The skills swap is also important if you are running on a strict marketing budget. The broader talent pool means more experts brainstorming for new ideas, which can deliver great solutions. This is more important when the workload for either brand is spread for faster and better decision-making, especially for complex projects.

Leveraging Partners’ Strengths

If your business boasts of a team of technical experts but is unable to reach customers, look for a business that specializes in customer engagement. It is even better if this other brand has some weakness in its technical department because you will be trading your expertise. This is a critical advantage if you are struggling to implement more modern communication techniques.

Collaborations Save on Costs

If your brand is struggling financially, whether through rising expenses, minimal sales, or low returns on marketing, you want to find a way out. Partnerships help save costs by sharing technology, resources, and even human expertise. Remember, when looking for a partner, you also want a business doing exemplary well in their niche to complement your efforts. For example, Spotify and Uber came together to create a “Soundtrack for your ride” product for their customers.

The two brands leveraged each other’s expertise to achieve their goals. Spotify gained from Uber’s wide reception in the rideshare business to spread awareness and gain more music streams. On the other hand, Uber gained from Spotify’s state-of-the-art streaming service and dope playlist to keep their customers entertained.

Reduced Risks

Launching new products, moving into unchartered markets, and changing fields can be scary because of the significant risks they carry. However, when this is done in a partnership, you only bear a portion of the risk. Again, because of the combined expert skills, the risk of failure is lower than if you throw care in the wind and bite the bullet. Besides diversifying the risks, you enjoy the ease of market testing before launching new products and setting off on full scale.

Shared Resources

Collaboration with other businesses gives you access to a larger pool of resources, simplifying operations and boosting growth. No business can be a jack of all trades because it is impossible to be the best in everything you need to run or scale operations. While partnerships offer shared resources that benefit startups, established brands also use it as a strategy for gaining a competitive edge. Take Nike, for example, who have partnered with Apple to create training wearables for sports personalities. Nike has access to Apple’s tech resources, enabling them to create better sporting gear.

Boosting Business Credibility

You don’t need a wide customer base to be considered trustworthy. Partnering with a credible brand influences customers’ perception of your business and increases your reputation. Hence, even if you are a startup, you can enjoy a wide customer base and a high demand for your products. If customers love your partner for their high-quality products, the assumption is that your partnership is based on value. However, beware that partnering with a scandalous brand could hurt your image massively. So, do your due diligence before putting pen to paper or making any promises.

Conclusion

Businesses collaborate for different reasons, which are influenced by a shared vision. Just like choosing your close friends, take some time to research a prospective partner, its reputation, its market, etc. A brand collaboration could be just what your business needs to move to the next stage. Without proper research, collaborating with the wrong brand could easily lead to your downfall.