Chose Your Partner

I can’t stop thinking about the Liquid death and plunge partnership.

Not only is the announcement video incredible, but the collaboration is strategic genius.

Partnering with the right brand is marketing genius. It’s like they decided to stick themselves in a catapult, looking to over to liquid death telling the guy to let ‘er rip.

This is the magic of strategic partnerships.

You could spend countless dollars on ad spend or marketing materials. That’s expensive. Oh, what happens when that well runs dry? You need to find another way to grow, otherwise you’ll run out of money trying to acquire new customers.

I’m thinking about this a lot right now for how to grow Plunge Party. That way can I stop begging my friends to keep paying me to cold plunge with me. Friends will buy from you because they love and support you. The moment you know you have a real product? When strangers start buying your product.

The killer question? How do you get into front of the right strangers that want to buy your product?

Enter: Partnerships

You need to pick carefully who you’ll partner with. Or else you’re wasting everyone’s time and money.

This is how I think about what’s important:

• Vibe match - Both brands need to be aligned enough with the same vibe in order to subconsciously convince buyers to that this partnership makes sense.

• ICP overlap - Think long and hard about who your customers are. You should have a painfully detailed description of who that looks like. For plunge party I have two:

  • Ben - Works at a tech company in Ops or Marketing. Salary is est. $145k/yr. He starts every morning with a workout (probably at equinox or a run), and on the weekend he does long runs with his ~boys~ across the golden gate bridge or through a run club. He can enjoy a night out with his friend but can also socialize by paying up for a wellness spa in the city. Deep down he’s looking for a girlfriend but is tired of trying to meet people at the bars, and he’s not having any luck with hinge. He occasionally drops into the nearest run club if he’s itching for some new interactions. He wears and whoop or apple watch and happily pays for a small but costly supplement stack. Ben goes down rabbit holes on health on Wednesday nights and does what he can to maximize his recovery without going to overboard on his routine.

  • Elissa - Elissa is from South Carolina, but you wouldn’t know by the way she talks. She played college soccer for 2 years and got a degree in marketing from Cal Poly SLO. She takes fitness seriously which can mean many things depending on which group of girls she wants to hang out with. Twice a week she takes a group fitness class such as hot yoga (flow or sculpt), Barry’s, or Solidcore and compliments that with the gym 2x/wk plus the occasional run club drop in. She uses an OURA ring or apple watch and has jumped in the bay for a “cold” plunge with her friends. She is part of the growth team at her company likely making $125k/yr. She has been curious about the health and wellness trends, especially from a women’s health perspective. She want’s to find a boyfriend but is ok waiting until the right one comes along, she just doesn’t want another tech sales rep to break her heart (again).

• Brand Trust - If a brand is going to introduce you to a new product. There’s going to have to be a high level of trust with the brand already. I’m not exactly sure how to measure this because I’m not deep in the marketing space but I would ask myself three things. (Marketing friends don’t come after me for this one). If all three hit. It’s a brand with high trust.

  • If this brand dropped a new variation of their product, do I think their users would buy with little hesitation?

  • Do I see people wearing this brand’s merch?

  • Would I go to an event put on by this brand?

  

  This is LSKD. A New Zealand company that is crushing the brand loyalty game right now through events and partnerships.

How to partner

There’s a couple ways to do this. I would first ask: what’s my goal?

In the scenario of Liquid Death x Plunge - i saw this as a limited launch driving brand awareness and free marketing through virality.

In my situation, I am looking to get people to convert and buy tickets. So I would want to find brands that my ICP’s trust, based on where I believe they spend their time already. Then I’ll offer them discounts for their members.

One more on partnerships. This has worked so far: I partner with local people of influence. In my scenario I am brining in prominent workout instructors in the fitness space. Offering them an opportunity to showcase something special they’re working on like a book or a retreat. Last event was my close friend Mario Godiva-Green. This week is my friend Mia Rose Voss. What I also love about this is that when the event does well, my friends and I do well.

This isn’t perfect. But it works for now. I’ll likely be continuing to experiment with what works best for driving traffic and conversions.

But I’m convinced this is the way to grow distribution and top of funnel until I am over capacity.

I’ve stuck by this plan for a while now and I will continue to.

You’re Awesome,

Jared

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