3 Steps to Creating Effective Co-Branded Content

This post was originally published on July 22, 2020, and was updated on August 7, 2023.
how to create co-branded content

“No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.”

Partner marketing is an invaluable tool for B2B companies, helping both you and your content marketing partners achieve sales and marketing goals. Co-branded partner content marketing takes that collaboration one step further to create an end product that delivers value to end users while (done right) saving all involved partners time and money.

What is Co-Branding Content?

A co-branded content marketing strategy involves two or more brands working together to create assets to boost awareness, build engagement and increase perceived value for all partners. Co-branded partner marketing content can come in a range of forms, including ebooks, email campaigns, blog posts, and other assets.

Most often, the co-branded content project is shared behind a lead generation form, and leads are generated by partners, tracked with UTM codes, and shared fairly.

The Benefits of Co-Branding in B2B Partner Marketing

While co-marketing campaigns are common among B2C corporations, co-branded partner content marketing can deliver a lot of value in the B2B world as well.

How to Create Co-Branded Content

How to Create Co-Branded Content

The success of a co-branded content marketing strategy depends on it working for all parties involved in the collaboration. Here are three steps you can take to develop a flexible, successful B2B partner marketing project.

1. Choose the Right Format

Not every content format is right for every brand. Your co-branded content should be built in a format that makes it easy for all partners to contribute to and use. Ideally, you’ll produce content in several forms to avoid limiting your audience to people who consume a specific type of content.

Decisions on format should consider brand guidelines, budget, and the output capabilities of each partner. If one partner has the capacity to create and edit a video, but the other lacks the resources or budget, the full burden falls on a single partner — unless a third-party marketing agency is engaged to support content production.

Type Pros Cons
Long-form content (ebooks, white papers, reports)
  • Can include expertise from multiple partners to appeal to a broad audience
  • Competing solutions can make collaboration challenging
Webinar
  • Encourage live engagement with audiences
  • Facilitate participation of several partners
  • Difficult to keep focus on valuable content instead of sales during a live event
Videos
  • High impact with audiences
  • Suitable for multiple platforms
  • Challenging to scale, edit, or customize for partner use
Podcasts
  • Allows one or more experts to share knowledge in a casual way
  • Like webinars, can be hard to keep focus of content on track if not scripted
Microsites
  • Enables launch of a partner marketing initiative without diluting either brand
  • Requires regular updates to content to keep fresh
  • Guest posts on each other’s sites are an easy way to support partner marketing strategies
  • Must be backed by an SEO strategy and distribution plan to achieve intended effects
Infographics
  • Easy to customize for various partners
  • Can summarize main points of larger assets
  • Requires design skills to build and customize
Co-Author the Content Outline

2. Co-Author the Content Outline

Before you dive into the creation of your partner marketing content, it’s best to co-author an outline. A well-defined outline has several benefits:

An effective content outline is more than just a list of topics. It’s a framework for your ideas that will help bring your content to life in a way that engages, entertains, or educates your audience.

Follow these guidelines to create an outline that will serve as a foundation for high-quality partner marketing content.

3. Make Personalization Possible

You’ve got your own style and vision for your marketing content, but it’s important to leave room for content marketing partners to add their own touches to partner marketing assets.

You may want cornerstone content (like an ebook or report) to remain as-is but allow partners to customize related blog posts, infographics, or social media content to fit their own voice.

Consider this: 55% of respondents for the 2022 State of Partner Marketing Report said partner marketing is a significant or critical piece of their strategy. But 60% are ambivalent, dissatisfied, or deeply dissatisfied with their current partner marketing initiatives.

Kickstart Your Co-Branded Partner Content

The team at TPM eats, sleeps, and breathes content marketing — and some of the campaigns we’re most proud of are co-branded partner marketing initiatives. If you (or your partners) lack the time, expertise, or resources to build out effective co-branded partner content, we’re here to help.

Contact us directly to discuss your partner marketing needs.

Right now, how comfortable are you with the idea of using AI-generated content (with minimal or no human intervention) to promote your business?

How comfortable are you with the idea of using AI-generated content