Brand collaboration, will this rival influencer marketing?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have heard of influencer marketing
So, what defines an influencer? It’s an individual with the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of their authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with their audience. Or an individual who has a following in a distinct niche, with whom they actively engage. The size of the following depends on the size of their niche.
If you take away the ‘individual’ part of this description it’s pretty clear that in the B2B world, businesses are influencers. So, this got us thinking, could business collaborations be the new ‘influencer marketing’?
Economies of scale will allow for greater reach
Collaborating or Co-Marketing with other businesses isn’t new, but as the market becomes more saturated it could be the answer for how businesses can break into new markets and leverage the Brand Equity from those they work alongside.
Think about it, a brand selling speakers could collaborate with those selling houses, why? Because doubling up the social reach, brand equity and association would undoubtedly help to reach a new and untapped audience for a fraction of the cost it may normally take to acquire.
Not only does the reach grow but the economies of scale do too. With a clear message shared by both brands, less work is needed in getting said message out, less money needs to change hands and less people (in theory) need to be involved.
We’re not saying that these Business Collaborations need to be a ‘contra-deal’ where services are traded at no, or little cost, for the exposure a partnership may lead to. What we are saying is that there’s legs in teaming up and collaborating with brands, products and services that benefit your offering or tap into new markets.
Business equity for brand equity
Founders and startups often look for capital investments for equity in their business, this is call a seed fund, but what if businesses that had a solid proposition and were onto something asked for ‘brand equity’ in return for real enquiry...? For 10% of startup X selling speakers would a house builder, night club owner or co-working space invest their resources into marketing and collaborating with the business for an equity stake in startup X knowing their return would be to cash out if the collaboration was a success?
Whilst the business equity for brand equity argument is one that may see the valuation of businesses fluctuate irreversibly, we do believe that more and more Brand Collaborations will become apparent over the next year as the world shrinks, digital grows and noise increases.