When done correctly, partnerships can be one of the most powerful ways to market a product or service. For an established brand it’s a chance to take your message to new audiences and often to create goodwill in the process. For a new or emerging brand, aligning with a more well-known and established partner is a great way to build credibility as well as reach potential customers.
As in dating or marriage compatibility is key to the perfect partnership.
And as BizCom PR clients have shown recently, great partnerships come in all shapes and sizes.
Not all partners look alike
It can be something simple, as when family fast casual restaurant chain Mr. Gatti’s Pizza partners with a local high school band on a Grand Opening event in order to introduce itself to a new community. For the restaurant, it’s a terrific way to showcase its menu to its core customer base and show it’s there to support the community. For the band, it’s a way to raise money while offering an opportunity to perform in public.
Edible Arrangements and The Children’s Place make great partners
It can be something much more in-depth, as when Edible Arrangements recently partnered with Mr. Chocolate, Jacques Torres, to create a gourmet line of chocolates. For Edible Arrangements, one of the most iconic brands in gifting, it was a chance to create a perfect addition to its gift line while enhancing its brand image among its franchisees and customers, alike, by aligning with one of the most well known artisan chocolatiers in the world. For Torres, it was a chance to reach huge numbers of potential new customers through the global Edible Arrangements network of locations.
Edible Arrangements followed that partnership by teaming with children’s specialty retailer The Children’s Place to “celebrate the colors of spring” with a special Color-A-Peel cross-promotion designed to reward one brand’s customers with special discounts and giveaways from the other.
Partnerships have to make sense
Whether simple or more complex, of course, a partnership has to make sense to be effective. If it doesn’t make sense, your customers and the public will be the first to let you know . . . by ignoring it.
Kansas City Pinot’s Palette studios partnered with the SPCA
That was not the case for Kansas City locations of BizCom PR client Pinot’s Palette recently. All nine studios in the area teamed with the Great Plains SPCA, which serves more than 35,000 needy pets annually in and around Kansas City, on a Painting It Forward/Project Pet fundraiser. And all nine studios sold out for the upcoming event.
Professional artists will lead guests step-by-step through the process of creating a portrait of their favorite pet while sipping on their favorite beverage. In addition, the artists at each studio will paint one of the SPCA pets up for adoption as a gift to go home with the pet when it finds a new home.
For the Pinot’s Palette locations it provides an opportunity to build a stronger bond with existing customers, reach new customers and show support of the community overall — three key ingredients of a successful partnership.
For the SPCA, in addition to raising much needed funds, Great Plains SPCA President Nate Meador said that the opportunity to partner “with local businesses to help us raise awareness of our mission” brings equal value.
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