Marcus Murphy
Marcus Murphy is the Director of Sales & Monetization at DigitalMarketer. Marcus is a sales expert who cares deeply about the flourishing and success of entrepreneurs. Marcus has worked for Yelp in San Francisco, going from start-up to multi-billion dollar giant. He has also worked at Infusionsoft as the Global Partner Development Manager where he developed & broadened new international markets through strategic partnerships.
Richard Lindner
Richard Lindner is the President and Co-Founder of DigitalMarketer, the industry leader in global digital marketing education. While running a global team of more than
50 professionals worldwide, Richard is also a sought after executive leadership expert, working with some of the world’s most exciting brands like Uber, Harper Collins, Infusionsoft, Maropost, and Ethiad Airlines, to name a few.
Partnerships are a huge growth tactic. It has enabled companies like DigitalMarketer to grow by leaps and bounds. Forming partnerships where the giants of other companies endorse DigitalMarketer to their audience has helped put DigitalMarketer on a powerful platform.
This growth has come from a shift in perspective. Instead of looking at other companies as competitors, what if they were brand ambassadors? Turning indirect competitors into partners grows each company’s reach and exchanges their best customers.
And we’re about to share how DigitalMarketer did it in four steps.
The four steps to creating meaningful and mutually beneficial partnerships
with indirect competitors are:
Step One: Identify Your “Indirect Competitors”
Who’s currently competing for the attention of your ideal customer and has a non-competitive, or even better, complimentary product or service?
These indirect competitors are:
- Bidding on the same keywords
- Sponsoring the same events
- Have ads show up where your ads are showing up
- Sponsoring events you want to go to
- Speaking at the same events as you
For DigitalMarketer, their ideal indirect competitors are marketing automation companies. DigitalMarketer can educate clients and help their best become better and their worst become better. DigitalMarketer will give them the strategies and the marketing automation company can show them how to implement those strategies in their technology. Producing content in and around technology platforms allows customers to better use their system and increase the lifetime value.
These partnerships are a symbiotic relationship where each business benefits the other by growing leads. Since each business already has an audience, merging the two together doubles the audience of both businesses.
Step Two: Figure Out What a Win Looks Like for Them
Finding what defines a win for another business involves paying attention to
their themes.
- What content are they pushing?
- What are they sharing?
- What are they reading?
- What is their company mission?
A great way to open the door of this partnership is to wait for them to share something and then comment in a specific and meaningful way about the piece to start a conversation. Another strategy is to share another piece on the same topic. This opens the door for a conversation without starting with, “What can I sell you today?”.
The formula to follow to open a new partnership is:
- Show them you’ve done your research
- Show them that you’re excited
- Make statements that connect your companies missions
- Tell them you know their themes and goals
- Position your company as a catalyst for their success Then ask for the meeting.
Here is an example pitch email for a partnership:
Step Three: Create a Transactional Win
Transactional wins don’t have to involve huge organizations and budgets. The first transactional win doesn’t have to be the home run. The transactional win is plugging into something that’s low friction, for both parties. The win has impact on the stated goals of both companies and is a base hit in the world of home runs. Repeat these easy base hits, but noticeable wins, to accumulate a home run.
Examples of base hits are:
- Webinars
- Speaking opportunities
- Podcasts
- Guest blogs
Home runs are:
- Co-branded events
- Product development
- Direct integrations
- Acquisition
Step Four: Propose Marriage
The final step to a perfect partnership involves asking the hard question. Can I accomplish my mission without them?
The answer at DigitalMarketer was no. What followed was the DigitalMarketer Certified Partner Program. Without the indirect competitors, it would have been a slower process to grow DigitalMarketer into the company it is now.
Their partners have marketing tools, leads, sales tools that close deals,
partner only trainings, free pre-qualified leads and support.
Proposing a marriage between two businesses is the steroids of the business world. It brings each audience to the other and creates a symbiotic relationship of referrals and power players.
Marrying your indirect competition can set up a business up for massive success. Partnerships are a major growth tactic in the business world. Having the giants of closely related markets become brand ambassadors puts your content and products in front of a new audience while creating authority.
Shift perspective away from seeing competitors, towards seeing business partners. Implement these four steps to create meaningful and mutually beneficial partnerships with indirect competitors.