My experience in brand x brand partnerships and collaborations spans many years. I have worked for various size brands; right from the humble beginnings of start ups when it was just me and the founders all wearing different hats and scrambling to find opportunities. To medium size businesses with 50+ people in the company and I was the dedicated partnerships person.
I have also dabbled in sales. So to me I thought partnerships would be an easier gig than sales. Because you’re not having to convince someone to spend their budget on your brand. When I moved into brand partnerships, I was surprised by how difficult it was to actually generate leads and interest. Despite there being no selling to do, just sharing cool marketing ideas with brands I thought would want to work with us. But just because I thought the marketing idea was good and just because I believed the brand I worked for was great, doesn’t mean everyone else did.
The first hurdle.
A key part of brand collaborations is finding the right brands to work with. And although there is an abundance of brands out there, that can almost be more overwhelming. My list of requirements for a brand partner would include:
- Similar size social following as us
Similar size newsletter database as us
Similar brand ethos to us
Similar customer profile to us based in the same location as us
And a brand that makes sense to collaborate with so as not to confuse your audience. E.g you wouldn’t put a bikini brand and a kid’s toy brand together
Where do you go to start to look for brands that tick all these precious boxes? Social media is an obvious answer and the internet but it is SO time consuming scrolling through instagram and the big wide web. Even when you think you’ve found a relevant brand you need to research them before you reach out. Hours can be spent looking with only a handful of brands as a result.
The second hurdle (and the most painful one)
So you’ve found a brand that would be a great fit. But now you need to actually get in contact with the right person. This is where the manhunt begins. You need to work out (probably from Linkedin) who the relevant partnerships person is. Maybe it’s the marketing manager, the social media manager, maybe they have a dedicated partnerships person or none of the above. But let’s say you get a name. Now what? Good luck finding their email address readily available online.
The final hurdle (actually this one might be the most painful)
All the brand research is done, you know who you need to contact and you have a potential email address. So you reach out. *Ping you get a bounce back. Instead you try their generic customer care online contact form. Never really knowing if your email has made it to the right person. A few days go by and you get a reply, ‘Thanks for your email but sorry we are not interested in collaborating with you at this time.’
ALL THAT EFFORT. For nothing. Even just writing this takes me back to those moments of frustration from wasting time searching and resulting in dead-end leads. It’s not personal, and I know that, but I still have a job to fulfil.
One day after feeling annoyed by the lack of partnerships I was drumming up, I remember saying to my partner: ’I WISH there was a database of brands and you could enter all your details and select which types of brands you wanted to work with and the brand collaboration you wanted to do and BOOM you’d be connected with relevant brands who actually WANT to collaborate, with all their details at the click of the button.
And this is how ParterUp was born. I knew that if I needed a marketing platform like this, there would be others too.
So how does PartnerUp work?
It works like a dating site.
Step 1: You complete your brand profile; tell us about your brand, customer profile, which partnerships you are interested in.
Step 2: Answer questions about who your ideal brand partners would be.
Step 3: Our algorithm then works it’s magic to find you the best brand matches.
If your brand is lucky enough to already have lots of brands reaching out to do collaborations this is great, but PartnerUp is also ideal for discovering all the brands in one place, picking and choosing who is the best fit for you and the marketing you want to do.
I thought partnerships would be easy, or at least easier than sales. And they can be! When all the stars are aligned. And that’s what PartnerUp does, we align all the stars for you to make brand x brand collaborations super simple.
That is my story of how PartnerUp was born, and if this sounds familiar and relatable then you are in the right place! Sign your brand up now for the smoothest, easiest and guaranteed way to find your perfect brand partners for powerful partnerships and creative collaborations.
I can’t wait to see your brand listed with us!
Amber
