co-marketing

Look for tools your customers already use that solve a different problem for the same buyer persona. Check integration ecosystems, Crossbeam or Reveal for account overlap, G2/Capterra category neighbors, and sponsors of the same podcasts or newsletters.

Campaigns fall into four groups: content partnerships (co-authored posts, joint ebooks, research reports), webinars and events, product and integration marketing (better-together pages, bundles, joint case studies), and community or social collaborations like newsletter swaps and giveaways.

Score each partner 1-5 on audience fit, audience size, brand alignment, engagement quality, reciprocity potential, and ease of execution. Weight criteria by your current goal and start with a low-effort format like a content swap to test the relationship.

Common options are each partner keeping their own registrations, sharing all leads between both parties, or splitting by audience source. Document the arrangement in advance in a co-marketing agreement covering responsibilities, timeline, promotion, and metrics sharing.

Co-marketing is partner-to-partner marketing between companies with shared audiences, while referral programs are customer-driven word-of-mouth where customers refer other customers. Referral and affiliate program mechanics belong to the referrals skill, not this one.

The five types are integrations, reseller programs, affiliate programs, co-marketing, and app store/marketplace distribution. Co-marketing is only one type; the references/partnership-types.md file details economics, examples, and how to choose where to start.