Reaching new clients with strategic marketing Pt. 3

There are as many opportunities for co-marketing as you care to look for, but sourcing them all comes down to some old-fashioned networking and business development. Ideally, you'll be on the lookout for the following criteria in your partner:

•They aren't a competitor—or better yet, they complement you.

•They have a sizeable audience (email list,
social following, etc.)

•They are a similar-sized company and aren't
"too big to work with you".

You’ll have an easier time if you have an existing relationship with someone there who can help implement the co-marketing campaign.
But if that's not the case, which is likely if you're a new company, you can still make it happen.
There are 3 free tools I’d recommend for this purpose:

Clearbit Connect to help you find the email you need to reach out to the contacts you want.

Streak to help you track when your emails are opened, build and manage contact lists, and save templates that you can re-use on an ongoing basis.

SimilarWeb to help you evaluate a potential partner's website as an opportunity by analyzing the amount of traffic, traffic sources and other signals that identify a good partnership.

But before you reach out to another company, make sure you have some ideas to pitch. Without any marketing ideas, it’s unlikely you'll get a reply, let alone a "Yes, let's work together". And like I said, you need to frame your pitch in a way where your partner benefits.
The world of business might be competitive by
nature, but co-marketing opens new doors through cooperation. While big brands team up on co-marketing campaigns all the time, it's an especially
appealing strategy for smaller companies without a lot of money to spend on marketing.
After all, why build an audience from scratch or scrounge up scarce resources when you can share what you and other like-minded brand already have?
Co-marketing only works if you're willing to offer up something that makes it worth your partner's time and effort. You need to give before you get, but what you end up getting together is something you likely wouldn't have gotten alone.