Selective partnering to build up your company as well as theirs

Selective partnering to build up your company as well as theirs

Recently I launched a new marketplace in a niche that didn't have one and one of my strategies to build authority in the shortest amount of time is to partner with the right people in the industry.  This isn't the most challenging thing to do, but it does take some time and effort to truly be successful and pick the right companies to build parallel to your own.

Now, you may be thinking, "why would I help build another company and not focus on my own?" and the answer is because you'll be helping them and they'll be helping you!  You can't be super selfish when it comes to a mutually beneficial partnership; you need to work with them to gain sales and followers; then they will do the same with you.

Step by Step process of what I did

Step 1:  Researching Potential Partners
This isn't the most challenging thing to do; you search through Google or ask some people about the industry and see who the big players are.  You can build a pretty extensive list of websites that could potentially be your next partner, but you need to be slightly selective and don't target a company that isn't doing much in terms of lead generation, SEO, or marketing because they will never be able to match your output to help them.  You need to find "up and comers" or businesses that are already established, so you know they have the drive to do the same as you.

Here's the edited version of what I sent them via the contact form or email:

Hi there,

I'm contacting you because I'm in the process of adding a few partners to our new marketplace.

Our marketplace is (your website)

This is a marketplace for anyone to buy and/or sell (your niche products). 

We're in the process of adding 5-7 partners to our homepage and footer section.


What you would get with our partner program:
- Logo w/link shows on our homepage in the "partners" section
- Link in our footer aimed at any page of your website
- Priority featured listings on our homepage and above the footer


Why this is good for your business/website
- More exposure and traffic for your website from all of our advertising campaigns currently running
- Increased sales through our marketplace due to your priority featured listings


What we require
- A Logo w/link in your partners' section, or similar section, aimed at our homepage
- A link in your footer aimed at our homepage


If you're not interested in our partners' program you can still list your items on our marketplace. 

We don't charge you a listing fee, no matter how many products you have, so you can create listings all day if you'd like.  You can also use our simple CSV upload and populate your store in an instant with all the products you have. 



I'd love to hear back from you even if you're not interested!


Thank you

- Thomas

You'll need to edit this slightly, so it works for your website and niche, but that shouldn't take too long.

Step 2:  Contact everyone within your list
What I did was fill out every websites contact form, or email them if they didn't have a form, and then waited for a response.  While waiting for responses, I wrote up some canned responses, but I didn't write a full canned response.  I wrote up the beginning of my response, such as:

Thank you for the quick response!

I emailed a few companies in the (your niche) industry and was really hoping you would respond

(Now answer all their questions or concerns here)

Step 3: Start adding your partners
This is a pretty simple concept, you need to add the new partners to the areas you said you would do it, and they should do the same for you.  If they take more than 48 hours to do this, then you should start to remove them from your setup.  If it seems like they're just trying to profit from your actions, without helping you with the same things, you should remove them immediately and stop talking to them.

Now, there are plenty of people out there that will tell you they aren't interested, and there are plenty of others who will say they love the idea and they're ready to implement it.  Since you've selectively chosen potential partners, you now have people that can help build up your company alongside you as you help them out as well!


Step 4:  Social Media Giveaways
I like partnering on giveaways with my partners because they tend to have items that I don't see listed on my marketplace or they're the manufacturer of a product, and we can get it in front of the masses while I link to my website and theirs.  I will ask the partner if they want me to link to their website or social media profile to build their following or potentially capture a sale.  After that, the post goes live, and I monitor the comments to be sure I talk with anyone who has questions.  I urge the partner to share the post on their facebook page and other social profiles because that has the most significant benefit for both of us if we can pull in traffic from all over and get people to see the giveaway!


Step 5:  Rinse and Repeat
A lot of people won't respond to your email the first time, so be sure to send out a few emails over the next month or two and be sure to get in front of them.  You never know if you're landing in their spam box, so if you email them a few times, there's a better chance they will see your partnership request.


In the end, you'll have a few partners come on board within the first month, and you can build this up over time.  My giveaways are getting pretty crazy, in the $500+ range, and I'm not fronting a single dollar to do this lol.  I build my audience, do bundled giveaways, and everyone is happy at the end of the day.  I'm saving money and turning profits at the same time, and you could be doing the same thing as long as you take it slow and follow the steps I listed above


Thanks for reading

- Tommy
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/TommyCarey