What are Partnerships for your SaaS?

Understanding the basics

According to Investopedia - A partnership is usually an arrangement between two or more people to oversee business operations and share its profits and liabilities.

In SaaS, partnerships are nowhere close to the definition of what’s mentioned above. Fundamentally though, it remains the same wherein two parties come together to join hands or collaborate.

Partnerships could be further defined into 4 main categories - Integrations, Affiliates, Referral & Reseller, OR Channel partners. If you utilized this well, all these categories can act as a good revenue and branding source for your company or startup. 

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Integration

An integration partner is a software product company that can integrate with your product.

For eg; I work at JustCall - A cloud phone system. Here we built integrations with other (50+) CRM cos like Hubspot, Pipedrive, etc. Customer’s from these companies come to us for a cloud phone system. You also get a batch like this:-

Affiliates

An affiliate is usually a blogger, writer, publisher, or reviewer who’ll be willing to promote your product to their audiences.

They could either run ads OR write in-depth reviews which leads to bringing traffic to your website.

Usually, affiliates have large audiences and some could also charge upfront fees to promote your product.

In B2B SaaS, identifying and collaborating with micro-influencers could be a good way to scale an affiliate program.

Referral

Referral programs are a great way to increase engagement, especially during your launch. Everyone has a personal network of friends, associates, and colleagues.

According to Forbes, referrals are the most valuable way of marketing. While it’s difficult to keep track OR incentivize others offline; it’s extremely effective to promote your product with your network’s help.

Channel/Reseller

These are the big boys of the IT industry and should be approached only after you’ve found PMF.

They act as Implementers OR Resellers to an exclusive OR local clientele. They’re established in their local area and highly specialized experts in one (or more) software.

Finding a channel partner/reseller is easy, but maintaining and developing that relationship could turn out to be really hard.

You should also consider a full-time hire dedicated only to develop this for your company. Angry resellers will hit your credibility long time in the software world. 

Another way to look at Partnerships could be the channel - B2B2B.

These are overlooked but good distribution channels for your SaaS product (More than $1billion TAM).