/co-marketing — partner finding + joint campaign design

Find non-competing companies that share your audience and design joint campaigns. The leverage: when both sides promote, distribution roughly doubles for both — at half the asset cost.

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When to invoke

• Distribution is organic-only and partner channel is untapped.
• A product launch needs amplified reach (pair with /directory-submissions + /product-launch).
• Genesys-internal cross-promotion with adjacent tools (Clay, Apollo, Smartlead, Instantly).
• Client needs joint plays with integration partners or vertical-adjacent SaaS.

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Step 1 — Audience overlap analysis

The core test: does the partner serve our same buyer persona but solve a different problem? Same audience, non-competing solution.

Validate via:

• Account-overlap tools (Crossbeam, Reveal) — exact-match overlap data.
• LinkedIn job-title overlap (export both companies' followers, intersect).
• Newsletter sub-audience overlap (if both publish).
• Conference / event co-attendance.

Sharp rule: partners who share <30% audience are noise; >70% audience overlap with no competition is the gold zone.

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Step 2 — 6-factor partner scoring

Score each candidate on 5 each:

Factor	Question	Weight
Audience fit	Same ICP, non-competing?	High
Size	Audience reach roughly equivalent (within 3× either direction)?	High — asymmetric partnerships are short-lived
Brand alignment	Voice, professionalism, ethics compatible?	Medium
Engagement quality	Their audience actively responds (LinkedIn comments, email open rates) — not just numbers	High
Reciprocity history	Have they done co-marketing before? Reliable?	Medium
Execution ease	Geography, timezone, calendar friction	Medium

Total ≥ 22/30 = green-light. 18–21 = yellow (start with low-effort format). <18 = pass.

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Step 3 — Campaign type selection

Order by effort (low → high) and depth (light → heavy):

Format	Effort	Depth	Best for
Social swap (mutual share / quote post)	Very low	Light	First partnership; brand-warm-up
Newsletter cross-promo (sponsored slot)	Low	Light	Audience introduction
Joint blog post / co-authored content	Medium	Medium	SEO + thought leadership
Joint webinar / panel	Medium-high	Medium	Lead capture + relationship
Integration play (real product integration)	High	Deep	Long-term partnership
Joint research report / data study	High	Deep	PR + earned media
Joint conference / community activation	Very high	Very deep	Established partnership

Sharp rule: start with the lowest-effort format. Prove reciprocity, then escalate. Skipping to a research report on partnership #1 is overcommitting.

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Step 4 — Structure the partnership

Document upfront, in writing:

• Lead ownership: which side keeps which leads? Default split: webinar attendees split 50/50; native-channel sign-ups stay with the channel owner.
• Promotion commitments: each side commits to N social posts, M newsletter inclusions, K direct emails.
• Asset creation responsibility: who builds the deck, who hosts, who edits the recording.
• Success metrics: registrations, attendance rate, post-event email conversion, qualified leads.
• Timeline: kickoff → promo start → event → post-event nurture handoff.

Without this written, the partnership stalls within 2 weeks.

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Step 5 — Outreach template

Subject: {your_company} × {partner_company} — quick co-marketing idea

Hi {first_name},

Noticed we both serve {shared audience} — {partner's customer segment} folks who care about {shared concern}.

We just launched {your relevant artifact / content} and saw it pulled in {evidence of audience fit, e.g., "200 sign-ups from {their audience segment} in week 1"}.

I'm thinking a {specific low-effort format, e.g., "joint webinar on {topic}"} could land well with both sides. Rough shape:
- You bring {their unique angle}
- We bring {our unique angle}
- Co-promo to both lists
- Split leads 50/50

Quick call next week to scope?

— {your name}

Sharp rule: specific format + specific value > generic "let's partner". Generic asks convert at <5%; specific asks convert at 25%+.

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Worked example — Genesys-internal first

Use case: joint webinar with Clay on "Cold outreach in 2026 — agent stack walkthrough".

• Audience overlap: Clay's audience = GTM engineers (~85% overlap with Genesys's audience). Non-competing — Clay enriches, we structure.
• Partner score: Audience 5 + Size 4 + Brand 5 + Engagement 5 + Reciprocity 4 + Execution 4 = 27/30. Green.
• Format: joint webinar (medium effort, medium depth — appropriate for partnership #1).
• Structure: Clay brings the enrichment workflow demo; Genesys brings the skill-orchestrator end-to-end; co-promo to both lists; 50/50 lead split; Clay hosts; Genesys edits the recording.
• Timeline: Week 1 kickoff → Week 3–4 promotion → Week 5 webinar → Week 6 nurture.

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Anti-patterns

• ❌ Partner with a competitor under the guise of co-marketing. Distribution gain ≠ trust loss.
• ❌ Skip the written structure. Lead-split disputes kill the relationship.
• ❌ Start with a research report. Too high commitment for partnership #1.
• ❌ Asymmetric partnerships (size delta > 3×). Smaller side gets more value; bigger side disengages.
• ❌ Generic "let's partner" outreach. Convert at <5%.

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Integration with other skills

• Upstream: /icp-research defines the shared audience; /positioning clarifies non-competition story.
• Downstream: /content-strategy integrates partner campaigns into the calendar; /lifecycle-marketing runs the post-event nurture.
• Companion: /product-launch may coordinate partner amplification at launch moment.

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Attribution

This skill adapts patterns from coreyhaines31/marketingskills/co-marketing/SKILL.md (MIT license, © Corey Haines / Conversion Factory). Adapted to Genesys operator voice. Lane B: Genesys-internal partnerships first.

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Final ship gate

Run /premortem --output before ship. See /premortem skill for the 5 execution domains (will-it-resonate / will-it-convert / will-it-stay-on-brand / will-stakeholder-push-back / will-it-degrade-over-time) and output template.

Trivial-case escape: ## Premortem\nNo failure modes — trivial change satisfies the contract for genuinely trivial outputs.

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