The Impact of Brand Collaborations on Content Experience

Brand collaboration has always been a potent way of widening your audience base. Let’s look at how it can benefit brands when it comes to creating content experiences.

If your organization is creating content experiences in-house, you might eventually hit a plateau as there’s little room left for innovation. Stephen Covey in his self-help book — The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People writes, “Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.”

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Involving outside entities in your creative/content process is an excellent way to break out of the rut. That’s where the concept of brand collaboration comes in.

What Is Brand Collaboration?

From the perspective of Content Experience, Brand collaboration is a form of partnership marketing and an essential branding exercise wherein two or more brands work together to create a piece of content. The involvement of the collaborating brand depends on the goal of the project. There could be two scenarios in this case:

1. Both the brands do the heavy lifting, i.e., both brands contribute equally to the collaboration and highlight their respective products or services
2. The main brand creates content and uses the digital property of the other brand to amplify the reach of the content. An example of this arrangement could be, guest posts and branded content
    

Brands can collaborate to create blog posts, whitepapers, ebooks, research reports, infographics, podcasts, video series, cross-medium content, interviews, case studies, etc.

Note: In cross-medium content collaboration, each brand gets an opportunity to highlight its strength. For example, if one brand is known for its in-depth research and writing style, and the other is recognized for its visual content (infographics, videos, etc.), each brand can focus on its core style to create engaging content.

Also Read: What Is Content Experience and How to Deploy It for Marketing Success

Brand Collaboration in Content Experiences

As brands continue to create incredible content experiences for their target audience, here are a few benefits brands can procure by collaborating with other brands:

1. Boost In SEO
 

Building credible backlinks is one of the most essential off-page SEO techniques. A backlink from a reputed source inspires a vote of confidence from the search engine. That’s why Google had named its first algorithm ‘BackRub,’ back in 1996.

When two brands work together to create a content experience, it not only helps them create remarkable content but also helps them boost their rankings in search engines as both brands are pointing towards each other as a trusted source.

2. Broader Audience Reach
 

Two brands might have an identical target audience but have limited reach due to various factors. When these two brands work together, they get an opportunity to tap into each other’s tribe and widen their respective audience base. And since the tapped community consists of industry leaders, influencers, decision makers and peers, along with doubled website traffic and leads, it can potentially increase revenue in near future.

3. Thought Leadership
 

Widening your reach inherently helps you build your credibility in the industry. When two reputed brands work together, both are banking on each other’s expertise and in the end, both brands are perceived as thought leaders by their target audience.

4. Fresh Perspective
 

The siloed approach towards creating content experiences might restrict your perspective while looking at your topic of expertise. When you collaborate within your industry, you will get a fresh perspective of your topic, and the proverbial blinders will fall off. Even though you might share the same opinion, the style of putting it across certainly makes a difference.

Also Read: 4 Reasons Why Content Experience Is the New Content Marketing

Guidelines for Brand Collaboration

Brand collaboration entails two or more brands to work together in harmony to create a new piece of content. To create a win-win situation for both or all brands, here are a few guidelines to keep in mind:

1. Find Your Indirect Competitors
 

This should come across as a no-brainer. The brand you’re collaborating with should not be a direct competitor. You will get the maximum benefit out of brand collaboration if the other brand complements your products or services. For instance, if you’re a marketing automation software, you can collaborate with a CRM provider.

2. Set Clear Goals
 

Before initiating the project, define the goals for the collaboration. Whether is it to drive traffic to the website, generate leads or rank higher up in search engines for a specific keyword? Whatever the goal, be clear and specific about it. Also, work out the SEO details such as keyword phrases to be targeted, anchor texts, resources to be linked, external links and so on.

3. Brand Comes First
 

When you’re scouting brands for a collaboration, make sure the brand you’re going to work with is aligned to your brand vision. The collaboration will only be successful if both brands have some traits in common such as brand voice, tone, values, etc.

Also Read: 3 Trends for Content Experiences

Conclusion

The process of finding the right collaborator takes time, but it is well worth the effort to create a win-win situation. A successful brand collaboration works as a jetpack to propel your content experiences to the next level. Along with the benefits mentioned above, two or more brands working together to create a content experience is always a rewarding, learning experience.

How do you plan to collaborate with a brand to deliver a content experience? Tell us on Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook!