Building more product integrations and finding more resellers isn’t enough to grow a partnership program. If you don’t market your partnerships, they won’t succeed.

Learning how to successfully launch new partners and continue to communicate about current partnerships is critical.

A robust partner marketing strategy includes public relations. First, PR drives awareness that in turn creates goodwill with your partners by showing them that you are in it to help them shine. Second, the stronger your PR, the more inbound interest you’ll create for your partner program, which dramatically lowers costs to scale.

Thinking beyond the basic partnership press release

Partnership PR usually begins and ends with a press release announcing that company A has partnered with company B. While the press release can serve as a jumping off point, there are better ways to ensure that you and your partners drive the most out of your relationship with a solid media approach.

These four steps will help drive more interest, earn impactful media coverage and attract more partners.

Step 1 – Build Buzz

  • Launch your partnership via a press release and targeted media outreach

  • Create thought leadership content that describes why the partnership will help customers or the market, focus on macro trends that media will care about

  • Pitch to vertical publications that your potential customers and partners read

Step 2 – Find the Perfect User

  • Create a user case study that shows customer success with you and your partner’s software. Focus on problem solution and how the customer attempted to solve the problem prior to using your new solution

  • Pitch the problem solution to pertinent media, offering your partner and the user for interviews

Step 3 – Co-Market Content

  • Sync with your partner’s marketing team to coordinate co-marketing efforts such as blogs hosted on each other’s sites, social media promotion and webinar content

  • Pitch media insights from both of your companies to earn stories that build both of your brands to potential customers

Step 4 – Continue the Drumbeat

  • Create a press release with relevant milestones including customer acquisition numbers and new revenue created by partnerships

  • Pitch continued thought leadership on growth in market via partnership

  • Attract more partners into your ecosystem to show growth

Make it a habit

Going beyond the basics requires putting effort in to create a system and a process to ensure you follow through. Make sure you connect with your PR team, your PR agency, and your marketing communications team at least once a month to push forward your partner marketing program.

Remember, momentum is everything. If you keep putting your story out there, the more you’ll get coming back inbound to you. This will make all your partnership efforts more scalable and affordable as time goes on.