Partnership announcements

Writing news about partnerships.

Partnerships can solve big issues and can attract big investments in time and energy from each party and they can have significant effects for all involved: customers, employees, stakeholders and the wider market. Yet, for the publicity about new partnerships to really work, the announcement has to work quite hard.

With new partnerships being announced in the learning industry on a daily basis, will your new partnership announcement be noticed at all, let alone taken seriously and understood by the market?

Also, cynicism can exist as, for some, partnerships are simply a cheap, low-cost entry into a market, with a low investment in management and energy from each side.

Let’s take a common partnership announcement headline:

My Company announces partnership with Other Company

If it really is a ‘partnership’ there should be lots of newsworthy things to talk about in the publicity announcement: things that have an impact on people. As with so many publicity headlines, this announcement fails to communicate what it means to ‘people’. And for publicity to be ‘publicity’, people need to instantly understand what it means to them, i.e. not what’s happening, rather what’s the impact of what’s happening?

Here’s some alternative headlines that announce the impact of a partnership:

My Company targets European market with Other Company partnership

My Company to build XXX with Other Company partnership

My Company-Other Company deal to create XXX jobs in City

My Company to invest $X Million in Other Company widgets deal

It’s how people are impacted that creates interest. Whether it’s a strategic partnership or a reseller agreement, uncovering the reasons for the deal and talking openly about what it means for customers, employees, stakeholders and the wider market can help to create genuine interest and publicity.

The headlines above each do this in their own way and they open up the opportunity for the author to create a great announcement.

‘But these headlines are all BIG stories’, you may feel: entering a new market, building XXX, creating new jobs, etc. So what if it is ‘just’ a reseller deal? Do reseller deals cut it as big enough stories?

A valid question. A good place to look for the answer is to ask more questions about what is different now that the reseller deal exists. Has a new market been opened up? Will new innovations result? Are there significant operational savings? These could be big enough stories and could lead to more questions about growth, profitability, jobs, innovation and other compelling outcomes for people.

And again, create a headline that talks about the impact. Rather than just saying: My Company signs reseller deal with Other Company, try to introduce a more meaningful main theme:

My Company-Other Company reseller deal to create XXX

Sales deal to generate X% growth for My Company widgets

Other Company to take My Company’s widgets into XXX market/country

A note of caution here. Juicy facts and stats like these will need properly substantiating in the main body of the announcement. Making such stats into the main theme of an announcement means just that - that they are the ‘main theme’ of the announcement. The remainder of the story should then explain why these numbers are important, i.e. what it means for stakeholders, customers, employees and the wider market.

It’s too easy for publicity announcements about partnerships to contain insufficient detail, perhaps, reflecting the importance placed on the partnership by management. This fosters the cynicism I referred to earlier, leading readers to see the ‘PR’ and the ‘spin’ and not the true story behind the announcement.

Facts, stats, meaning, detail, substance and explanation help partnership news announcements be seen as important, compelling announcements. Focusing on the impact of what’s happening has real meaning because it shows readers what the deal might mean for them.