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PR's Secrets: Create Great Partnerships, Leverage Them Well

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As I talk to entrepreneurs who do their own PR, one of the themes emerging most often is the power of partnerships with celebrities and larger companies for public relations. This week I spoke with four entrepreneurs for examples of PR partnerships done well.

Some partnerships are purposeful.

Scott Duffy, founder of Content.Marketing and the author of Launch! began his career with Tony Robbins, and from that beginning forged purposeful partnerships with CBS Sportsline, NBC online and FoxSports.com. In each case he scoped out which well-known and established venture might benefit from an alignment with him and went about adding PR value for his prospects until the formal alliance became an obvious “yes.” In one of his businesses, for example, he created an online booking tool for private aviation and ended up partnering and ultimately being acquired by Richard Branson and the Virgin Airline group. In his most current example, he’s creating a new channel to align with Inc.com to address smaller businesses, called, of course, “Launch.” His new channel is mirroring Inc. (with their permission, of course), to assess readers’ interest, establish traction and create a channel for sponsorships. For Duffy, the move is instant PR and credibility. For the publication, it’s a prospective new channel and broadened audience, minus the risks.

Other PR partnerships result from being fast on the draw when opportunities knock.

Joe Escobedo, head of communications for Happy Marketer, says his company was invited as a LinkedIn Partner to participate in “Bring In Your Parents Day.” So HappyMarketer created a blog post with memes of the company’s team and their parents, along with their best piece of advice from mom and dad.

“The results were outstanding,” he says. “We were featured on national television, Yahoo Singapore, and our blog was shared 200 times in a single week.”

A partnership can involve a well-known individual.

Says Rachel Olsen, founder of Best Mom Products, says "I was able to get Barbara Corcoran to endorse my business book, 'Shark Tank MOMpreneurs Take a Bite out of Publicity—How 5 Inventors Leveraged The Media to Build Their Businesses and How You Can Too.' It became an Amazon best seller." To reinforce her message further, Olsen created a rap video on how to get an endorsement and how she persuaded Barbara Corcoran to participate with her.

A partnership can help an unknown product or service achieve incomparable results.

PR expert Laura Bindloss, of Nylon Consulting, used partnerships to help two small British luxury brands to gain exposure in the US market. The first was de Gournay, a hand-painted wallpaper brand based in London with showrooms in New York, Shanghai, Beijing, Moscow and Paris. With her help, the company forged a partnership with VOGUE Magazine and the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art to design much of the décor at the 2015 Met Gala. No money was exchanged, but the partnership produced millions of dollars in publicity value and resulted in an 11-page spread in the May 2015 issue of VOGUE.

The second was Luke Irwin, a London-based rug designer with high credibility among British Royalty and rock star customers, but wanted a higher profile within the US. So with Bindloss’ help he forged a partnership with Anthropologie to launch that company’s first-ever co-branded rug line last September, resulting in PR that has has been beneficial to both.

Here’s how Bindloss forged the partnership that resulted in de Gournay’s exposure in Vogue: The theme for the Met Gala, “Chinese Whispers” was announced in early Fall, 2014. The fit—an exploration of China’s influence on Western Art, Fashion and Design—seemed natural enough to warrant investigating further. Bindloss had no idea who had designed the event or how they’d choose the décor, but she figured it was worth a shot and dug in. Ultimately, the company worked with three parties: VOGUE’s event team, Raul Avila, who has designed the gala for a number of years, and the Metropolitan Museum.

Her words of advice to other entrepreneurs: “If you hear or read about a larger company doing something that has a similar parallel to your brand, get in touch with a specific idea of how you might be able to work together.”

Or, put more simply,  when it comes to PR, you’ll never know what a larger company might be willing to do with you 'til you ask.

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