The hows and whys of eCommerce to eCommerce Partnerships

Successful eCommerce businesses are built on proper strategic and proper branding; balanced and effective campaigns are essential in getting your targeted audiences’ attention to your products and services.

In the world online business, eCommerce partnerships and collaborative marketing are the key factors that can make a brand even more successful. eCommerce partnerships means working together towards a mutually beneficial goal; and when two or more eCommerce businesses merge together to create a relationship, their collaborative marketing should increase to more than the sum of its collective parts. Brand expansion can be exciting and at the same time nerve wracking for online business owners. However, online business partnerships that are built in a common understanding and compromise are known to stand the test of both marketing and technology.

Why choose eCommerce partnerships and Collaborative Marketing?

eCommerce partnerships means creative thinking, trust and research and often times the result is less than immediate. On the other hand, when brands forge a partnership they can attain better things that are the key to becoming successful.

“(Collaborative Marketing) is the process of aligning your company’s interests, resources, and marketing muscle with other like-minded companies to accomplish much more than you might be able to do on your own,” according to David K. Williams who is a Forbes contributor.

Here are the benefits of eCommerce partnerships for Collaborative Marketing

1. Exposure

Generally, both partners have different interests, while “street credibility” factor is the main concern of a larger company, gaining exposure and having more visibility in the market is the smaller company’s goal.

2. Credibility

Credibility on both sides of a partnership will be attained successfully and in addition, having your brand partnered with a larger company will give you an upward push for your credibility. This is because having a larger company doing business with you; it simply means you have something valuable to offer consumers. Collaborative Marketing can help you boost your brand recognition, consumer retention and consumer value.

3. Umbrella Merchants

There are some cases where larger companies act as an umbrella merchant that assists smaller partner companies gain credibility, create an improve customer experience and reach larger audience.

Here are some things to consider when you are thinking of a possible eCommerce partnerships for your brand.

1. Co-branding and bundling products

For you to create a new, innovative and unique product configuration, you must consider co-branding and bundling your products together with a complementary business; a business that will build and improve the value for both parties.

What you can also do is to search for cross-promotional opportunities which will be determined by what your mutual consumers need. From there, you can give and satisfy your consumers’ needs and at the same time opening a new niche.  

2. Synergism

Synergism is key to having a successful eCommerce partnerships, may it be on a small or large scale. One good tactic you can do is to provide discounted products or services to a well-known organization and in return, they create exposure for your brand and campaigns.

3. Press Release Opportunities

It is more likely that two or more companies merging together will get an increase of press release exposure. eCommerce partnerships can provide a powerful result this will give you a better position in the eCommerce market.

When both parties’ goals are the same and both of their success is mutually determined, the most rewarding eCommerce partnerships are established. Partnership and strategic alliance are often geared toward a long-term result; it is also about a patient eCommerce with excellent infrastructure and intentions that cultivate business progress.

Merging with another brand, may it be for a single campaign can start a strong founding relationship with them in the future. If you will ever need a help or you need to work with another brand in the future, all you have to do ask for it and you will most likely get a positive answer from the company you have built connections with.

eCommerce partnerships also helps you in gaining new consumers through projects that involve mutual marketing or having the need to focus on both consumer groups. This will also help you introduce your brand to potential consumers and will give increase your conversions.

How to merge with an eCommerce partnerships

For you to build a good and steady eCommerce partnership there are important things you must consider.

1. Set a goal

Ask yourself what are the goals you want to accomplish with an eCommerce partnership.

2. Make your website marketable

Before heading outside your brand, you must start with yourself. You must need to ensure that your website is trustworthy and marketable and there are efficient ways for you to do just that.

You also need to self-promote your business to your prospective partners by giving them insight into your monthly traffic, product range and your reach. In addition, you can post testimonials and feature some logos of clients or your current partners.

3. Research

Find the right eCommerce partners. Sure, your website may be attractive enough but you can’t just wait for potential partners to contact you all the time.

Things to consider in choosing the right partners:

1. Relevance – Are you and your potential eCommerce partner on the same niche? Keep in mind that partnerships work well together when they are in the same niche, because they are targeting the same audience but are not in the same competition with each other.
2. Audience – You need to ask yourself if both partnerships’ audiences are relevant to each other.
3. Opportunity – One of the vital things you have to know is the possibility to offer mutual exchange. Ask yourself if you have the capabilities and advantages your potential partner don’t have and know if you have the resources they may need; and vice versa.

4. Contact

Make sure you are initiating conversation with potential partners before addressing possible concerns that may arise. You can reach out to potential partners through different internet-based channels such as Facebook, Twitter, R or their website’s customer service.

You can also gather information about your potential partner about their marketing needs, understand their marketing strongpoint and determine how they plan to make an invest in their marketing resources through an email or giving them a call.

5. Proposal

Explain why you are interested in their website and how their website could benefit with this partnership. Basically, elaborate your valuable proposition because it determines whether audience will spend time reading and browsing through your products.

You have to ensure that your present your valuable proposition as the first thing that your audience see on your website’s home page and in addition, it should be visible in your website’s major entry points.

Examples of possible marketing collaborations:

1. 1. Joint PR initiatives like competitions, giveaways and events.
   2. Co-sponsorships.
   3. Email cross-promotions.
   4. Social media shout outs.
   5. Content Features which include links to your website in their posts and vice versa.
      6. Make it formal

Always keep in mind that one of the biggest mistakes eCommerce partnerships or any kind of business partnerships for that matter is not having their proposal and agreement in black and white that is signed by both parties. Without signing an agreement, both parties will have a chance to not fulfill their agreed responsibilities and this can result to serious problems.

You have to make sure that you draft a contract with the duration and responsibilities of both parties before making any implementations for the partnership’s security.

1. 1. 7. Implementation and Adaptation

The final step you need to take is to enact the terms of the alliance as outlined by both parties. Implementation and adaptation of both the parties’ proposal and agreement are the key in making Collaborative Marketing a success.

Make sure that everything that is written in the proposal is being taken into consideration, because those are the key elements to make your eCommerce partnership work. This is the part where you will get to see how your partnership will work and determine the challenges both parties need to work on.

As the saying goes “No man is an island,” this applies to the eCommerce industry. To be able to fully achieve your goals and aspirations, merging an eCommerce partnership and creating a Collaborative Marketing is a must especially now that both technology and eCommerce are advancing every now and then.

Now that eCommerce marketing is innovating and challenges may arise, having a partner you can count on and trust to build your brand and attain an increase in conversion is advisable. Are you a brand owner and wants to merge an eCommerce partnership? Would you like to give us your feedback and recommendations so that others can learn from your personal experience when it comes to eCommerce partnership or Collaborative Marketing? Or are you planning on merging with another brand but still have questions that need answering? You can leave your thoughts and opinions on the comment section below and let’s discuss eCommerce partnerships.

Author: Gabby Roxas