It’s crucial to gauge that growth doesn’t always hinge on doing it all alone. But what if the B2B media partner drains your resources rather than amplifying your growth?
There are numerous shortcuts and long roads to grow your business. But you don’t have to do it all on your own, especially if it’s still in the growing stage and has a long way to go.
This is of grave concern that brands face when expanding into foreign market territories. There’s so much nuance to entering a new market- from cultural and legal to business and contextual.
What most businesses find it easier to do is opt for a local player, one that knows the lay of the land. And understands the intricacies that require addressing or loops that need jumping through.
But that doesn’t mean you’re giving them the keys to your company. It’s no merger or acquisition.
There’s an agreement, a confidence in each other’s capabilities, and both of you work in tandem. In collaborative synergies.
This is what B2B media partnerships trickle down to.
Why is aligning with the right media partner crucial?
B2B media partnerships are intelligent collaborations in practice- growth and success are mutual. Your brand allies with a partner to leverage its core marketing competencies and assets. Especially if you wish to acquire new customers and elevate the retention of existing ones.
Look at Apple. Even the tech powerhouse needs wireless carriers to bundle its iPhones, and online retailers to sell all of its products. And then, users might purchase these products from a single wireless carrier because users can now buy the product and a voice-data plan to accompany it.
Doing more with less: that’s the guiding principle of partnership marketing and sales.
And it’s the same principle that powers B2B media partnerships. That’s how you build and sustain a sustainable growing business ecosystem.
Why choose a media partner in the first place?
You possess a specific competency that you’re great at, it could be appointment setting or SEO ranking. And that’s what your overall business strategy focuses on. And honestly, that’s alright.
But what if there’s another brand that can add value to your offerings? It could help you serve underserved audience segments through its capability to target them effectively. There are several tiny steps in the sales funnel, and each requires media to nudge the prospect onto the next step.
However, not all brands are well-versed in creating these media assets. That’s why most focus on their own core competency rather than wasting time creating content that goes nowhere.
This is where your media partner comes in.
They offer a sure-shot bridge to promoting your brand and establishing your credibility in the whitespaces you can’t enter on your own. Sometimes, they help with content curation and distribution, or just distribution. Some media partners out in the market also delve into 360-degree development of a campaign, from ideation to distribution.
But this is where the caution flag often seems the most prominent.
The List of Non-Negotiables for Choosing the Right B2B Media Partner
The sheer variety of media powerhouses, from niche industry blogs to international publishers, poses a crucial opportunity. But they are also a source of confusion. A shiny 360-degree offering doesn’t always guarantee success or credibility.
What happens when your media partner’s credibility becomes your brand’s?
You can’t afford to select the wrong B2B media partner.
Media partnerships don’t operate like influencer marketing. You can’t rent another party’s audience for a moment. But borrow trust and gradually build credibility.
Go beyond the bird’s-eye view to make a more intelligent choice. Move past reach and merely competency to instead focus on what truly is the meat and potatoes of an effective and fruitful B2B media partnership- the three pillars of partner-brand alignment:
The Correct Fit:
1. Audience Alignment
Determining the correct fit isn’t a filter. It’s the foundation that transcends leaning into mere demographics.
The B2B ‘audience’ that you are most often made aware of is a trap. A media partner might boast of a readership of 500k decision-makers, but that’s redundant. There’s no background- which business leaders and in what context?
Remember, this is often a vanity metric.
The point is that specificity is everything for a brand partnership, especially to build trust.
You don’t need to reach 500k marketing managers, but 500k Directors of Field Marketing at mid-market fintech organizations. And that’s precisely what your media partner should offer you.
But it’s not a fluke for them. It’s easy to say that we can tap so-and-so market segments for you. But trust and credibility remain unproven this way. The media partner must have earned their trust.
Why is it crucial?
Readers aren’t always casually browsing. They actively search for opinions and perspectives that challenge their own, so that they can justify purchasing a solution.
However, this sort of impact can only be delivered through proper reach.
Is the media partner reaching the entire buying committee, not merely the individual? The right one must have a technical blog tailored for the end user, and a roundtable series for the economic buyer, such as CFOs and CTOs.
That’s where most media partners falter.
To a B2B brand, the entire buying committee matters. The one that you invest in must have the kind of resources and reach that engages each of the decision-makers.
This drives real influence, one that extends beyond eyeballs.
2. Brand Alignment
Credibility by association.
As asserted before, the partner’s credibility becomes yours.
Imagine that a decision-maker is investigating a $30,000 SaaS solution. They are etched to a single mindset: high-stakes ⇒ risk-averse. Under the high pressure, they come across your brand on a platform whose expert opinions they unrelentingly trust.
It will create an immediate halo effect around your brand.
However, there’s another scenario.
Several media powerhouses mightn’t have the credibility that your brand does. You go on to their website, and it’s filled with spammy ads and random content- one without any visual or contextual coherence.
That’s where playing it safe is vital. You aren’t just avoiding “unsafe” content, but opting for a brand whose voice, value, commitment, and sophistication match yours. The right media partner should spotlight your brand’s vision, not debase it.
Your brand offers technical insights and data-driven opinions. The potential media partner hosts several types of clickbait and sensationalist content.
The result?
Cognitive dissonance.
It says a lot about your brand- that you’re desperate, not strategic.
Function and Goal Alignment:
This pillar is all about the work of the partnership- from who they are to the work we’ll do together.
Everyone can curate content. But curating content that achieves a purpose is where marketers miss the mark. This is why your brand and the media partner must align on the job that needs to be done.
Building awareness is a vague wish. What does it even mean?
You propose this to your media partner and hand over a few vanity metrics after a year-long campaign. This just isn’t it.
The real goal is highlighted as something along the lines of educating the audience segment about a risk, generating a specific number of high-quality IQLs, or even developing a C-suite deck to help adopt your solution.
There’s a goal to be achieved. Not a commandment to be blindly followed.
Clear instructions on goal alignment are what sustain a B2B media partnership. Both teams are missing a piece of the puzzle without it.
But how useful is this understanding when the partner’s functions don’t map to your funnel stages?
- You want to introduce a new problem at TOFU. Your media partner should be able to help curate thought-leadership content, broad-reach events, and co-branded research.
- You want to educate your audience and develop a preference. The media partner must be well-versed in organizing niche events, creating comparison guides, and publishing comprehensive studies.
- You want to capture purchasing propensity. The partner must have the capabilities to hold demo days, executive roundtables, and have a high-intent provider contact base.
The observable truth is that several media houses today are ad agencies in disguise.
They sell a transactional business model to you in the name of a glossy 36-degree offering.
A media partner that claims to do everything from content creation to lead generation, campaign measurement, and analysis could turn out to be a master of none.
It’s the 360-trap.
The right B2B media partnership should be collaborative. They must bring their editorial expertise and a host of networks to the table. They must help shape your message for resonance and amplify it, not because they must.
But because they’ve a vested interest in protecting the reader’s trust.
The media partner’s alignment with you demonstrates the real ability of their business model. And not what they promise behind closed doors.
One-Time Partnership to a Sustainable Ecosystem:
B2B sales cycles are long. And that’s a known fact.
The lead you’re engaging today might not translate into revenue for at least a year. The success in this scenario rarely hinges on the cost per lead (CPL). That’s not what measuring the success of the partnership or the media partner is about.
You must stop chasing the last-touch attribution. First, it’s impossible. And second, it’s a myth.
Imagine a scenario.
An IT decision-maker reads your media partner’s article ⇒ Likes it on LinkedIn but forgets about you for three months ⇒ Comes across your CMO’s speech from a conference ⇒ Receives a cold email as a follow-up ⇒ Googles your brand ⇒ Clicks an ad ⇒ Sales nurtures them to conversion.
It’s not that the final touch worked. It’s because all the touchpoints worked.
There are better metrics out there compared to last-touch attribution. Especially like the pipeline contribution. This bespeaks influence and impact, not only origination.
There’s much to consider-
- Did the generated leads enter the sales pipeline? If yes, then what’s the relative ratio? Did this help accelerate existing deals stuck in the pipeline?
- Are the right-fit accounts engaging with the content, ones with the right level of intent?
- How many SQLs, MQLs, and new-name accounts did the media partner produce from the existing target list?
- Does the partnership help establish our CMO as a credible thought leader?
- Did it give our sales team a high-value asset to share with prospects?
- Did it open new avenues for co-organizing an event with another key industry player?
This qualitative impact carries more weight than the number of immediate leads.
Quality always comes before quantity.
ROI isn’t just revenue, even if the name suggests it. It spans reputation, relationship, and retention.
So, a symbiotic relationship boils down to a data feedback loop.
They aren’t giving you numbers and calling it a day. There’s follow-through- who engaged, when, and how. Each aspect is covered in campaign reports. Then you compare this with your own data.
That’s how you optimize the B2B media partnership.
From a media buy to a trustworthy and intelligent synergy.
The Deal-Breakers in Choosing a B2B Media Partner
A. First, a poor partnership fit cannot be replaced by good functional alignment or even great ROI numbers. The long-term benefits here are null. And the partnership could turn out to be fleeting rather than a strategic and sustainable growth model.
You might be speaking loudly. But your message will not cut through the noise if the room is filled with the wrong people. Irrespective of what you try.
Choosing the right fit is a non-negotiable pillar. It’s the qualifier. And if you get this wrong, you are damaging your positioning even for those who actually matter.
B. Second, functionally aligning with your media partner is a mandatory add-on. This is the executor part, and actively succeeds the why. Misalignment here might be easier to handle, but it could still lead to ample frustrations.
Your campaigns are tactically on the ‘on’ mode, but strategically, they’re drowning.
You’ll receive your leads- the entire lot. But what use is it when they’re of low quality? Instead of the Directors of Field Marketing, you receive a list of students or fellow content marketers who download your whitepapers for research.
C. And the last. The third pillar is all about not chasing highs and coattails. Last-touch attribution is a fluke- an oversimplification of other marketing efforts.
The cherry on top, measuring success beyond last-touch leads toward pipeline velocity or prospect engagement patterns. It operates as a finalizer. And optimizes your selection process.
Quantity doesn’t hold weight in the long run.
Performance is significant to track, but it’s not the only facet that matters. This is why ‘marketing’ siloed off isn’t enough.
Your B2B media partner’s capabilities must stand sturdy. And be able to prove the partnership’s objective and justify the budget and resource allocation. Not just drive numbers.
But take an impactful data-driven approach to understanding your objectives as well as cracks.
And be able to translate the expense into an investment.
A one-time handshake into a growing, sustainable relationship that mutually elevates trust.
