co-marketing

Finding another company that sells to the same people without competing with you, and working out what the two of you could put on together.

WHEN TO USE

SCOPE

USE FOR

Score a list of potential co-marketing partners on audience fit, size, and brand alignment.
Brainstorm concrete campaign ideas for a specific partner instead of vague ones.
Draft a cold outreach email that pitches a partner on a specific campaign idea.
Structure a co-marketing agreement covering lead ownership, promotion, and timeline.

NOT FOR

Does not manage affiliate program mechanics or commissions — that's the referrals skill.
Does not plan a product launch's partnership moment — that's the launch skill.

This is a saved copy of the skill's SKILL.md instructions. It may differ from the upstream file or the version you install.

In this document (13)

You are a co-marketing strategist who helps SaaS companies identify ideal partners and brainstorm high-impact joint campaigns.

Before Starting

Check for product marketing context first: If .agents/product-marketing.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing.md, or the legacy product-marketing-context.md filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

When to Use This Skill

Finding potential co-marketing partners
Brainstorming campaign ideas with a specific partner
Planning joint launches or promotions
Evaluating partnership fit
Structuring co-marketing agreements

Partner Identification Framework

1. Audience Overlap Analysis

The best partners share your audience but don't compete for the same budget.

Ideal partner characteristics:

Same buyer persona, different problem solved
Adjacent in the workflow (before, after, or alongside your tool)
Similar company stage and customer size
Complementary, not competitive

Questions to identify partners:

What tools do your customers already use?
What do they use before/after your product?
Who else is selling to your ICP?
Which integrations do customers request most?

2. Partner Scoring Criteria

Rate potential partners (1-5) on:

Criteria	What to Evaluate
Audience fit	How closely does their audience match your ICP?
Audience size	Do they have reach worth partnering for?
Brand alignment	Would you be proud to be associated?
Engagement quality	Do they have an active, engaged audience?
Reciprocity potential	Can you offer them equal value?
Ease of execution	Do they have a partnerships team? History of co-marketing?

3. Where to Find Partners

Integration ecosystem:

Your existing integration partners
Tools in the same app marketplace category
Platforms your product plugs into

Adjacent categories:

Tools that solve the problem before yours
Tools that solve the problem after yours
Tools used by the same role but different workflow

Community signals:

Who sponsors the same podcasts/newsletters?
Who exhibits at the same conferences?
Who's active in the same communities?
Whose content does your audience share?

Data sources:

Crossbeam or Reveal for account overlap
Customer surveys ("what else do you use?")
G2/Capterra category neighbors
Job postings mentioning your tool + others

Partnership Types

Co-marketing is one of five partnership types. Know the taxonomy so you route a request to the right play instead of defaulting to joint content.

Type	What it is	Primary payoff
Integrations	Your product connects to another's (native, Zapier, API-first, embedded)	Retention, expansion, marketplace discovery
Reseller	Partners sell your product + services	Distribution + services revenue
Affiliate	Promoters earn commission on referrals	Low-risk, pay-for-performance reach
Co-marketing	Joint content/campaigns with a peer	Borrowed audience, brand halo
App Store / Marketplace	List inside a platform's ecosystem	Built-in distribution, effective CAC

Flagship proof: HubSpot's partner program = $100M ARR, ~40% of revenue, 3,400+ partners. Mature programs average ~28% of revenue and 2× growth.

Standout moves: integrations as a decision factor (83% of enterprise buyers), Calendly's staged ladder (calendar → sales → marketing); affiliate power law (20% of affiliates drive 80% of revenue) and buyout clauses (~12× monthly commission); permissionless co-marketing (Notion building templates for Airbnb/Amazon/Tesla to ride their brand — no contract needed); App Store distribution (Grammarly 0→10M).

For the full taxonomy — build patterns, economics, examples, and how to choose where to start — see references/partnership-types.md. (Affiliate program mechanics live in the referrals skill; keep affiliate work here at the partnership-strategy level.)

Co-Marketing Campaign Types

Content Partnerships

Format	Effort	Lead Sharing	Best For
Co-authored blog post	Low	Shared byline, link exchange	Thought leadership, SEO
Joint ebook/guide	Medium	Gated, split leads	Lead gen, deeper topic
Research report	High	Gated, split leads	Authority, PR
Guest newsletter swap	Low	Each keeps own leads	Audience exposure
Podcast guest exchange	Low	Each keeps own leads	Relationship building

Webinars & Events

Format	Effort	Best For
Joint webinar	Medium	Lead gen, product education
Virtual summit panel	Medium	Multi-partner exposure
Co-hosted workshop	High	Hands-on education, deeper engagement
Conference booth sharing	Medium	Cost splitting, audience overlap
Joint happy hour/dinner	Low	Relationship building at events

Product & Integration Marketing

Format	Effort	Best For
Integration launch	Medium	Existing integration partners
Joint case study	Medium	Shared customers
"Better together" landing page	Low	Integration discovery
Bundle or discount	Medium	Conversion boost, cross-sell
In-app cross-promotion	Medium	User activation

Community & Social

Format	Effort	Best For
Social media takeover	Low	Audience exposure
Joint giveaway/contest	Low	List building, engagement
Slack/Discord community collab	Low	Community building
Joint AMA or Twitter Space	Low	Thought leadership

Brainstorming Partner Campaigns

When brainstorming with a specific partner, consider:

1. Shared Audience Moments

What trigger events matter to both audiences?
What seasonal moments align with both products?
What industry trends affect both customer bases?

2. Combined Value Propositions

What can customers achieve with both tools that they can't with one?
What workflow does the combination enable?
What pain point does the integration solve?

3. Unique Assets Each Brings

Your Assets	Their Assets
Your audience size/engagement	Their audience size/engagement
Your content expertise	Their content expertise
Your product capabilities	Their product capabilities
Your brand credibility	Their brand credibility
Your customer stories	Their customer stories

4. Campaign Idea Prompts

Ask these to generate ideas:

"What would we create if we had to launch something in 2 weeks?"
"What content do both our audiences desperately need?"
"What would make customers say 'finally, someone did this'?"
"What exclusive thing could we offer together?"
"What data do we both have that would make a compelling story?"

Approaching Potential Partners

Cold Outreach Template

Subject: [Your Company] + [Their Company] co-marketing idea

Hey [Name],

I'm [Role] at [Your Company]. We [one-line description].

I noticed we share a lot of the same audience—[specific observation about overlap].

I have an idea for [specific campaign type] that could work well for both of us: [one-sentence pitch].

Would you be open to a quick call to explore?

[Your name]

What to Prepare for the Call

Account overlap data (if available via Crossbeam/Reveal)
2-3 specific campaign ideas (not just "let's do something")
Your audience metrics (list size, traffic, engagement)
Examples of past partnerships (shows you can execute)
Clear ask (what you want from them, what you'll provide)

Structuring the Partnership

Key Questions to Align On

Lead ownership: How are leads split or shared?
Promotion commitments: What will each party do to promote?
Asset creation: Who creates what? Who approves?
Timeline: When does each phase happen?
Success metrics: How will you measure success?
Follow-up: Will you do more together if it works?

Simple Co-Marketing Agreement Outline

Campaign description: What you're doing together
Responsibilities: Who does what
Timeline: Key dates and deadlines
Lead handling: How leads are captured, shared, followed up
Promotion: Minimum commitments from each side
Branding: Logo usage, approval process
Costs: Who pays for what (if any)
Metrics sharing: What data you'll share post-campaign

Measuring Co-Marketing Success

Quantitative Metrics

Leads generated (total and per partner)
Lead quality (MQL/SQL conversion rate)
Revenue attributed
Audience growth (new subscribers, followers)
Content engagement (views, downloads, shares)

Qualitative Metrics

Ease of collaboration
Partner responsiveness
Audience reception
Brand lift
Relationship strengthened for future campaigns

Co-Marketing Checklist

Partner Identification

List tools your customers already use
Check Crossbeam/Reveal for account overlap
Score top 5 potential partners
Research their past co-marketing activities

Campaign Planning

Agree on campaign type and goals
Define lead sharing arrangement
Assign responsibilities and deadlines
Set success metrics

Execution

Create shared assets (landing page, content, etc.)
Coordinate promotion schedules
Brief both teams on talking points

Post-Campaign

Share metrics with partner
Debrief on what worked/didn't
Discuss future collaboration opportunities

Task-Specific Questions

Are you looking for partners or planning a campaign with a specific partner?
What type of co-marketing are you most interested in? (content, events, integrations, community)
What's your audience size? (email list, social following, traffic)
Do you have existing integration partners?
Have you done co-marketing before? What worked/didn't?
What's your timeline and budget for co-marketing?

Tool Integrations

For implementation, see the tools registry. Key tools for co-marketing:

Tool	Best For	Guide
Crossbeam	Account overlap with partners	crossbeam.md
Introw	Partner program management, deal registration	introw.md
PartnerStack	Partner and affiliate program management	partnerstack.md

Related Skills

referrals — For customer referral and affiliate programs (customers referring customers)
launch — For product launches with partners; covers co-marketing as a "borrowed channel"
content-strategy — For content planning including co-created content
sales-enablement — For partner-facing collateral and enablement materials

This skill ships inside the Marketing Skills for AI Agents plugin.

Install just this skill

Run this outside your AI tool, using Node.js 22.20.0 or newer. Skills CLI 1.7.2 skips skill selection; prompts cancel installation without an interactive terminal. If choosing Project when asked about installation scope, open your project's folder before running this.

Install checklist

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Install the find-skills skill? defaults to Yes, adding another skill for all projects. Choose No if you don't want that extra installation.

Skills CLI 1.7.2 sends install data to skills.sh by default, including the source, skill names, target tools and file details; GitHub sources are reported only when GitHub confirms the repository is public, while other remote sources can also be reported. Confirmed-public GitHub sources also trigger a security-audit request. Before installing, set the environment variable DO_NOT_TRACK=1 or DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 to disable both.

npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill "co-marketing" --full-depth

After installing for Claude Code, open it in the installation project if you chose Project; Global makes the skill available across projects on this computer. Once Claude Code loads the skill, its description helps Claude decide when to use it.

If installation created a top-level skills folder that did not exist when your Claude Code session started, run /reload-skills in that session. Run it again after later changes in that folder.

Install the whole plugin

This route installs the Marketing Skills for AI Agents plugin package selected for your AI tool.

Add the marketplace, then install the plugin

Type both lines inside a Claude Code session, not at your shell prompt. They add Corey's marketplace, which is this repository, and the marketing-skills plugin, with all 50 skills.

/plugin marketplace add coreyhaines31/marketingskills

02
```
/plugin install marketing-skills
```

Installation and loading

The second line opens the plugin's details; Claude Code installs it once you pick one of the install options shown.

Good to know

/plugin does not work in Claude Code on the web, GitHub Actions or other non-interactive setups. For those, Corey gives a shell form: claude plugin marketplace add coreyhaines31/marketingskills, then claude plugin install marketing-skills@marketingskills.

Add the marketplace, then pick the plugin in Codex

Run the first line in your terminal to add Corey's marketplace, which is this repository. Then start a Codex session, type /plugins and select marketing-skills to install all 50 skills. To get new releases later, run codex plugin marketplace upgrade.

codex plugin marketplace add coreyhaines31/marketingskills

02
```
/plugins
```

Open plugin page ↗

What's inside

Files included with this skill.

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