A successful Internet business is rarely built on upon a one pillar. Rather,
winning e-commerce formulas usually develop from ‘balanced’ campaigns that
integrate a wide spectrum of sound business practices. Having a viable core
product or service is essential. A credible website that establishes your
professionalism - and that’s easy to buy from - is equally imperative. And
profitable e-businesses always target the right customers with intelligent,
cost-effective marketing strategies.
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Depending on your business model, tactics like search engines optimization,
e-zine advertising, PR campaigns, and affiliate programs can all serve as
valuable marketing vehicles. The Internet is replete with information on these
topics, and it’s hard to open an email without confronting the latest news on
search engine optimization or super-affiliates.
However, there is one critical element that is consistently and conspicuously
absent in all these e-commerce discussions: partnership. In the business world,
partnership goes by many euphemisms. But whether you’re saying ‘strategic
alliance’, ‘biz dev’, ‘joint venture’, or ‘tactical relations’, it
still comes down to one thing:
businesses
working together towards common, mutually beneficial goals.
When two or more businesses forge a relationship, the collaboration must add
up to more than the sum of its collective parts. Partnership means research, it
means creative thinking, and it involves give and take - and often the pay-off
is less immediate than simply buying a few keywords. However, in the long run,
the benefits may be more far-reaching and more profound than all your other
marketing strategies combined.
So what’s
an effective partnership?
It’s a union that creates a powerful synergism between two complementary
enterprises or entities. True partnerships are symbiotic and are established in
good faith. They build relationships aimed not only at achieving mutual business
goals - but toward meeting the needs of the collective customers of both
businesses. In most cases, partnership will be determined by the needs of the
target consumer audience that both businesses serve and share - and this is
where you should be looking.
Consider co-branding and bundling products with a complementary business in
order to create a novel product or unique product configuration - one that
builds and enhances value for both parties. Look for cross-promotional
opportunities determined by the needs of your mutual customers - then satisfy
those needs while serving a new niche. Look at how computer software and
hardware companies have partnered. Through bundling, the value of two distinct
products (from two distinct firms) can be multiplied exponentially - and with
twice the marketing front. For evidence, look at the desktop of almost any
top-brand computer.
Amazon.com and Toys-R-Us developed a different partnership relationship where
Amazon established the e-tailing storefront and Toys-R-Us operated the inventory
and fulfillment back-end to the empowerment of both companies. In e-B2B, an
e-commerce web design company may partner with a search engine marketing
company. Here, everyone benefits - including the clients of the web design
company who may be receiving discounted registration packages.
Partnership
can succeed on any scale - large or small - as long as there is synergism.
Your company may be able to provide discounted services to a well-known
organization and the organization will, in turn, offer exposure for you. Or your
company may provide a steady stream of customers to a company that can
simultaneously return that favor. PR and press release opportunities are also
enhanced when two or more companies join forces. Sometimes, the forging of
alliance is itself newsworthy. From simple cross-linking and banner exchanges to
the co-branded integration of software applications, partnership can have
powerful results and position you for vital relationships later.
At the payment processing company where I work, we’ve
developed our own partnership program (a Co-op Program), where we absorb the
majority of the cost of developing an e-commerce website - but only for a
qualifying client with a high transaction business model. The benefit to the
client: they receive a polished e-commerce website for a fraction of the price.
The benefit to the company is: we continue to develop a healthy network of
payment processing clients by bringing on businesses with high transaction
potential (armed with websites optimized for sales).
The truest (and most lucrative)
partnerships are established when the goals for both parties are the same and
success is mutually determined. In any of its various forms, partnership and
strategic alliance is, more often than not, geared toward long-term, high-impact
results. It’s not about an immediate infusion of leads or myopic quick-burn
marketing. Partnership is about patient e-commerce; it’s about intentionality
and infrastructure; it's about cultivating business momentum. The brands and
businesses we know by name today are built on these principles.
