Content is still (very much) king of the Internet. The importance of a content marketing campaign cannot be denied with Baby Boomers spending in excess of 20 hours per week consuming online content and Gen-Xers and Millennials as much as 10 hours.
Developing a content marketing strategy is critical to generate attention for your brand. To remain competitive, you need to know how to take your content marketing campaign to the next level. The solution can be as simple as leveraging the power of partnerships.
The advantages of a content marketing partnership.
If you are experiencing difficulty in launching your content marketing campaign, forming partnerships is one of the fastest ways to expand your efforts by building on the success of others. A content marketing partnership helps your brand to gain more exposure to additional people and more links. When developed properly, partnerships provides exposure for both partners.
What can you offer a partner?
The key to forming a beneficial partnership is bringing something of value to the table. The most common element of value is your own audience but if you are just starting your content marketing campaign you may not have yet developed your audience. If that is the case, you could offer innovative ideas for content, or willingness and ability to conduct research. Decide in advance what it is that you can contribute before you begin searching for potential partners.
Avoiding mistakes searching for prospective partners.
What do you need from a partner? A common mistake brands make is focusing solely on prospective partners who have well-known reputations or large social media followings. Audience size and/or reputation is not enough in a good partner. You must verify that they can execute a partnership, and actually contribute something to that partnership.
Once you have identified a prospective partner, be clear about the role that each of you will play. That will reduce the potential for any misunderstanding. For instance, be sure to clarify who is going to develop the content idea, who will be responsible for handling research, etc.
Producing fresh content and building your audience on a continuous basis is vital to any content marketing campaign. A partnership is an excellent way to grow your audience faster and keep them engaged.
