Partnerships can be a powerful way to grow your business, expand your reach, and create value for your customers. But how do you make sure that the media knows about your partnership and why it matters? In this article, you will learn some tips and best practices to communicate the value of a partnership to the media effectively and strategically.
Before you reach out to the media, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your partnership communication. Do you want to raise awareness, generate leads, establish credibility, or showcase impact? Depending on your goals, you will need to craft different messages, target different outlets, and use different metrics to measure success. For example, if you want to raise awareness, you might focus on highlighting the benefits and features of your partnership, while if you want to generate leads, you might emphasize the call to action and the urgency of your offer.
Before you include earned media coverage in your partnership proposal and contract, consider the following questions: Is it newsworthy? Who else will think it’s newsworthy outside both organisations? What sector of the media will it be relevant to? And if you’re shaky on the answers, then you need to dig deep, get creative and look at how you can make it more newsworthy or appealing to the media. Answer the so what factor, in a beautifully crafted and impactful sentence. By two business coming together what will be achieved, change or occur as a result? The purpose and the impact should be at the heart of your comms! If your partnering is tactical for marketing, go heavy on the why and the significance, and elevate using a PR creative.
For a Media partnership to coexist it is important for all participants/ parties to understand their interest in the partnership they need to gain something from it.
Another key factor to consider when communicating the value of a partnership to the media is who you are talking to. You need to understand the needs, interests, and preferences of your target media outlets and their audiences. What kind of stories do they cover? What kind of tone and language do they use? What kind of value proposition do they look for? By doing some research and analysis, you can tailor your pitch and your press release to fit their criteria and expectations. You can also use social media, blogs, podcasts, and newsletters to find out what topics and trends are relevant and popular in your industry and niche.
Head of Affiliates & Partnerships at PureVPN | B2C | B2B | SaaS | Growth | Acquisition
When sharing your partnership with the media, think storytelling. What's unique and exciting about this team-up? Tailor your message for different media – business impact for trade journals, community benefits for local news. Use clear, simple language and back your story with solid facts. Choose spokespeople who are passionate and can explain why this matters. Mix up your approach: press releases, social media, maybe a cool video. Build genuine relationships with journalists and be ready to respond to feedback. Always learn and adapt your strategy!
Once you have your goals and your audience in mind, you can start crafting your story. A good story is not just a list of facts and figures, but a compelling narrative that showcases the problem, the solution, and the outcome of your partnership. You need to answer the questions: Why did you partner? How did you partner? What did you achieve? How did you make a difference? You also need to include some human elements, such as quotes, testimonials, case studies, or anecdotes, that illustrate the impact and the emotion of your partnership. A good story will capture the attention, the curiosity, and the empathy of the media and their audiences.
Another important decision to make when communicating the value of a partnership to the media is how and where to distribute your story. There are many channels and platforms that you can use, such as press releases, blogs, podcasts, webinars, social media, newsletters, or events. Each channel has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on your goals, your audience, and your resources. You need to consider factors such as reach, engagement, cost, time, and format when choosing your channels. You also need to coordinate and align your channels with your partner, so that you can amplify and reinforce each other's messages.
Showcasing your partnership should play out like a symphony. Well timed, across all owned channels, with the same messages and content. Ensuring the all important CTA is intrinsic to your copy. Long, short or in the middle form, copy no matter the subject should grab attention and get the concept out swiftly in an engaging way! There’s a beautiful balance to be made, between consistency and malaise of messaging. See it too often with the same imagery and the brain will disengage, flash the brand, and a variety of partnership collateral, and the reminders will serve their purpose. Time your presence on podcasts and all earned channels to drive your partnership impact.
Head of Affiliates & Partnerships at PureVPN | B2C | B2B | SaaS | Growth | Acquisition
Choosing the right channel to share your partnership story is like picking the perfect instrument for a song. Press releases are your trumpets, loud and clear. Blogs and podcasts are violins, offering depth. Social media is the drum, quick and catchy. Newsletters and webinars are like pianos, detailed and structured. Events are the full orchestra, immersive and interactive. All the above makes your story resonate effectively with your audience.
The last step to communicate the value of a partnership to the media is to follow up and measure your results. You need to track and analyze the performance of your communication efforts, such as the number of impressions, clicks, shares, leads, conversions, or sales that you generated. You also need to monitor and respond to the feedback and the reactions that you received from the media and their audiences, such as the comments, questions, reviews, or testimonials that they posted. You can use tools such as Google Analytics, social media analytics, or email marketing software to collect and evaluate your data. By following up and measuring, you can learn from your experience, improve your communication strategy, and optimize your partnership value.
Head of Affiliates & Partnerships at PureVPN | B2C | B2B | SaaS | Growth | Acquisition
From a SaaS company's perspective tracking media communication is vital. Viewing media metricslike impressions, clicks, engagement as indicators of customer interest, or app usage stats. Monitor feedback and reactions for insights into market perception and product appeal to analyzing user reviews for app improvements. This data helps tailor your messaging to resonate with relevant audience, driving subscriptions and what all the above drives is referral acquisitions. In a nutshell the followup and measure makes the brand look more human rather than just another name in the category/industry