As much as in-house collaboration can do wonders for improving your business, it is not the only way you can boost your chances of success in your industry. The internet age has made it easy for businesses of all shapes and sizes to work together. If you have not explored external collaboration opportunities, your business is at risk of falling behind.
Know Your Customers
Before sending out emails suggesting collaboration, you need to know what your customers are like. Your business must understand its customers as much as possible and recognize their habits, preferences, and trends.
You can use effective data collection methods, such as surveys or follow-up emails to gauge their interests. From here, you can work out what sort of business would be suitable for collaboration. If you operate a retail store, a local cafe or food business could be beneficial, especially if your customers might want refreshments while shopping.
By understanding your customers as much as possible, you avoid working with brands that don’t fit their desires, so this element is vital for guaranteeing success.
Study Local Businesses
At the same time, you should also look at local businesses to get an idea of what would be most beneficial for your business. There are two ways to approach this. Either you work with an established local business that has a steady and loyal stream of customers. By choosing this option, you can rely on more eyes drawn to your product or service.
The other approach involves working with brands of a similar size. Although neither has a large customer base, you can combine customers, which proves mutually beneficial for both parties. This is a useful option for recently launched companies. Although they want to prove they can do it without assistance, the helping hand could prove highly effective for meeting goals and making it easier to introduce the business to the community.
Offer Complementing Benefits
Once you have established which business is right for you – and you have agreed to work together – you can identify complementary benefits to entice customers to get the most from the collaboration.
You can see examples of this when looking at websites like Sport News which provides detailed information on every sport. If you run a betting firm, bar, or sports equipment shop, you can offer discounts and deals by showing receipts or following links.
By doing this, you can immediately generate interest, especially if you provide free products. If the experience is enjoyable, you increase the chance of earning a long-term customer.
Use Social Media For Cross-Promotion
Most people discover promotions and deals by browsing social media, so leveraging these platforms will help you spread your message and increase interest in your collaborative efforts.
Before doing this, you must work with your collaborative company to align your brand goals and ensure both parties understand what they want from the posts.
You need to maintain a theme and a voice. Otherwise, the message seems disjointed and could confuse customers, making your effort ineffective and failing to achieve your goals.
Diversify Your Marketing
Just because most people use social media for information doesn’t mean you should rely solely on this, though. Posting flyers at both stores as well as banners on websites or at the top of emails will also help increase interest in the collaboration.
This is effective whether you are working together for a short time or have long-term ambitions in mind. It could also be useful to speak to the local media to get the information in the paper or online publications.
The more you diversify your marketing, the broader your reach will be, which allows you to attract a broader range of customers, especially ones that may not use social media as much as the average consumer.
Host Events to Generate Interest
If you want to start your collaboration with a bang and plenty of fanfare, you can get involved with an event. This could include stalls at local business conventions, but if you want all the focus on your efforts a singular event is much more effective.
Your event can take place during business hours, but you may want to host an after-hours event complete with refreshments and live music to give people the entertainment they want. A good time means customers will have a positive association with your business.
Collaborate and Glisten
Every business should look for ways to improve its standing and boost profits. If you feel like your company has plateaued or reached as many customers as possible, your collaborative efforts with other enterprises, both local and further afar, can introduce your business to a wide range of new customers who are interested in what you are offering.
