Partner analysis

You don’t see so much written about “partner marketing” in advice on online marketing, but we don’t think it gets enough attention.

We use the general word “partner” since there so many different types of potential online partners. To give you an idea of what we’re saying different types of online partners include:

• Affiliates – this usually means a commercial arrangement
• Intermediaries – sites like price comparison sites or aggregators
• Influencers – people your customers know about and respect such as blogger outreach
• Link partners – partners you can co-operate with to help SEO
• Advertising partners – sites you have a strategic, long-term relationship with for
• Syndication partners – partners who will share your content with you online

Writing in Emarketing Excellence, Dave Chaffey’s co-author PR Smith says that Partnering is the 8th P of the marketing mix. We say this to emphasise its importance. Since the Internet is a network, finding the right partners can help you expand your audiences, but only if you put resource into it.

It’s natural for some types of company like retailers who use affiliate marketing to put time into partners – they may even have a partner manager. But it’s not so obvious for other types of companies. So our main advice here is to put enough time into:

• Finding relevant partners
• Reviewing the value that’s delivered from existing partners
• Managing existing partner relationships