How to find and pitch the right brand partners

The best partner for your business sells something different to the same people. Get that right and they can put you in front of an audience that already trusts them, which no marketing budget buys easily. The rest is doing it properly: know what you bring, start small, pitch plainly, and agree how you'll measure it before you begin.

Before running oXo full time, I worked on the Warner Bros partnership for the Space Jam 2 collaboration on Candy Crush Saga at King, and later managed relationships with platform partners at Meta. Those were large companies, but the same three things make a partnership work for a small shop on a high street: shared customers, a clear benefit on both sides, and an agreement written down before anything goes out.

Look for shared customers, not shared products

Think of a wedding photographer and a florist, an accountant and a business bank, or a garden designer and a landscaper. In each pair, one business completes the other's work rather than competing with it, so recommending each other costs neither of them a sale.

The simplest way to find yours is to map what your customers buy just before and just after they buy from you.

1. Before: what were they doing or buying that led them to need you?
2. Alongside: what else do they buy at the same time?
3. After: what do they need once your work is done?

Each answer is a kind of business that already has your customers' attention at a useful moment. List the ones in your area or your line of work, and start with the ones you already know, share contacts with, or see at local business groups, which is where a lot of these partnerships begin.

Check the fit before you ask

Before you approach anyone, check four things:

• Audience overlap. Do their customers look like yours, in type, size and budget? A partnership between businesses at very different price points often disappoints both.
• Reputation. Read their reviews. Your name will sit next to theirs, and their customers' experience will reflect on you.
• Values and standards. Would you be comfortable with how they treat their customers? If not, no audience is worth it.
• Capacity. Can they actually deliver their side? A partner too busy to promote the partnership isn't really a partner.

Know what you bring

Before you get in touch, be clear about what's in it for them: access to your audience, a better experience for their customers, extra income, or a reason to contact their own customers at a quiet time of year. Partnerships fail when only one side gets anything out of them, and the other side notices quickly.

Write it down as one sentence: "Your customers get this, and you get that." If you can't finish the sentence, you aren't ready to pitch.

Choose the right kind of partnership

Start with the smallest version that tests whether the fit is real.

The bigger ideas work best between partners who have already done something small together and seen it go well.

Pitch the way you'd like to be pitched

Keep it short and specific. Say who you are, why you think there's a fit, one concrete idea and what you'd need from them. Make it easy to say yes to a first conversation rather than to the whole partnership.

A structure that works, in five short paragraphs:

1. Who you are, in one sentence. Your one-line description is ideal.
2. Why them: what you've noticed about their customers and yours.
3. One idea, specific enough to picture.
4. What it involves for them, honestly, including time.
5. The ask: a twenty-minute call, not a signature.

If you have a mutual contact, ask them to introduce you. A warm introduction is more likely to get a reply than a cold email.

Agree it in writing

Even a small partnership benefits from a one-page note that both sides agree. It should cover:

• Who does what, and by when.
• How it will be promoted, by whom, and to which audiences.
• Money: any referral fee or commission, how it's calculated and when it's paid.
• The measure of success, and when you'll review it together.
• How either side can end it.
• Customer data: who holds it, and what each side may do with it.

That last point is the easiest to get wrong. Under UK rules, you can't simply swap customer lists or email your partner's customers. The Information Commissioner's Office guidance on using marketing lists says a list from another organisation can only be used if the people on it specifically consented to receive that type of message from you, and that generic consent covering any third party will not be enough. In practice, each partner promotes the partnership to its own customers, and anyone interested gets in touch directly.

Agree how you'll measure it

Decide up front what success looks like: enquiries, sales, sign-ups or bookings. Then give each side a way to see it:

• a dedicated link or landing page for each partner's audience, tagged so it shows up in your analytics;
• a code customers can quote;
• a "how did you hear about us?" question on your enquiry form, with the partner as an option.

Review it together on the agreed date. If it worked, do more. If it didn't, say so kindly and try something different.

Making a referral arrangement work

Referral arrangements are the simplest partnership and the easiest to let drift, not because the fit was wrong but because both sides get busy after the first coffee. A few habits keep them alive:

• Make referring easy. Give your partner a one-line description of who you help and a single way to reach you, such as a named email address or a link to a page written for their customers.
• Introduce properly. A short email introducing the customer to the partner, with the customer's agreement, works better than "give them a ring".
• Close the loop. Tell your partner what happened to the people they sent, even when it came to nothing. It shows you took the referral seriously.
• Say thank you, every time, in a way that suits the relationship.
• Be clear about any fee. If money changes hands for referrals, agree it in writing, and think about how you'd explain it to the customer if asked. Recommending someone because they're good and recommending them because they pay you are different things, and customers can tell.
• Meet again. A short catch-up every few months keeps you both front of mind, and that's what makes the next referral happen.

Partnerships closer to home

For a local business, some of the best partners aren't other companies at all, but the organisations around you:

• Business improvement districts and town partnerships often run events, trails and campaigns that local businesses can join, sometimes at little or no cost.
• Chambers of commerce and networking groups are, in effect, partnership introductions on a timetable.
• Schools, clubs and charities value practical support as much as money, and a genuine relationship reflects well on both sides.
• Local events need suppliers, sponsors and stallholders, and they put you in front of people who live nearby.

Before you sign up to any of them, it helps to know what a local business community actually does for your business in practice.

When a partnership isn't working

Give it the time you agreed, then look honestly at the measure you set. If it hasn't worked, the usual reasons are that the customers overlapped less than you thought, one side didn't promote it, or the offer wasn't interesting enough. Say so plainly and kindly, and suggest one change or a different format. If that doesn't work either, part as friends. A partner you parted from well may send you business for years.

A checklist before you pitch

• Their customers are the same people as ours, at a similar price point.
• We sell something different, so recommending each other costs neither of us a sale.
• I have read their reviews and I am comfortable with how they treat customers.
• I can say in one sentence what their customers get and what they get.
• I have one specific idea, starting small.
• My pitch asks for a short call, not a commitment.
• I know how we would measure it, and how each side would see the results.
• I know what we can and cannot do with each other's customer data.

If you'd like to see where partnerships fit alongside your other channels, our 90-day marketing plan works that out, with a budget split and the jobs in order, for a fixed £2,500.