Newsclip’s Nakedi Phala breaks down the ways that brands can get the most out of their co-marketing strategies.

A co-marketing strategy is one of the most popular and effective ways to achieve cost-efficient marketing success. According to Fifty Five and Five, two companies working together to promote a common concept, such as a co-branded product or content, are better than one.

In a co-marketing partnership, both companies promote the offer and share the benefits  of the brand’s services. Think of it as having two ice-cream tubs: one vanilla flavour and one chocolate flavour. Add the two in a bowl and you get a taste of vanilla chocolate ice cream! Much better, don’t you think?

The benefits of co-marketing vary — from sharing audiences, creating and nurturing  positive long-term relationship between the brands to helping each other increase your consumer base. With those benefits in mind, why not try out a co-marketing for your next campaign?

Here are five things you can do to ensure that your co-marketing relationship is a fruitful one: 

1. Acknowledge your partner's audience 

When considering who to partner with, you need to consider your audience as well as your potential partner’s audience. Although sharing the same audience may seem beneficial for your co-marketing efforts, this isn’t always the case.

Why? Because it makes business sense to attract new audiences and to keep your current one. While sharing an audience might make it easier to do the marketing — having different audiences will allow you to reach a more diverse target market. 

And who doesn’t want to reach a bigger crowd with their campaigns? 

2. Share the costs 

When companies share costs, each company’s budget is lower than it would be if one company was doing a solo campaign. Sharing the costs of your marketing efforts — and only having to pay for a portion of the campaign — allows you to allocate the left-over budget elsewhere.

Furthermore, sharing costs equals twice the revenue, which can be used to run even more campaigns! 

3. Make your intentions clear 

Is it a short or long-term campaign? Do you want to improve your presence in the field? Capture a new audience?

When partnering with another company, it's always best to state your goals to the other party from the beginning in order to ensure a smooth co-marketing relationship that can deliver satisfactory results for both parties. 

4. Test out your partnership at events

There are many benefits to hosting co-marketing partnership events. They can give you a chance to show off your new joint brand identity and help you to gauge how audiences receive your co-marketing relationship.

And with a combined workforce in attendance, there’s a greater chance of success.

Just picture it: your logos branded together on promotional items, which will boast your partnership to other companies and attendees.

You can then use the feedback from the events to measure the effectiveness of the partnership. 

5. Groom the relationship 

Within your co-marketing relationship, formulate a strategy that lets you  identify each other’s strengths and root out each other's weaknesses, which could otherwise dent the relationship. The idea is to play at each other’s strengths during the partnership.

The main reason why companies merge together for co-marketing partnerships is so that each of them can reach an objective that they otherwise could not have accomplished on their own. 

Ultimately, co-marketing can convey a positive perception about the companies involved in the campaign and strengthen both brands’ reputation among competition.