By Mylena Vazquez
Now more than ever, consumers are showing a strong interest in supporting their local economy by shopping small and buying local. In a recent study, a whopping 75 percent of respondents stated their intention to buy from local businesses. But what is their motivation? For at least 38 percent of consumers, it is that shopping from small businesses helps them feel connected to their community. But as we know, not all companies are the same, and not all consumer needs can be fulfilled only by small or local businesses.
That’s where strategic partnerships come into play. The concept of strategic partnerships is nothing new. In fact, it is a practice almost as old as time. There is an old adage that goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Strategic partnerships, in the modern sense, are alliances formed between businesses or organizations that are beneficial to both parties. But with changing consumer preferences and practices, many of these strategic partnerships have expanded to include the community as a symbolic third party.
Consumers are expressing, through both words and actions, that community impact is a key factor that drives their purchase decisions. How can companies, big and small, respond to these new consumer demands? I see no more fitting way to address this than to partner with five experts to get their unique insights on the topic.
Lourdes de la Mata-Little
Chief Marketing Officer
Goodwill Industries of South Florida
Strategic community partnerships have always been important, but now more than ever. While big established brands provide customers with familiarity, quality they can trust, consistency of products and services, and local jobs on a larger scale, small local companies also offer other benefits that larger organizations cannot. They are able to establish closer relationships with their customers, offer unique localized products and services, and adapt to the local trends on a much faster timeline. As consumer preferences change, narrowing the gap between big and national and small and local could prove to benefit not only the companies involved, but the local community as well. Key factors of this strategy are leveraging the assets and benefits of each and negotiating terms where both parties can benefit. The idea is to provide convenience, ensure efficiency, and highlight the benefits of the partnership, all while creating maximum impact for the local community as a result of the partnership.
For example, Goodwill is among the top five nationally recognized organizations. The perception is that we are a large organization, but the truth is that our business model is set up to provide localized services through assigned territories. While we enjoy the benefit of a broad national reach to form national partnerships and engage in advocacy, we are very much a localized organization that focuses on local impact. Our employees and those we serve are a reflection of our diverse community—that matters, as the services we provide are tailored to our specific community. Goodwill also establishes partnerships with other local nonprofits whose area of expertise is very different from ours. We position ourselves as a “continuum of care,” where the person receives services for the stage in which they find themselves on their road to recovery. If, for example, a person is suffering from substance abuse or homelessness, our service of providing them employment is premature. At this stage, we would instead refer them to one of our partners, Camillus House, so that they can begin their journey to recovery. Once that person has successfully moved beyond that stage, Goodwill steps back in to help them on their way, helping them acquire job skills and in the process of securing a job. As you can see, this partnership with Camillus House is critical to the success of that individual. Strategic partnerships and finding the benefits of the partnership where both parties benefit is the key.
However, the local impact of strategic community partnerships is not limited to just relationships between nonprofits. A great example of this is when a national restaurant chain partners with a local nonprofit and donates a percentage of their sales to the food bank. Even between two for-profit companies, strategic partnerships can have a positive local impact. You often see large companies, like Publix, selling locally made products. This gives customers the opportunity to support small local businesses while also providing the sense of safety that comes from being able to shop at a place they know and trust. Though strategic community partnerships may come in many different forms, they can ultimately all serve the community in a meaningful way.
Alexis Dawson
Marketing Manager
South Beach Wine & Food Festival
When it comes to strategic partnerships, it’s important to think about the national and local effects your brand has within your markets. The more affiliation you have with local consumers within the market your product is in, the stronger the brand awareness you’ll have to reach more audiences, build interest, and generate revenue. As consumerism continues to shift, brand advocates continue to remain loyal based on overall marketing mix affiliation. It’s not just enough for brands to think about building their own channels now, consumers want to see their overall presence and who they affiliate with!
This includes their social responsibility plans, brands they partner with that share the same values and messages, and what influencers they choose to represent them.
A combination of these factors can dramatically boost brand identity and awareness, expanding consumer interactions and closing the sales funnel.
Megan Clifton
Social Media Manager
The Walt Disney Company
As competition for the attention of our target audience increases, it’s vital that brands leverage strategic partnerships to help increase and maintain brand loyalty and affinity. By taking advantage of strategic partnerships, brands can access new market segments and expand reach into new audiences, allowing for extended company growth. In addition, by leveraging strategic partnerships, companies can strengthen their brand’s reputation in the minds of their current customers from the added value that their selected partner provides.
Yanyn San Luis
Owner and Founder
The Win Woman
One way to differentiate yourself and stand out in the digital marketing space is by humanizing your brand. Smart consumers are curious and expect consistency and reliability from a brand, and they want to know:
Where are materials being sourced from?
How diverse is the brand?
Do they have a corporate social responsibility statement?Going behind the scenes and storytelling the answers to the questions above will provide the real type of connection you are looking to establish with your clients. Likewise, partnerships with nonprofits will help you build rapport in the community and elevate your impact.
Alejandro Vazquez
Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer
PHAOX
PHAOX is a startup dedicated to changing the paradigm for office-based video endoscopy. Existing endoscopy machines for in-office use run upwards of $30,000 and use antiquated technology; all budget alternatives are inadequate in some form or another. What this means for physicians is that the equipment they need to treat patients is often inaccessible. Whichever company cracks the code to create a full-feature, fully-functional system for office-based endoscopy that is more affordable than the current market leader could potentially dominate the market for decades to come. PHAOX is on this path, but we need a strategic partner to help develop our prototype into a marketable product. A strategic partnership would lend not just credibility and weight to our startup but also provide resources necessary to continue developing what is an essential tool for the specialty. It would also allow for this tool to become widely available to all physicians by effectively eliminating financial barriers to access. With the support of a strategic partner, every practitioner could have a PHAOX system in their office—something which ultimately benefits all kinds of patients in the community.
Concluding Thoughts
Strategic partnerships are not formed in a silo. These decisions are made not only with the best interests of the two organizations involved in mind, but also with the interests of the consumer and community in mind as well. Not all partnerships look the same; they depend largely on the organizations involved, the ultimate goals of the partnership, the respective industries, the community, and so much more. But at their core, these partnerships involve aligning your company with other companies that share similar values and objectives.
As Alexis said, consumers want to know with whom companies are associating. Consumers will naturally be more inclined to purchase from a business which has been vouched for by another company which that consumer recognizes and loves. Alternatively, consumers will likely be turned off from an organization that is partnered with a company that has a less-than-favorable reputation. As Don Quixote said to Sancho Panza, “Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.”
But there are, in fact, specific ways to build credibility through strategic partnerships. Yanyn points to establishing relationships with local nonprofits to give your company a more human face—and to actually make a difference in that community. Alejandro points to a different kind of credibility, whereby nascent companies can leverage partnerships with larger companies to bring to fruition products that will ultimately benefit the community. In each of these circumstances, strategic partnerships play a vastly different but equally important role in bolstering the reputations of these companies.
As Lourdes rightly points out, strategic partnerships help bridge the gaps between different organizations. They allow companies to co-brand, co-market, and co-create by leveraging the strong suits, audiences, and resources of each. As Megan indicates, competition only increases with each passing day, and companies are constantly fighting to keep up with consumer demands to do more and be better. So what is more innovative and powerful than for companies to forge strategic partnerships and work together to succeed while serving? Not much, partner.
Im very pleased to find this page. I wanted to thank you for your time due to this wonderful read!! I definitely savored every bit of it and i also have you bookmarked to check out new information in your blog.
Hello! I loved this read as well. I think it is so great how thoughtful each post was and how much gratitude seemed to be throughout this entire post. I also chose to savor every bit of this post so I am glad that you posted this. I love the fact that we get to have commentary from different perspectives of different professionals. Strategic partnership is also great for a specific community and individuals because it teaches us to learn and achieve our goals through different partnerships. Thank you!!
I loved this article! It is very important to stand out and branch out in marketing. I loved the part of the article that talked about giving back in order to give light to a company as well as look better as marketers. I believe that it is great that individuals are starting to shop small and give back while looking at specific assets within a new community of marketing analytics. The aspect of strategic partnerships is very important and I loved that this article put an emphasis on this specific detail. When we work together we work much better. As a marketer, I can take this into any sphere of influence and use these tools to continue to be better and work with others rather than compete within my marketing atmosphere. Thank you for this great read!
In my opinion, market engagement and co-promoting would help strengthen the strategic partnership between businesses and the communities in which they operate. Some business-community partnerships mimic the appearance of more conventional forms of advertising and can help you gain widespread exposure within your field. Social media, direct mail, emailing, and other channels can all be used as part of a successful co-marketing strategic plan between local businesses and the local market. The goal is to get the local market to do more business with the local businesses.
Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re the proud owner of a modest bakery located in a quiet town center. To this end, you’ve decided to team up with a local web designer specializing in food websites and a party venue owner. Instantly, your business went from being known only to a few to being well known throughout the local areas. Cooperation between neighborhood businesses and the locals can help in this way.
Anyone with a job in the business world will find a wealth of helpful information in this article. This article struck a chord with me because it highlighted the importance of strategic partnerships between businesses and their surrounding communities in today’s competitive business landscape. According to the study cited in the article, approximately 75% of respondents indicated a preference for dealing with local businesses. Local businesses, in my opinion, should collaborate more closely with community members there to strengthen ties between the two. In fact, there are many advantages to building strong relationships through strategic alliances, including helping local consumers become less wary of businesses as a result of regulatory, industry, or market shifts. The article hit home for me because it enlightened me to a further effect of strategic partnerships with businesses and communities, which is something I had not considered before. Partnerships with members of a local community, for instance, can help a company gather information to help the company make changes that benefit its target market, which in turn increases the company’s resources and expertise. Giving back to the community is crucial in improving a company’s public image and, in my opinion, is good for business overall. People should keep supporting locally owned businesses to aid their own communities and advance market research. There is a wealth of useful information in this article for any marketer’s career.
I work at a small, non-profit museum and strategic partnerships are our bread and butter. We would not be able to survive without the many community partnerships we’ve cultivated. In our case, I would say that we’ve helped our customers trust other companies because they love us. They know that we only have their best interests at heart, and we wouldn’t recommend a community resource that we wouldn’t also utilize.
Our strategic partnerships also help us to reach underserved populations in our community. We don’t exist to gate-keep educational resources, we want everyone to have access to our museum. So, through national partnerships, we’re able to provide greatly discounted rates to guests who use EBT or SNAP benefits, for instance. Local partnerships allow us to take our resources to underprivileged schools in the community.
This article is a great reminder to all organizations and small businesses that we can work together to benefit our communities. We don’t have to view each other as competition, but as neighbors who all have something great to offer. Thank you for the insights!
Hi Chelsea,
It’s fantastic to see how the museum you work at has leveraged strategic partnerships to be beneficial for the community while also strengthening its own position. It highlights the fact that partnerships can be a great opportunity for all parties involved, whether direct or indirect. It’s also inspiring to see how your museum has taken a community-centric approach and made access to educational resources a priority. The efforts made show how a whole community can benefit from a partnership that has a focus on CSR.
Hi Chelsea! I loved reading about the effort your museum makes to build strategic partnerships! I also am really interested in the framing around it being a mutual relationship to not gate-keep art. An entire community betters when everyone is exposed to art and culture. I found it’s really important to take a “mutually beneficial” approach to these community relationships.
Paul Holness; Marketing Manager Brands Mart USA. Brand awareness is important in marketing, in order to get your goods and services sell and be recognized. Advertisement is a great tool to use to introduce your goods and services on the market. So that customers would know the price of your product and services, location, brand of your product, and the durability of your product. So I always recommend marketers to advertised their brand, and company goods and services regularly on the radio, internet, television and the news paper so that customers would know more about their products and services.
Having the opportunity to partner with another business in order to meet new customer demands, strengthen the brand’s reputation, and gain efficiency and credibility will give both businesses great benefits. So, strategic partnerships are a powerful tool for developing further knowledge and establishing a better relationship with customers. A hidden gem in this article for me is the mention of corporate social responsibility, especially partnering with a local company. Looking at the example of a supermarket that sells locally produced products, on the one hand, this reduces the ecological footprint of customers because they don’t have to take products that have been shipped from another part of the country or world. And on the other hand, it helps attract more environmentally conscious customers. In order to show customers credibility and consistency regarding CSR, it is important for both parties to follow similar values so as not to harm the company’s reputation and lose customers.
I have worked with multiple non-profits trying to establish these strategic partnerships and I love that this article gave multiple examples of what those can look like. We used Salesforce to track these relationships and their touch points. I would love to learn what other people do to track their organization s networks and partnership goals!
This article sparked so many ideas for me to (re)implement in my salon. Thank you for reminding me how important it is to showcase the local partners we have, as well as, to reach out to my corporate connections for their support. Social responsibility keeps showing up for me, this is yet another push to take initiative.