Defining Partnership Marketing

Partnership marketing occurs when two or more organizations collaborate with the purpose of helping one another meet specified goals.

What are Some of the Challenges Faced with Partnership Marketing?

The problems encountered when practicing partnership marketing vary depending on the entity and the type of marketing strategy they are using.  As an example, in the case of partnership marketing, some businesses cannot function without planning which of their suppliers are most important. Other businesses may benefit from different distribution channels when relying on a number of specialist re-sellers. Another significant problem is that it may be extremely difficult to replace higher value sponsorships. Finally, some marketing partnerships require constant attention and assessment.

Getting Your Marketing Partnerships off the Ground

If you are just starting to explore the use of marketing partnerships (regardless of your business experience) and are having difficulties, you can benefit from the use of what is called a partnership marketing strategy scorecard. This document uses a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format and only requires basic Excel skills to use it correctly. You can document several factors that are involved including your marketing initiatives, measures, objectives, and targets over a 12 to 18-month period.

The Benefits of Using a Partnership Marketing Strategy Scorecard

As with any marketing tool, you will reach benefits by using a partnership marketing strategy scorecard to analyze which partnerships are effective and which are not. Other benefits include:

• Easy-to-use Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format
• Generates reports so that you can review the results and determine where improvements are needed
• Helps you to save a considerable amount of time formatting
• You are able to conduct due diligence

The partnership marketing strategy scorecard is very cost-effective because it saves you time when you are assessing your different efforts and strategies.