Finding your groove into generating note-worthy experiences can feel challenging—but it’s certainly not unattainable. Creating a valuable space in the construction for dependable and devoted ecommerce partnerships on all sides of your business is going to be the boomerang that keeps consumers engaged and, naturally, coming back for more. 

Hilda Batayneh, the creative director at Reunited Clothing, says the process of creating impactful partnerships can start and end with “understanding your brand as DNA.” You are allowing space to deconstruct down to the core of who you are, what your product is, and what distinctive qualities your brand can bring to the table. 

All in all, enriching these partnerships may feel like a strategy chartered only for the Big Brands, but it’s a task that can be achieved by any brand, from brand new to well-established. All they need is a place to start and a few themes to focus on along the way.

Be Educated

As a seemingly obvious start, but rather an important one, is the significance of education and the amount of space you allow for it within your business. Anyone learning about your product should have the same standards. This can include, but is not limited to, yourself, your community, employees, and consumers. Keeping your standards, policies, and your culture in an easy-to-learn setting will significantly speed up those partnerships waiting to happen.

For example, Reunited Clothing has a page on the website that details some strategic and meaningful partnerships they currently have. This includes their mission statements, unique distinctions, as well as links to shop or learn more. Not only does Reunited Clothing allow room for itself to shine, but there’s a great opportunity for others to grow and have valid exposure within that partnership.

You’re able to click on each brand to learn about their mission and how they identify, as well as explore links to connect to their product and experience. Similarly, social audio app Clubhouse hosts conversations with celebrity- and Influencer-based partnerships that, in turn, also allow for conversations around why these partnerships have made each party successful.

Partnerships between your brand and other stores, celebrities, influencers, or upcoming voices and initiatives should have a good amount of educational material behind them. If partnerships and their importance or vision are kept in the dark—no info on social, your website, your campaigns, and beyond—the value, opportunities, and impact get lost. So, step one should always start with educating your team and others about the partnerships in motion.

Be Human 

Now you have your educational opportunities where you need them to b, and some partnerships budding. So, what’s next? Easy! It’s time to just be yourself.

Partnerships require humanity, not just products. While you allow space for learning, education, and growth, you can also include that clearance for the personality your brand has naturally created, which is yours! This can be done by focusing on relatability and connectivity in your marketing strategies to target your audience and who your brand will help most. What members of your community and partnerships can spread this word? How can they connect with your consumers and your brand? Who will see the value in the partnerships you have and feel a deeper connection as a result?

Influencers have seemed to stir up the strategies when they started partnering with different companies. They have the ability to swiftly reach a large specific audiences, large or small, and change the game in how products are brought into conversation in the everyday household. 

Per the Influencer Orchestration Network, “73% of all marketers are now allocating a greater proportion of their resources to influencer marketing compared with a year ago.” That stat isn’t just a coincidence or a flash in the pan. Each day that influencers are partnering with brands to gain mutual exposure, they’re providing existing and new audiences with a more relatable and often down-to-the-roots approach.

The fact is that more consumers are making buying decisions based on a brand’s values. When a shopper feels closely aligned with a brand and what it stands for, that’s a huge win for everyone. Brands see their mission turn into reality and shoppers feel good about supporting what’s important to them, too. When brands and shoppers work toward the same things, there’s no uncomfortable dissonance that follows every purchase. Natural partnerships that exemplify your brand personality broadcast everything you stand for to the people who care most about your mission. So, when picking partnerships, a good idea is to simply be yourself and people will follow.

Be Involved 

Being involved is another huge step in creating exposure to your brand. Shared knowledge, trust, and experience allows more space and time for new consumers to take in your goal and disrupt our mainstream platforms. This may also allow them an opportunity to form their own goal. Upping purpose-driven involvement through actions like volunteering can makes room for a lot of anonymous eyes to fall on your purpose—and from there on, you are allowing full exposure to what you and your product stand for.

Going beyond a purely social element and stepping into real-life, hands-on involvement also doubles down on your brand’s mission or values. It signals to your customers that you actually walk the walk. Plus, the commitment and follow-through that comes with volunteering could be huge for networking with and attracting partners.

When getting involved, ask who is already a large part of your brand? Which partners can share their great experiences and knowledge with those around them who are unfamiliar with your product?  What types of involvement are most accessible to you while having a reach? Both Reunited Clothing and Clubhouse heavily utilize user platform/influencer partnerships. Promote your distinctive qualities as well as promote these influencer partnerships to benefit everyone involved. 

Be Bold

This is your product and your brand, and standing up for unique objectives, and doing it boldly, is going to allow an introduction into parallel goals and values. Through those similarities and even those differences, you will start to uncover the benefits that are going to be in turn, mutually beneficial. Choosing partnerships, projects, volunteer opportunities, and being your authentic self simply isn’t going to please every single person—and that’s ok.

When you boldly choose a plan that’s the best fit for your brand and community, you’re giving people an even greater reason to choose you. Partnerships thrive when there’s unified conviction instead of wishy-washy people-pleasing.

What’s next? 

This question will be following you around as you see success in the partnerships you have and will continue to create. Learn to adapt in way that makes sense to factor relevancy, and a wholesome goal is going to help you avoid staleness in the reason you created your product to begin with. 

An opportunity to actively use each theme lies within the chance you will inevitably get to assist other brands, thus being malleable in your efforts. As Reunited Clothing and Clubhouse did, your brand can assist all interested parties in creating the bases, so it then becomes a natural chain of valuable relationships. 

By staying educated, human, involved, bold, and malleable—you and your product can find ways to assemble a stronghold to keep your customers and future partnerships interested and continually coming back around. 

See what else Hilda (and friends) have to say about fostering partnerships in the Route Connect panel “The Power of Partnerships.”