Shopify Tech Partnership Guide Pt. 1

I have something special for you today. 

Instead of the usual newsletter, I created a 4-part series about all-things partnerships for DTC SaaS. From easy co-marketing activities that can be done in 30 minutes or less to complex integrations and GTM initiatives that take weeks and months to develop. And filled with real-life examples and insights, you have a handy partnership playbook always just one click away. All in this and upcoming newsletters.

I hope you’ll love it.

The structure is simple. We start with the easy stuff today and grow as we go over the next few weeks.

In today’s part:

• 📑 All types of co-marketing activities (no integrations required).

• 👀 6 real-life examples for you to steal from.

Let’s get started!

Part 1: Co-branded partnerships

Today you don’t need to bother your devs. We cover non-integration partnership efforts. From simple shout-outs to scalable content contributions. You’ll find examples from Okendo, Loox, Recart, and many more. The things you see today are tested over and over again. No fancy experiments. Just the things that work.

And remember; we start with the easiest ones.

Without further ado, bring it on!

Social media shout-out

As the name reveals, it’s the simplest form of partnership you can do. As a standalone activity, it’s unlikely that it will result in anything. Just because you and your partners post something on social media won’t make hundreds of leads come in. But incorporating this into a somewhat bigger initiative, it rounds up everything and gets you a little bit more attention.

Best for: 

• Brand awareness.

Time required:

• Less than 1 hour.

Example:

Newsletter swap

This is one of my favorites. If done the right way, it’s an easy click-generator. While full takeover emails usually result in better results compared to a placement inside a monthly newsletter, it’s also harder to convince partners to do this when you haven’t yet established a relationship. Start small, then expand.

The trick here is not to hope for direct-installs or leads, but to get as much traffic to your site as possible. And then start the retarget-engine.

Pro tip: Don’t just include a plain blurb, offer 10% off, and send traffic to your homepage. Give them something interesting. A case study or a downloadable whitepaper, or, as shown in the example below, a free consultation.

Best for: 

• Generating clicks (which you can use for retargeting purposes).

• Growing your email list.

Time required:

• 1 - 2 hours.

Example:

Guest blog post

There was a time when everyone wanted to write for anyone. It was like a gold rush… but without the gold. These times are now over. (Almost) everyone realized writing good articles takes a shit load of time. And with limited resources available in Marketing and Partnerships teams, we have to focus on the stuff that works. A blog post without promotion never works.

So it’s often smart to let a guest blog post become the home of all co-branded partnership activities. All the traffic that you and your partner generate will be sent to this post.

Best for: 

• “Homepage” of a co-branded partnership campaign.

• Backlinks.

Time required:

• 5 - 10 hours.

Example:

Webinar

The gold standard. Teaming up with partners on a co-hosted webinar can work wonders. Depending on the scale of your webinar campaign, you can expect hundreds of leads. It’s a fantastic way to collaborate with many partners at the same time, without the need of integrations. The best part? You can record the webinar and repurpose the content.

The most common practice is to set a lead-goal for every partner. Only partners who hit that goal will get access to the entire lead list. This ensures that everyone is promoting the webinar in an equal way.

Best for: 

• Lead generation.

• Customer engagement.

Time required:

• 10 - 40+ hours.

Example:

Ebook

Working on a collaborative ebook with partners can have a similar effect as a webinar. The biggest challenge with ebooks is to receive the contributions in a timely manner. That’s why the key to success here is to set deadlines and ensure a streamlined way of content contributions. Otherwise, the entire campaign is at risk of being delayed.

Best for: 

• Lead generation.

Time required:

• 10 - 40+ hours.

Example:

Masterclass / Series

If you’re really keen to scale non-integration partnership efforts, this is for you. A masterclass series is a set of events, spread over days or weeks with one goal: to position you and your partners. The main theme is usually one big topic that one partner alone can’t cover. That’s why partners chime in and support.

Masterclasses are beasts. They’re not easy to pull off and require heavy project management. But if you have that skill in your team, the benefits can be massive.

Best for: 

• Lead generation.

• Positioning.

Time required:

• 40+ hours.

Example:

And with that, we’re coming to an end of part 1 of 4.

Next up: all things integration partnerships.

Thanks for reading. Next week, same time?

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