Resources

It's All About the Product!
Strategic Partnerships; an Effective Product Development Solution

By Scott Lyle
Managing Partner
Alliance Network Group, LLC

Alliance Network Group, LLC (ANG) is a professional services firm that helps its clients promote their online properties, editorial content and online services via the Internet. At a high-level, Alliance Network Group's services involve a variety of practices that include, but are not limited to:

• Search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO)
• e-Mail marketing and other forms of direct marketing
• Website usability, analytics, copywriting and design
• Online business strategy and development; such as content licensing, syndication, and strategic partnerships

If executed properly, all of the practices mentioned above can generate positive ROI and drive revenue. Although it probably goes without saying, none of these programs will have any sustained success without a robust customer experience. And that cannot happen without a solid and differentiated product offering.

Alliance Network Group has been engaged by some of the largest internet destinations and leading brand publishers on the Internet to provide strategies to further grow their customer bases. Invariably, Alliance Network Group begins its engagement by understanding a particular product and how it is differentiated from the competition. However, once a market opportunity is identified, there is a natural tendency for companies to try to strengthen their competitive position by building additional product, features, or functionality internally rather than looking for a strategic partner to provide an answer.

Alliance Network Group looks at these new opportunities holistically. We have negotiated hundreds of relationships with external parties to provide a missing product to achieve this purpose. The value of this approach allows companies not only to focus on their core competencies but to push off large resource expenditures that are associated with in-house product development.

Very simple and straight forward examples of these relationships are seen with the integration of price comparison engines into a variety of editorial sites lacking a reader's ability to purchase related products. Price comparison engines build large merchant databases, contracting with thousands of retailers; an effort that is simply too expensive to recreate and manage internally. So, after reading a review, providing a reader the opportunity to purchase the product deepens the experience and customer relationship. Therefore, About.com fosters a strategic partnership with Pricegrabber.com that is mutually beneficial to both. About.com provides an incremental service to its customers without utilizing internal resources and, in turn, Pricegrabber increases its user base by leveraging About's traffic. And, both share in the revenue generated.

Large, established Internet destinations recognize this. See the following About.com/PriceGrabber co-brand: So, the purpose of this article is to encourage websites that are trying to improve their customer experiences to consider crafting strategic product partnerships. The Internet is comprised of thousands of online publications and services, so many opportunities exist that would ordinarily be too expensive to develop internally.

In summary, integrating a partner's offering into your experience can provide the following benefits:

• Reduces financial risk by forgoing heavy, internal product development costs
• Provides time to understand the viability of a particular product offering based upon real financial results
• Ties any fees associated with a partnership directly to the financial success of the relationship
• Increases the conversions-to-sale or call-to-action of existing customers
• Reaches new market segments, extend a brand, and block competition

Scott Lyle is a Managing Partner at Alliance Network Group, LLC (www.alliancenetworkgroup.com).  Scott’s experiences encompass positions at KPMG, Interbrand, CNET Networks, and Macromedia.  Scott's career expertise include brand development, corporate finance, financial acquisition analysis and integration, corporate budgeting, negotiating strategic alliances, and business development. His expertise was developed in traditional industry, the internet, and emerging platforms, including both broadband and wireless. Scott also has an MBA from THUNDERBIRD – The American Graduate School of International Management and a professional license as a CPA.  Scott can be reached at:  scott@alliancenetworkgroup.com.