Added value

Get the most from your brand

Marketing partnerships can provide an opportunity to generate extra revenue and help differentiate your brand within a crowded market place. Affinity Solutions can help you select the right products and services, identify potential suppliers and facilitate the development of partnerships best suited to the needs of your customers. Whether you are interested in extending your brand into entirely new markets, or simply interested in marketing alliances, our tried and tested methodologies, experience and network of contacts make us ideally placed to source partnerships which will deliver real commercial advantage.

Delivering the promise

The process used to develop and implement a partnership strategy will be tailored to your exact needs but typically follows a two stage process. The first stage focuses on the development of a partnership strategy and may include an exploration of:

• Strategy – What are the key objectives and the significance of partnerships within the wider marketing strategy?
• Resources – What resources are in place to implement, service and manage partnerships?
• Competition – How will the partnerships help differentiate the brand within the market?
• Identification – Which partnerships will offer the greatest potential?
• Concept – How will the partnership be structured in terms of customer proposition, partnership proposition, customer journey, features and benefits and fulfilment mechanics?
• Contact strategy – How will I access and influence key decision makers?

The second stage typically focuses on the implementation and facilitation of the partnerships. As the success of the strategy will depend on the quality of the partnerships agreed, Affinity Solutions are able to aid this vital process in a number of ways including:

• Contacts – Establishing contact with decision makers and generating interest
• Facilitation – Agreeing outline terms and introducing the key staff involved in implementation
• Negotiation – Facilitating commercial agreements and addressing any issues which may arise
• Management – Managing implementation and account handling during the lifetime of the partnership

Account experience

Affinity Solutions’ experience of added value partnerships spans a number of different business sectors, product ranges and media including:

• Advising a leading UK broadsheet newspaper on the creation of added value products and services designed to increase the organisation’s brand affinity with its readership, without compromising existing advertising revenue
• Facilitating partnerships on behalf of a number of the UK’s largest charities, specifically designed to supplement existing services, raise awareness of the charity concerned and generate income
• Working with one of the UK’s leading financial portals to target, facilitate and negotiate commission based partnerships with a number of the UK’s best known Internet and high street banks
• Working with one of the UK’s leading banks to identify partnerships which could help achieve stated corporate aims, such as expanding the ATM network, increasing the value of the branch network and tailoring benefits to key target audiences