Advantages of Partnerships in Legal Marketing

What is "Partner Marketing"?

A well-known example is the collaboration between American rapper Kanye West and Adidas, who jointly launched their own shoe collection ("Yeezys"). The fruitful collaboration ensures robust corporate profits and brand growth. Adidas benefits from Kanye West's brand recognition and in return provides an established platform to build a high-end apparel line.

Of course, partner marketing does not only exist in the field of sportswear brands. Such collaborations make sense in many industries – including the legal sector and professional services.

Partner marketing is therefore the strategic cooperation between two or more companies that helps all parties involved to achieve their business goals.

What Advantages can Partner Marketing Bring?

Partner marketing combines resources and unlocks new potential. All partners have access to a different audience. This opens up new contacts for all parties involved.

Through a partnership, certain deficiencies can be compensated for. Where we lack time, money, expertise or reach, a partnership can make up for these deficiencies. This combination can create unique or additional customer benefits.

What Goals can be Achieved with Partner Marketing?

• Increase brand awareness and reach
• Generating more website traffic and social media engagement
• Customer acquisition and retention
• Branding: Association of the own brand with the values and successes of the marketing partners.

Partner marketing supports branding, increases reach, opens up new target groups and helps with customer acquisition.

How Do You Find the Perfect Partners?

Partners with a similar target group should be sought. However, it is important that there are no conflicts of interest in the cooperation between the partners. It also makes sense to choose companies or people with similar values. This facilitates cooperation.

For companies in the legal sector, suitable marketing partners can come from the same sector: e.g. other lawyers or law firms with a specific area of expertise, a notary's office or other companies in the legal sector.

However, you don't necessarily have to stay in the same industry for successful partner marketing. A connection to other sectors can also be exciting!

If you choose partners from other sectors, you have the advantage that there is no competition between the parties. Partnerships can be particularly useful in areas where two competences or offers create added value for a target group. This is often the case where one partners with other companies involved in the same projects. For lawyers, this can be quite different people, depending on the field of business. These are just a few obvious examples:

• Tax advisors or banks for M&A specialists
• Real estate agents, banks, construction companies for real estate professionals
• Techies, engineers for experts in the crypto sector.

It is worth considering who is typically involved in the same assignments and looking for the same target groups – and who is not at the same time competition. These companies and individuals have great potential for valuable marketing partnerships.

How to Build a Partnership Relationship

Once you have found suitable partners, you can take the first step and approach them. The intention should be clear and convincing. If you have already thought about it, it will be more convincing than just an idea. However, the first talks should rather be based on getting to know each other in order to find out whether a cooperation makes sense and how it could be designed. Goals and ideas should be aligned in order to avoid potential problems in advance.

What Formats Do Marketing Partnerships Use?

The following activities typically form the subject of partner marketing:

• Organisation of a joint webinar
• Exchange of content with the respective target groups
• Joint creation of high-quality content (e.g. book, article, etc.)
• Referrals of potential clients to partners
• etc.

However, there is no template for an ideal partnership. Each concrete design will again differ a little from the others. Therefore, the design should be adapted to the needs of both parties.

It is important that the details of a collaboration are clarified when you get started: Who is responsible for what? Who is the contact person for which areas? Etc. If all the details are clearly discussed, this favours a smooth process and a positive experience from the cooperation.  

More Tips on Partner Marketing

• Look for sustainable partnerships so that the effort in building the relationship is worthwhile and the target groups on both sides can get used to the partners: The return from such activities comes – but needs some patience!
• Make conscious use of the strengths of all partners and use them in a targeted way in the individual marketing activities.
• Communicate clearly and directly within the partnership with a "let's do it" mentality.
• Focus on creating added value for your target groups with your partnership. If you can solve your audience's problems or at least discuss them in a helpful way, you are in pole position!
• Share your learnings from the activities. This can also be an exchange of data, for example – but be careful not to forget data protection and professional secrets!

How HeadStarterz Can Help!

Do you want to improve or expand your marketing through partnerships? We would be happy to look at the ideas discussed with you in concrete terms. Together we will implement processes and strategies to help you achieve an improved marketing strategy.

Interested? Feel free to contact us at any time: hello@headstarterz.com