The Ultimate Guide to Co-Marketing Strategy: Double Your Impact

If you are a coach, course creator or community owner, co-marketing can be one of the cheapest ways to reach new people.

I have spent 9 years building online businesses and run my own community, The Creator Circle, on Skool. I have also written for the Forbes Communications Council about how communities change marketing. I have also helped dozens of startups build their marketing strategy. For a startup or a small creator business, co-marketing is one of the easiest ways to scale when you are new in the market.

What is Co-Marketing and Why Should You Care?

Co-marketing is a strategic partnership between two or more brands that collaborate on marketing campaigns to achieve shared goals, such as increasing brand awareness, user acquisition, and revenue generation. The key to a successful co-marketing partnership is to have complementary products or services and a shared target audience.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller

Co-marketing can offer numerous benefits for your business, such as:

1. Expanding your reach to new audiences
2. Using your partner’s audience, skills and tools alongside your own
3. Enhancing your brand’s credibility and reputation
4. Reaching new people without paying for ads

Co-Marketing vs Co-Branding vs Affiliate Marketing

The three terms get mixed up often. The difference is in what you create together and how each side earns.

Co-marketing sits in the middle. It asks for more effort than an affiliate link, but far less commitment than building a product together.

Co-Marketing Examples

HubSpot Academy and Moz

HubSpot invited Moz to teach a lesson inside a HubSpot Academy content marketing course. According to HubSpot’s own write-up, the lesson earned 8,000 views and 6,000 clicks to Moz in four months. Moz gained 1,460 new contacts in total.

The same format works between creators. A guest lesson inside another creator’s course or Skool classroom puts you in front of students who are already paying attention.

Doritos Locos Tacos (Taco Bell and Doritos)

In 2012, Taco Bell and Doritos launched the Doritos Locos Taco, a taco with a shell made from Nacho Cheese Doritos. Taco Bell sold more than 100 million in about ten weeks and called it the biggest launch in its history.

Strictly speaking, this one leans toward co-branding, since the partners built a new product. It is still the best-known case of two brands serving one shared customer with something neither could offer alone.

What Co-Marketing Looks Like for Creators

Creators rarely build a new product together. The usual formats are lighter and faster to run:

• Joint webinars or live workshops. Two coaches teach one session, both promote it, and both get the registrants who agree to hear from them.
• Newsletter swaps. Each of you recommends the other’s newsletter or free resource to your list in the same week.
• Bundle launches. Several creators sell their courses or templates together for a limited time, with revenue split by agreement.
• Guest lessons. You teach one lesson inside a partner’s course or Skool classroom and link to your free resource at the end.
• Podcast swaps. You appear on each other’s shows in the same month and point listeners to each other.
• Community collaborations. Two community owners host a joint challenge, Q&A or live event for both groups.
• Exclusive offers. A discount, bonus or giveaway only for the partner’s audience gives people a reason to engage with both of you.

Community owners have one extra advantage. A joint event gives members of both groups a reason to meet, which can grow your community beyond your own followers. In a Forbes article on the tribe effect, I wrote that a sense of belonging is what turns customers into advocates. A shared event lets new people feel that belonging before they join.

Crafting a Winning Co-Marketing Strategy

Identifying Potential Partners

When looking for potential co-marketing partners, consider the following factors:

• Shared target audience: Your partner should serve a similar group of people, so your joint campaign resonates with both audiences.
• Complementary products or services: Look for creators whose offers sit before, after or next to yours, such as a copywriting coach and a sales page designer.
• Shared values and goals: A partner who shares your values and objectives makes the collaboration smoother, because you both work toward the same outcome.

Good partners are often already in your orbit. Some practical places to look:

• Creators you already learn from, follow or recommend to your audience
• Fellow members of paid communities, masterminds and Skool groups in your niche
• Hosts and guests of the podcasts your audience listens to
• Newsletter recommendation features in tools such as Kit, Beehiiv and Substack
• X and LinkedIn, by searching for people who serve your audience with a different offer
• The Meta Ad Library, which shows the brands already paying to reach your audience on Facebook and Instagram

A short, specific email is often enough to start. Name the format, the date range and what each audience gets out of it.

Evaluating Potential Partners

Before committing to a partnership, it helps to evaluate each potential partner on a few factors:

• Brand reputation: Check how your audience and your niche see them, because their reputation will reflect on you during the partnership.
• Reliability: Look at whether they ship on time and answer messages. A partner who misses the promotion date hurts both launches.
• Marketing capabilities: Ask about their list size, open rates or live attendance, not only their follower count.
• Value system: Partnering with someone whose values clash with yours can harm your credibility long after the campaign ends.

Establishing the Partnership

Once you’ve found a suitable partner, it’s time to establish the partnership. Here are some key points to pay attention to:

• Defining objectives and goals: Agree on the shared goals for the partnership, such as brand awareness, sales or leads, so both sides work toward the same outcome.
• Negotiating terms and agreements: Set out the roles, responsibilities and benefits for both parties in a simple written agreement.
• Assigning roles and responsibilities: Give each partner specific tasks, so everyone knows what they are contributing and when.

Co-Marketing Agreement Checklist

A one-page agreement, written before the campaign starts, can cover these points:

• Goal: the one number each partner wants, such as registrants, subscribers or sales
• Deliverables: who creates the slides, emails, landing page and graphics
• Promotion plan: which channels each partner uses, how many emails, and on which dates
• Lead ownership: who collects sign-ups, and whether both partners may email them
• Consent: a sign-up form that names both partners and says each will email the subscriber
• Revenue split: for bundles or joint offers, each side’s share and when it is paid
• Metrics to share: sign-ups by source, attendance, sales and unsubscribes, shared within an agreed number of days
• Exit terms: what happens to shared assets and lists after the campaign ends

Who Owns the Leads

Lead sharing is a common source of friction in joint webinars and giveaways. The cleanest setup asks each person to opt in to each partner by name on the sign-up form. In the EU and UK, GDPR requires consent to be specific and freely given, so a pre-ticked box or a quiet list transfer will not hold up.

Another option is for each partner to send traffic to their own sign-up page, so each list grows separately. Either way, a co-marketing campaign is a good moment to grow your email list with people who already trust your partner.

Designing a High-Impact Co-Marketing Campaign

Set Campaign Objectives

• Increasing brand awareness: Aim to put both brands in front of new audiences and link them in people’s minds.
• Acquiring new customers: Focus on attracting new customers with a joint offer that shows why the two products work well together.
• Generating leads and revenue: Turn prospects into customers for both partners with clear messaging, a good reason to act now and an easy way to buy.

Define Your Target Audience

• Demographics: Consider age, location, income and stage of business to build a clear profile of the customer you share.
• Psychographics: Look at the interests, values and preferences of your shared audience, so your messaging speaks to what they care about.
• Behaviors: Analyze the online activities, purchasing habits, and product preferences of your target audience to inform your marketing strategy and create more targeted and effective campaigns.

Develop Campaign Messaging

Craft compelling messaging that aligns with your partner’s brand and resonates with your target audience:

1. Identify key value propositions: Determine the unique selling points of your combined products or services.
2. Create compelling content: Develop engaging content that speaks to your audience’s needs and interests.
3. Align messaging with partner brands: Ensure that your messaging complements your partner’s brand voice and image.

Executing a Successful Co-Marketing Campaign

Coordinate Campaign Activities

• Schedule campaign timelines: Agree on a timeline for all campaign activities and milestones to ensure that both parties are working in sync and can coordinate their efforts effectively.
• Align marketing resources: Ensure that both partners allocate the necessary resources, such as budget, staff, and tools, to support the successful execution of the campaign.
• Collaborate on content creation: Work together to create cohesive and consistent content across all channels, ensuring that your messaging and visuals align with both brands’ identities and value propositions.
• Keep regular check-ins: Schedule short progress updates, so both sides stay informed and can fix a missed date before it hurts the launch.

Evaluating and Optimizing Your Co-Marketing Strategy

Measure Campaign Success

• Analyzing KPIs and campaign metrics: Set your KPIs before launch. For creators, the useful ones are sign-ups from each partner’s audience, live attendance, cost per lead and sales.
• Assessing return on investment (ROI): Compare the revenue each partner’s audience brought in with the time and money you put into the campaign.
• Evaluating partner contribution: Compare what each partner put in and what each audience brought back, so the partnership stays fair.

Identify Areas for Improvement

• Reviewing campaign performance: Look at what worked and what did not, so you can refine the next campaign.
• Identifying gaps and challenges: Note any problems, such as misaligned messaging, missed dates or uneven effort, and plan how to avoid them next time.
• Gathering feedback from stakeholders: Ask customers, your partner and your team what they experienced and what they would change.

Apply Lessons Learned

• Refine future co-marketing campaigns: Use what you learned to improve partner selection, campaign design and execution next time.
• Strengthen partnerships: Deepen your relationship with your partner by addressing any challenges encountered during the campaign, celebrating shared successes, and exploring new opportunities for collaboration and growth.
• Share best practices: Swap notes with your partner on what each of you learned, so the next campaign starts from a better place.

FAQ

What is a co-marketing strategy?

A co-marketing strategy is a plan for two or more brands or creators to promote one campaign together and share the results. It works best when both serve the same audience with offers that do not compete, such as a nutrition coach and a fitness coach.

What is an example of co-marketing?

HubSpot invited Moz to teach a lesson inside HubSpot Academy. HubSpot reported 8,000 lesson views and 6,000 clicks to Moz in four months, and 1,460 new contacts for Moz. For creators, a joint webinar or a newsletter swap with a complementary creator follows the same idea.

How do you find a co-marketing partner?

A good partner serves your audience with a different offer. Good places to start are the creators you already follow, fellow members of paid communities and Skool groups, podcast hosts in your niche and newsletter recommendation networks.

How do you split leads in co-marketing?

The cleanest way is for each subscriber to opt in to each partner by name on the sign-up form. Another option is for each partner to collect sign-ups on their own page. It helps to agree on this in writing before the campaign starts.

Is co-marketing the same as affiliate marketing?

No. In affiliate marketing, one party promotes another’s offer for a commission on each sale. In co-marketing, both partners create and promote one campaign together, and each grows its own audience from it.

The Call

Co-marketing lets you reach a partner’s audience through trust they have already built. For coaches, course creators and community owners, the simplest start is one joint webinar or one newsletter swap with a creator who serves the same people.

You might start small, measure what each audience brought in, and repeat with the partners who delivered. If you run a paid community, a joint event or bundle can also feed your community revenue.