The Power of Co-Branding in Channel Marketing

“Co-branding is a strategic marketing and advertising partnership between two brands wherein the success of one brand brings success to its partner brand, too”  

—HubSpot  

Often co-branding is associated with the creation of a new, hybrid product or service that combines the common or complementary characteristics of the two or more brands involved, but co-branding in channel marketing is more subtle. 

Offering a marketing strategy to partners that’s mutually beneficial builds rapport and supports the creation of a partnership, as opposed to positioning the supplier as the sole benefactor and leaving the partner unsatisfied. 

Benefits of Co-Branding in Channel Marketing -

It Stands Out – Co-branding breaks up the monotony of traditionally branded material. People notice change, so the slight change made when using the supplier’s logo in conjunction with the partner’s logo will draw the attention and pique the interest of recipients—especially those who’ve received solo branded material from your business in the past.

It Increases Exposure – Using a co-branding strategy puts both the supplier brand and the partner brand in front of new audiences they wouldn’t typically have access to. This expands both parties’ network and takes full advantage of what the partnership was (likely) originally established to achieve. Additional audiences provide more potential sales opportunities and can even help businesses determine new ways that their product or service can be utilized.

It Creates a Rapport with New Audiences – Buyers and consumers are generally weary of unknown brands just arriving in their region until the newcomers are able to establish a strong, respectable standing within the market. Building that sort of reputation and rapport is often challenging and time-consuming, but co-branding minimizes that burden by allowing the new brand to acquire the reputation of a previously vetted brand through association. The new brand can then create relationships within the market more easily and more quickly, which will—in turn—contribute to the establishment of their individual positive brand image and reputation.

Co-Branding: Sometimes Two is Better than One

Distributed marketing is all about creating strategic partnerships, and co-branding is a valuable facet of that overall strategy. Partnerships are supposed to position the supplier and the partner as associates working towards common goals that deliver mutually beneficial outcomes. Co-branding aligns both parties to the same initiatives and produces those benefits that ultimately provide further depth to the established connection and substantiate it as a true partnership.

Triptych Co-Branding Functionality -

Triptych recognizes the need to provide partners with co-branding opportunities and offers through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) functionality to support it.

Our platform utilizes business logic prescribed by the supplier to determine which users have access to materials that are co-brandable upon login. Restricted co-branding functionality is necessary to maintain a strategic approach to co-branding while making it easy for partners with a co-branding relationship to identify what, when, and where co-branding is approved and will make the most impact for both the supplier’s business and their own.

Learn more about Triptych TCMA functionality here or contact one of our experts today.