Partnerships have always been the underdog when it comes to scaling up a company. This is especially true for SaaS companies who are always looking for new and improved profit-making strategies.

However, they often overlook the benefits of a partner program and cannot attain the optimum ROI.

But what if there was a way to forge partnerships that offer sustainable growth and keep generating a positive ROI with minimum upkeep? Sounds good, right?

Understanding Strategic Partnerships

As a SaaS company that’s planning to scale, you must get an in-depth view of the partnership ecosystem around you. But even if you are not looking forward to scaling up, you can use partnerships to aid your business.

No matter the size of your business, you can always benefit from creating strategic partnerships.

But before we discuss the details, here is a quick recap about what a strategic partnership is.

Strategic Partnership: It is an alliance between two companies that work on attracting similar customers to increase business. In the context of Saas companies, they can come up with profit-making strategies with other SaaS organizations who can agree to complimentary use of each other’s services.

Now that we have a clear understanding of the concept, we can move forward and discuss different kinds of partner programs that you can establish between other SaaS companies depending on their size.

1. Co-Marketing Partnerships:

This is an elementary partner program and requires very little involvement from the parties involved. It usually follows a non-monetary arrangement and is often done as a brand-building exercise.

You can use this type of association to build your brand’s credibility by establishing a connection with another brand, typically through social media platforms, co-branded content, and contributions.

These associations often follow up with other offers like lead sharing and creating backlinks to develop the relationship between two brands further.

2. Co-Selling Associations:

This type of relationship involves working together and referring to each other in exchange for some deals. The terms come from both sides. One company agrees to take care of specific responsibilities for both parties in exchange for the other party to reciprocate with a similar deal.

Such partner programs tend to reduce the workload for both parties as they don’t have to handle all the responsibilities alone and can invest in upcoming opportunities without losing any control over their individual decisions.

3. Affiliate Programs:

Affiliate marketing is all the rage these days, and many businesses incentivize each other when they drive traffic to each other’s website through tracking URLs in exchange for the same. The partnership is signed on a fixed fee, lead sharing, or revenue sharing models.

Well-established SaaS companies can act as authority figures in their respective domain and become a part of profit-making strategies because of increased demand for their brand.

Additionally, small companies can partner up with these leaders and build their rapport with their customers using positive feedback from respected brands and get rewarded for their feedback.

Influencer marketing in B2B industries is a prime example of how mutually beneficial marketing partnerships can work for both companies and influencers.

Both parties stand to benefit from their association as their strategic alliance yields excellent monetary results and improves their reputation in the market.

4. Re-selling Partnership:

This is the partnership that every business wants to have. These partnerships allow partners to sell each other’s products independently using a smooth process.

These partnerships require the least amount of effort and generate maximum profits as partner companies drive sales to increase revenue and create an excellent bottom line.

In the context of SaaS companies, these partnerships give the green light to a wide range of integrations. As a result, your target market receives a product with high usability and increases your chances of gaining more exposure in the global markets.

Identifying the RIght Partners for a Company

Now that we have a clear understanding of different kinds of partnerships SaaS companies can enter into, it is time to find out how you can identify the right partners for your business.

The first thing to consider is making sure that both companies in the partnership are in a win-win situation. There is no point in entering a partnership where you cannot benefit from the other.

Without concrete benefits, the partnership is likely to be doomed from the start. Remember, your alliance is a means to reach out to more customers and sell products and services to a broader target market.

Moreover, your growth trajectories should be well-aligned, and you should have a clear vision of where you wish to take your respective businesses.

Finally, both you should agree to work a wide range of partners, and no partner should back out of it for any reason whatsoever. If you can get that alliance, then you can benefit from your co-marketing relationship.

Final Thoughts

Strategic partner programs can level the playing field and create small disruptions in the way things work in the existing market scenario.

Even veteran SaaS companies can stumble upon a profit-making strategy and create partnerships with startups with their own set of USPs.

There only so much that you can do alone, but when you enter the partnership ecosystem, you open new doors and enable your organization to capitalize on several new opportunities.

You no longer have to suffice with existing customers and have a chance to go above and beyond your current projections.

Start Working on Strategic Partnerships Today!

Are you ready to create strategic partnerships of your own and generate more demand for your products and services to drive high revenue growth?

Feel free to contact our team today and get the answers to your questions over a free consultation. Our experts will guide you through the process of building effective partner programs.