You're building a brand partnership with limited resources. How do you ensure equal success contributions?

Looking to build a brand partnership with limited resources? Here are 5 tips that have transformed my approach: 1. Clearly define roles and expectations for both partners to ensure accountability. 2. Leverage each partner's strengths to maximize contributions and minimize resource strain. 3. Establish transparent communication channels for regular updates and feedback. 4. Set measurable goals and agree on success metrics to track progress collaboratively. 5. Foster a culture of mutual respect and recognition to keep motivation high. Apply these to see a real difference in your partnership dynamics.

To ensure equal success contributions in a brand partnership with limited resources, start by clearly defining each partner's roles, expectations, and goals. Establish open communication from the outset to ensure transparency and mutual understanding. Leverage each brand’s strengths—one may provide creative assets while the other offers distribution channels or audience access. Regularly review progress together, using key performance indicators (KPIs) to track contributions and outcomes. If imbalances arise, address them promptly and adjust responsibilities. Consider shared investments or co-branded initiatives that maximize impact without overstretching resources. Collaboration and fairness are key to achieving mutual success.

The first thing to realise in any brand partnership is to look at brand equity. It goes down to who needs who more. What each stands to gain. Be practical about it. In any case it should be win-win. But one side may also stand more to gain. After you have realised what each stand to gain, have a coffee discussion with your partner. On your side you should always amplify the value add that you bring to the table. Present an elevated pitch. Once your partner is aligned with you, discuss what each party needs to contribute to make the brand partnership successful. Set some timelines and milestones. Get a memorandum of understanding (mou) signed. Next step is to get all deliverables ready prior to brand partnership launch. Viola!

Before embarking on a partnership, clearly define the goals for both brands. This ensures that everyone is working towards common objectives. Discuss what success means for each party and agree on measurable outcomes. Whether it's increasing brand awareness, expanding into new markets, or launching a new product, having well-defined goals will guide your efforts and help you track progress. Remember, these goals should be realistic considering your resources but ambitious enough to drive significant results.

Focus on the target market and work backwards. Ensure the partnership adds genuine value to the customer experience - THEN define goals. Inevitably, one brand may have a larger target market footprint and greater credibility, and the weaker brand should not be overly protective. While the weaker brand may play a greater role in directing co-branded communications and share equal visual presence, the stronger brand may be best placed as the lead message sender. This ensures the messaging is received by the target market in a vein that is more credible, leveraging the stronger brand’s trust and reach. In the case of CRM/email marketing, data protection restrictions re sharing contacts will force your hand into this type of brand collaboration

Before forming a partnership, conduct a SWOT analysis to assess each brand's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This will help you understand how you can best complement each other. For example, one brand might have a strong social media presence while the other has a robust distribution network. By identifying these unique assets, you can allocate resources more effectively and leverage each other's strengths to overcome limitations.

Create a Brand Equity strengths analysis in relationship with different scenarios: industry trends, market trends, client evolution and stakeholders. While your SWOT may look great at this time, you need to project it into the future based on different scenarios to analyze the opportunities and threats relating to brand equity growth potential.

Maintain open and honest communication throughout the partnership. Regular check-ins allow both parties to share updates, address challenges, and adjust strategies as needed. This dialogue is essential for ensuring that both brands contribute equally to the partnership's success. Transparent communication helps build trust and fosters a collaborative environment where both parties feel valued and heard.

Agreements are important. Since without agreements and responsibilities it will be very difficult to maintain a healthy brand partnership. Evaluating many aspects such as brand style guidelines, brand management, voice management and core messaging is key. As well as trademarks and copyright information. Also managing specific project goals, deliverables and budget goals and stakeholders with meeting agendas and project maps.

Realistically, brands often cannot or should not make like-for-like contributions due to differences in resource composition, budgets, target market awareness and penetration. However, they can each play to their unique strengths and competencies within the partnership. For instance, in successful tech marketing collaborations, I've frequently found that one brand contributes through its technological expertise or a niche specialism relevant to the partnership's goals, while the other focuses on its broader market reach or customer engagement capabilities. By playing to their strengths, both brands can create a mutually beneficial partnership, even if their contributions differ in nature.

Other KPIs to consider are brand awareness and brand reach. If only a small portion of your target audience is aware of your brand, it may undermine the sales and marketing efforts measured by the other AI listed KPIs and may need addressing before investing heavily elsewhere. For example, 'unaided reach' surveys your entire target audience, not just customers, to see what percentage identifies your brand(s), providing insights on how your brand(s) compares to competitors. 'Aided reach', asks the same group to recognise brands from a list. In the course of such surveys, understanding media consumption also aids in channel selection decisions. For e.g. awareness and reach could be enhanced through both targeted PR and social media efforts.