Digital Media Channels: Online Partnership Nana Adwoa Pinamang Genfi Sybil-Amanda Adabayeri Michelle Anim-Odame Elikplim Quist Ahomka Mills-Robertson

What is online partnership?  Online partnerships refer to a cooperative effort to achieve established goals set forth by two or more consenting individuals and/or businesses.  An arrangement to promote an organization’s online service through collaborations with third-party organizations.

Advantages of online partnerships  More profits  Increased passive income  A larger target audience  Increased knowledge base  Strengthening your brand  Increased credibility

Forms of online partnerships  Affiliate marketing  Sponsorship advertising  Co-branding  Link-building

Affiliate Marketing  A performance-based marketing system where firms pay third-parties to promote their websites for them  Three parties involved:  Advertisers pay publishers/affiliates for each consumer that visits their site, as a result of the publisher’s efforts

Affiliate Marketing

Sponsorship advertising  “The linking of a brand with related content or context for the purpose of creating brand awareness and strengthening brand appeal in a form that is clearly distinguishable from a banner, button or other standardized ad unit” - Ryan and Whiteman (2000)

Benefits of Sponsorship  The advertisers name is associated with an online brand that the site visitor is already familiar with.  Paid-for sponsorship of another site, or part of it, especially a portal for an extended period, is another way to develop permanent links.

Sponsorship vs Ads  A study by Performance Research (2001)compared differences in the perception of the online audience to banner ads and sponsorships  500 respondents  Results:  Trustworthy (28% for sponsorships to 15% for ads)  Credible (28% to 16%)  In tune with their interests (32% to 17%)  Likely to enhance site experience (33% to 17%)  More likely to consider purchasing a sponsor ’s product or service (41% to 23%)  Less obtrusive (66% to 34%).

Co-Branding  The combination of two brands to create a single, unique product. Cobranding is a marketing partnership between at least two different brands of goods or services  The purpose of Co-Branding is to capitalize on the equity of each brand and enhance the success of the total product.

Types of co-branding  Ingredient co-branding  Composite co-branding

EXAMPLES OF CO-BRANDING Adidas and Polar Electro created Project Fusion, which integrates heart rate and speed and distance monitoring equipment into sports apparel Nike and Apple brought music and exercise together when they developed the Sports Kit, a wireless system that allows shoes to talk to an iPod

Link Building  A tactic used in search engine optimization  Main goal is to maximize the number of good links to company website  Main considerations of link building include: 1.Choosing a page on the company website to be displayed on linking websites 2.Deciding key words and phrases

Link Building Strategies  Content creation & promotion  Submissions  Reviews & mentions  Link from friends & partners

Importance of Link Building  To get higher rank  Appear on third party websites  Create good mentions among stakeholders