Ecommerce Collaborations: Leveraging Other People’s Audience to Grow Yours

Most business owners want to authentically connect with their ideal customers. After all, your customers are your people, and you like creating things for them. But there are a lot of things that can stand in your way of making a connection. 

Algorithms and general skepticism can keep your ideal customer from finding and trusting you. If you’re tired of banging your head against the wall on your own and trying to find a way to connect with more customers, maybe it’s time to work with someone else. No, not a marketing team, although they can be helpful, too. 

Here’s how you can leverage other people’s audiences to grow your business. 

Marketing Opportunities for Ecommerce Brands

There are lots of opportunities for you to work with other brands on multiple marketing platforms. Some common ones include:

• Newsletters
• Referral Programs
• Blog Posts
• Social Media Platforms
• Email Lists
• Podcasts
• Communities
• SMS
• Webinars
• Joint Offers
• Workshops

Each of these marketing strategies fall into one (or multiple) categories: owned, rented, and borrowed. 

Owned audience is your own audience that you have a direct relationship with. This is the most narrow of the three audiences, but the only group that you have total control over. A great example is your email list.  

Rented audiences are audiences you have some control over, but are subject to algorithms, SEO rankings, or other external factors. It’s a much broader audience than your owned audience, but you don’t have complete control over your access to these individuals. A great example is your own social media channels. While you can post, you’re subject to the algorithm. Or if you’re going to run ads, you’ll have to pay to play. 

Targeting this audience can help increase your brand awareness, yet you likely will have a hard time winning them over or building trust with them. 

Borrowed audiences help your organization gain exposure from someone else’s audience. Some common examples include guest blog posts, social media collaborations, and presenting at a conference. This is the broadest audience, and the audience you have the least amount of control over.  

To work with borrowed audiences, you’ll have to actively seek out opportunities. This can be highly rewarding because the owners of the borrowed audience have attracted the right people and built trust with them. 

A borrowed audience presents a great opportunity for businesses to grow their own audience in a way that quickly builds trust with our business. 

Benefits of Using Other People’s Platforms

Asking someone to do something for you can be intimidating. What if they don’t get back to you? Or, what if they say no? Could they get so offended that you get blacklisted by other important ecommerce brands?

None of these scenarios (except for a brand not getting back to you) are very likely. People love to collaborate. It’s a win for the organization you reach out to because they get to expand their audience, too (with your audience). They also will have some content they can push to their followers, making their content planning easier. 

You’ll get to connect with your ideal audience via an avenue where trust has already been established. All around, thoughtful collaborations are a win/win. 

Finding the Right Businesses to Collaborate With

Now that you understand the types of audiences that are out there, it’s time to find the business or organization to collaborate with to grow your own audience. 

If you’re not sure where to start, consider making an ideal client avatar. Ask yourself some of the following questions. 

• What does my ideal customer listen to (music, podcasts, news, etc)?
• What social media platforms are they on?
• What do they read?
• What TV shows do they watch?
• What are the things they want to learn more about?
• Who do they learn from when they want to learn something new? 
• What do they do in their free time?
• Where do they shop for groceries?
• Where do they shop for other products? 
• What items are they willing to splurge on?

Try to be as specific as possible. These questions will help you get clear on the other brands and things that your ideal customer cares about. If you can’t answer these on your own, consider asking individuals that you would consider to be your ideal customers for their opinions. 

Next, make a list of all the businesses, nonprofits, and individuals that your ideal audience already trusts. These don’t always have to be brands that are bigger than yours. In fact, what’s most important is that they have an audience you haven’t interacted with yet – not their size. 

Once you’ve narrowed down some brands that you might be interested in working with, double check that they actually have an engaged audience (if you can). This might mean looking at their podcast or social media metrics. 

If they have low engagement, you might want to skip working with them, as it could result in a lackluster collaboration. Even brands with big followings can suffer from lack of authentic engagement. 

Once you’ve got a list of ideal organizations that have noteworthy engagement metrics, it’s time to come up with a collaboration. What do you have, or could you do that would be beneficial for this organization? 

The Idea

While it’s not always easy, come up with a win/win collaboration for both you and the other organization. This can’t just be, “Will you share my products as part of your content?” A request like this will almost always result in a no. 

You’re not using someone else’s audience, you’re providing them with an opportunity, too. Could you do a joint give away that would grow both of your audiences? Do you have a unique story for their podcast? Could you send them some products to review on their Youtube channel? Could you create a joint product or offer together? 

The extra thought to get the pitch right will go a long way. Exceptional collaborations make a lasting, long-term connection where you can continue to support one another for years. 

The Set Up

Before you send over your brilliant idea, make sure you think through how you’ll set up the ask. This will require you to do some homework and some work ahead of time.  

Examine the organization you want to work with closely. How do they show up online? What information would be most helpful for them? What are they trying to accomplish? How can you make this an easy yes? 

As you define your ask and how you’ll present it, make sure you follow the brand on social, sign up for their email list, and/or listen to their podcasts or webinars. You don’t want to reach out with an ask without having followed them for at least a month. Try to engage with their content (liking, commenting, replying, asking questions, leaving reviews, etc). This will start to build your trust with them before the ask. 

Even once someone responds (yes or no) to your request, keep showing up authentically and supporting their brand. 

You may want to start with businesses that have a smaller following. They’ll be more likely to say yes and build your confidence to pitch bigger brands. They’ll also probably be more flexible if there are any issues you need to work out. 

That way, when you’re ready to approach a dream organization about a partnership, you’ll have your processes clearly defined and the confidence needed to execute the ask. 

The Ask

The ask doesn’t need to be complicated. Aim for an ask that is succinct and personal. Make your pitch for collaboration clear and easy to find. Showcase the value of working with you, and outline clear next steps to get started. 

If you’re able to deliver your ask keeping all these things in mind, you’ll reduce your chances of someone saying no to your request. 

The Follow Up

It’s been weeks and you haven’t gotten a response… Now what?

Don’t give up. You know as well as anyone that business owners are busy. Inboxes are often neglected. Consider following up once a week for a couple of weeks to try and grab their attention. That will let them know you’re serious and excited about the collaboration. 

Receiving no response is not a no. While you shouldn’t bother them (emailing them every day is crossing a line), you should show them how excited you are to work with them. 

The Execution

So, you found the perfect brand to work with. You created the perfect ask and they said yes, congratulations! 

The next step is to hammer out some very clear parameters at a minimum, or set up a contract. Not all collaborations will require a contract, but if there’s any sort of investment or fulfillment on both sides, you may want one in place. 

Clearly outline what you plan to do in the collaboration, and what they will do. Even if there is some kind of miscommunication, it’s better to get it out of the way before the collaboration is in full swing. Nothing is more frustrating than putting a ton of work into a collaboration, and then the other party drops the ball. 

Beyond Other Ecommerce Businesses

You don’t necessarily have to work with another ecommerce business on your collaboration. There’s a broad range of businesses and nonprofits that might be interested in working with you. 

For example, many ecommerce businesses use influencer marketing to spread the word about their products or services. If you don’t have a budget for influencer marketing, you may want to target nano or micro influencers – folks who have 50k followers or less. 

If they accept your request, you’ll get to connect with their audience, and they’ll have content for their audience by working with you. A clear win/win. 

Another example is working with solopreneurs. These individuals may have very successful podcasts, newsletters, or communities. By offering something of value to their audiences, you can build your audience and support them in creating helpful, relevant content. 

You also don’t have to scour the web for people to work with. Instead, look at your local business chamber, or even your local library. A great example is when Amy Dangerfield leveraged her local library to grow her email list for her photography business. 

She approached the library to ask if she could teach a photography class. The library had four branches and a very professional marketing team that promoted her classes all across Phoenix. This not only helped her build her list, but also increased her customer count, and opened up other teaching opportunities while building backlinks to her site. 

While Amy isn’t an ecommerce business owner, there’s no reason an ecommerce business owner couldn’t also find the same type of success Amy did while teaching at a local library. 

You’re Ready to Collaborate

While you are ready to collaborate, keep one thing in mind: Working with borrowed audiences is a marathon, not a sprint. Send out a couple of pitches at a time, rather than just one. Worse case scenario, you ask a company or two to partner with you later in the year rather than at the moment. 

And, keep in mind that you will get some no’s, and that’s ok. No’s are rarely about you, but are instead usually about the business you’re pitching. Their timing, availability, bandwidth, and other partnerships play a big role in if they say yes to your idea or not. 

Good luck landing your next partnership!

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