The SaaS industry can be a highly competitive field. New companies come up almost every day with products that draw customer attention. Thus, your startup business needs to be aggressive with marketing to stay on top of the game.
But as it turns out, you can use this situation to your advantage. Here, co-marketing is a surprisingly effective solution to increase your visibility. Let’s find out how it works and you can get more out of it through the help of Virtua Solutions.
How Co-Marketing Works In SaaS
In its simplest definition, co-marketing is a strategy where you partner with other brands to achieve similar marketing goals. Generally, both companies use it to engage a shared audience. This strategy lets them reach out to a section of that shared audience they have never engaged before.
Image from Process.St.While co-marketing is nothing new, it has really taken off in the SaaS marketing scene. That is mainly due to the product’s nature itself. As it is, SaaS customers often don’t use just one product. Instead, they typically have several for different tasks. That opens up a unique opportunity for providers to reach out to the same audience without necessarily competing with each other.
The Benefits Of Co-Marketing For Your Startup Business
Aside from the ability to reach out to more audiences, co-marketing offers several other benefits for the companies involved. When the strategy is done correctly, these benefits can give these companies more than they bargained for.
A Cost-Effective Venture
When two companies enter into a marketing partnership, they also agree to share the cost of the campaign. With that, you get more freedom to develop that campaign since there are fewer worries about funding constraints. The strategy also increases the mileage of the marketing campaign, contributing to cost efficiency.
It Provides Greater Convenience For The Public
It isn’t just the participating companies that benefit from the com-marketing efforts. Customers also gain a lot from it. For one, it makes it easier for them to find related offers for products they use. This convenience encourages them to spend more on the products involved.
The Chance To Discover New Markets
While co-marketing’s goal is to increase companies’ reach within their shared audiences, it can also provide opportunities for more expansion. The thing is, SaaS companies often have other audiences. With the marketing effort, partners can eventually branch out to these audiences and see if they would also fit their profile.
How Your SaaS Startup Business Can Discover The Best Co-Marketing Partner
Of course, you don’t just join up with any other company. For your startup company to get the most out of co-marketing, you need to have the right partner. For that, there are several things that you need to consider.
The Shared Audience
Your first consideration is how much of a match the shared audience will be for you and your partner. For the most part, you want the audience to be exact for both. The thing is, a SaaS company’s specific audience is often very narrow. Having an identical audience set as your partner means you can cover all the bases.
For this, you want to go deeper than just demographics. Ensure that your audiences have similar problems and attitudes toward solving them. That guarantees they will be more likely to get both products for their solution.
Conflicts Of Interest
You should also watch out for any potential conflict of interest that would-be partners might have. Here, you don’t want your products directly competing with each other. While you are running similar audiences, there should be enough variability to give both of you room to pitch your products.
One way to deal with this is by looking for expertise that one side might not have. If they have certain limitations, for instance, you can serve as the solution that fills in those gaps. That might require you to reorient your marketing strategy to fit the new message better.
The Leads You Get
This one is arguably the whole point of the effort. The leads that the marketing partnership generates should be well worth that. Note that this isn’t just about volume but also about quality. Both sides should come up with criteria to qualify their own leads. You then need to bring these together for a more coherent approach.
Building The Co-Marketing Agreement
Once your startup company has chosen its partner for the effort, it is time for you to build the marketing agreement. The first thing that you need is a pitch for the campaign. Often, the side that approached the partnership is the one tasked to develop the pitch. However, this can be subverted if the other side also has an idea.
The following are some common ideas you can explore for a co-marketing pitch.
- Ebooks and whitepapers: Tackle a problem that both of your audiences have and present how each product can serve as a complementary solution for it.
- Webinars: Same as the above, you can co-produce webinars that explore topics relevant to both companies. You can have experts from each side hosting these sessions for your audiences.
- Free tools: Here, you can jointly develop a free tool that augments both your products. This one is a popular strategy to get people to purchase both products.
Note that you can explore several different marketing ideas for the campaign. But all of these need to tie back to both companies’ goals. With that, you need to establish a clear set of metrics to determine whether the strategy satisfies both.
Assigning Roles For Your Startup Business And Its Partner
You also need to assign the various roles for the co-marketing campaign accordingly. Here, the common thought is to split everything in the middle. But that might not always work for you. That is because each company will have its strengths and capabilities.
Thus, you and your partner should be ready to take on more work as needed. But you do need to discuss it beforehand. Assess your current capabilities and determine how both sides can best partition the work. For instance, if the other side lacks certain marketing capabilities, you might want to step in if you have enough resources.
Virtua Solutions can help you here by quickly expanding your marketing capabilities. Our team of agents will handle various tasks. That ranges from content creation for both sides, to monitoring the results. We can also serve as communication officers to ensure that both sides can coordinate their activities.
Turn Competitors Into Co-Marketers And Boost Your SaaS Startup Business
Who says there can’t be cooperation in a market as competitive as SaaS? And with the right approach, your startup business and its newfound partners can thrive in these fields. Contact us today and let’s get ready to expand your reach through co-marketing.