Today I saw a tweet saying that someone had been approached with a Content Partnership deal for their website. I was surprised at the response when they told the person to get lost. I thought they’d missed a real opportunity and it got me thinking about what process the ‘deal’ was evaluated through. Here is what I read as the basic pitch by reading between the lines of 140 characters in a tweet. You’ve got a great website but we can help make it better. We’ll give you guest posts from our respected staff and content experts. In return we would like you to give our organisation some free advertising on your site. From the person making the offer it was a win-win situation. For the person receiving the offer they perceived it was a no-win situation.

So how do you evaluate the value in these Content Partnerships? There were three potential gains in the offer that didn’t seem to be quantified or valued. First the value of content to their website didn’t seem to be evaluated. Was their a trial or articles submitted for evaluation? Second, the cross-promotion of brands to meet a wider consumer market needed consideration. Was there a dove-tail opportunity or had someone felt their was direct competition? Even fast-food outlets like McDonalds, KFC and Burger King see the value in being in each other’s space to breed a market. Thirdly, had they considered the power in association. Competitors can breed internal loyalty while missing the opportunity to grow B2B advocacy by being aligned through business partnerships. Many loyal company employees follow the company line only to the detriment of growing their market influence through association.

Is it easy to define it as a go or no-go scenario? My response would be based on research knowledge. How well do you know the person and organisation making the offer. If you have known or known of them for sometime then the simple answer comes down to two questions.

1. Does the organisation and people involved have credibility?

This isn’t just about truth and trust but also about follow-through. If Content Partnerships are ongoing then they will need to have a level of trust that what was offered at the outset will continue to be available at the same level of quality for the duration of the partnership. Like any sales pitch that offers you the best deal to get a foot in the door, partnerships should be evaluated for their long term potential and ability to sustain both productivity and relationships.

2. Is there a synergy in content offerings?

If Content Partnerships offer space for two partners to co-exist there should be an evaluation of synergy. If the two offerings are direct competitors then the position may be one of alignment where links are shared and projects referenced but both parties work in their own ‘space’. However if the two organisations have differing offerings that support each other it would be well worth consideration of providing content into each other’s space whether in the form of content or advertising at rates that are in sync with their perceived value.

If the answers to these two questions are a comfortable ‘Yes’, then the discussion should continue to find a value proposition that works for both parties.

Of course that can be the hard question and both parties need to be reasonable given the time and space to evaluate the value of a post, content placement, name acquisition offering or advertising campaign. The best rule is to start simple and grow. Have a simple model at first. It may be that a post can feature an ad just on that page for the organisation supplying the content. Alternatively if a banner management system is in place then an offer of 1000 impressions per post may be the offer on the table. The important thing is to keep the deal simple on the basis that for both sides its a subjective experiment. Once the ‘results’ are in then further discussion can take place.

My response to the tweet from this morning on Content Partnerships.

Don’t be too hasty to reject the opportunity of the week.