Marketers help businesses achieve growth by increasing the number of opportunities that the sales team can work on and making sure those leads are qualified. It's no secret you’re far more likely to achieve success working with others in your network—especially in marketing.
In this article. We’ll look at how you can create effective relationships with collaborators, starting with the first step, sending a collaboration email. We’ll also share some templates that you can adapt to your own requirements.
- Collaboration Emails Explained
- Collaboration Email Writing Tips
- Collaboration Email Templates
Collaboration Emails Explained
You could also call a collaboration email a partnership email. It’s a way of attempting to start a relationship with another company. Typically this business will be one that shares a similar audience to yours without any direct competition for custom. The aim is to form a partnership, share opportunities together, and help to bolster business for both sides of the collaboration.
The collaboration email itself is the first step toward that relationship. Chances are, this will form part of your cold email marketing strategy. Where the business that you’re reaching out to isn’t even aware of you or your products and services. They could, just as easily, be a business that you’ve had a crossover with informally in the past and now consider a viable collaboration option.
Either way, they’re likely to see this email as something that has come out of the blue. Even though it might feel like a long shot, you should feel comforted by the fact that businesses collaborate all the time. The key is to find the right fit. It’s not a numbers game. You’re not looking to create as many collaborations as possible. Instead, you’re looking for quality. Businesses that will work with you and, effectively, for you.
The aim is, of course, to drive more business to both sides of the collaboration, but there is the added benefit of a bolstered brand reputation. Pick wisely, and you can piggyback off the great reputation of the partnership business.
Collaboration Email Writing Tips
Before we dive into the templates, it’s worth bearing in mind the following tips. These will apply to any collaboration emails that you send, so they should be in your mind as you write.
Hook Them
The most important step is to grab their attention. If you don’t achieve that, then it’s like you never sent the email in the first place. You need them to see the email arrive, have their interest immediately piqued, and then open and read your email. How do you achieve that? With the first thing they see, the subject line.
The subject line is your opportunity to encourage them to open and read your email. You need to clearly explain the purpose of the email, include a tidbit of information, and do all this within 40-60 characters.
Make Your Point
People receive dozens of emails every day. They won’t have time to read a long, drawn-out explanation of why you’re writing. Get to the point and explain why you’re emailing. Share the purpose quickly and then share the important details.
Share Your Details
One of the first things that they’ll do, if you’ve grabbed their attention, is to scope out your business. This is a positive thing that you want to encourage. So make it as easy as possible for them to do so. That means including links to your website, your LinkedIn, and any other useful information about your company.
Personalization
Including personalization can make all of the difference in an initial email to someone. Taking the time to research them will take your email from template to conversation starter. The bare minimum should be addressing them by name, and name-dropping their business.
The best initial collaboration emails will go a step further. Perhaps you decided to reach out to this business following an interaction with them at a conference or networking event. Mention that if so. Maybe you’ve been referred to them by a mutual contact. Mention that contact and the circumstances.
This gets more difficult at scale. That shouldn’t be an issue seeing as you’re going to be focusing on quality partnerships rather than canvassing thousands of businesses.
Share Successes
Already achieved a successful partnership with other businesses? Sharing or alluding to successes that you’ve achieved can be enticing. Don’t go too overboard. Otherwise, it might have the opposite effect that you’re hoping to achieve.
Talk To The Recipient
Treat this email as the start of a conversation. That means addressing the recipient directly, asking questions, and treating them as a human being. This will make you sound legitimate and increases the chance that they’ll take their turn in the conversation. Ask polite but probing questions about their business to move the discussion forward.
Collaboration Email Templates
The following templates are designed to help you with your collaboration email process. They should be seen as a guide rather than a copy-and-paste opportunity. Tailor them to your business and your recipient to achieve the maximum effect. We’ve included plenty of options for personalization (using merge tags) but do remember to include your own where possible.
Initial Collaboration Proposal Email
This template is a general guide for the first email you’re going to send to open up the conversation. You could send this to anyone, in any industry, just remember to tailor it to your requirements.
Subject: A New Opportunity: {{Your Company}} and {{Recipient Company}} Collaboration Proposal
Dear {{Recipient Name}},
Here’s hoping you’re doing well. I’m {{Your Name}}, and I’m the founder of {{Your Company}}.
I have to say, I’ve been fascinated while following the work of {{Recipient Company}}. It’s no surprise given our focus on {{ Your Company Expertise}} and your delivery of {{Their Expertise}}. The two clearly have an affinity.
I’ve been talking with my team, and we’re fairly sure that there’s serious scope to build a collaboration between our two businesses. I wanted to reach out and see if that was of interest. To begin with, I imagine a collaboration such as {{Your Collaboration Idea}}, but I’m definitely keen to hear your ideas.
Working together, we could achieve impressive mutual value, and my team is really keen to learn more about what you have to offer. If you’d like to discuss it further, let’s book a chat to talk it through.
Thanks for taking the time to consider this, {{Recipient Name}}, I don’t think you’re going to regret it.
All the best
{{Your Name}}
{{Contact Information}}
Initial Collaboration Proposal Email To An Influencer
Influencers are some of the most collaborative people. Their industry is built on relationships, and they’re often looking to work with companies to expand their reach. This template is designed to be used when reaching out to influencers. Remember that most influencers see collaborations as a paid venture, so you’ll need to be able to deliver serious value unless you’re willing to pay.
Subject: {{Your Company}} and {{Influencer Name}}: Let’s Do This
Hi there {{Influencer Name}},
Hope you’re doing great! I’m {{Your Name}}, and I’m the founder of {{Your Company}}.
I’ve been absolutely loving your work on {{Platform}} recently, especially the {{some of their work}} posts. Clearly, your audience did too, given the engagement you got!
I’ll cut to the chase. I think that there’s a collaboration opportunity between you and {{Your Company}} here. We know that you could bring huge value to our audience, and we certainly could to yours. There’s synergy, that’s for sure.
We’re thinking of something similar to {{Your Collaboration Idea}}, but you’re a creator. Please share your thoughts!
We’d love to discuss this more with you. Would a meeting next week work? Just let us know a convenient time.
Thanks for taking the time to consider this, {{Recipient Name}}, I don’t think you’re going to regret it.
All the best
{{Your Name}}
{{Contact Information}}
Initial Collaboration Proposal Email To An Blogger
Similar to running a guest post outreach campaign, here you’re looking to collaborate with a blogger to get your name out there. It might be a sponsored post, an interview, or a longer-term collaboration. As with influencers, you might find that this is a paid venture, but there are many blog owners out there that welcome high-quality guest collaborations for free in exchange for your written work.
Subject: Creating Together: {{Your Company}} and {{Influencer Name}}
Hi there {{Blogger Name}},
Hope you’re doing great! I’m {{Your Name}}, and I’m the founder of {{Your Company}}.
I’m a long-term fan of your blog on {{Their Website}}. I was first introduced to you and your work when I came across your article on {{Their Article Title}}. Since then, I’ve been an avid reader and regularly connect with your work.
We’re particularly interested in your work on {{Topic Area}} since we’re considering running a series of guest posts on {{Adjacent Topic}}. When we were considering reaching out to writers, your name immediately came to mind.
There’s definitely potential for a mutually beneficial collaboration here. We have an audience that we know you’ll resonate with, and we feel we’d definitely be able to connect with yours.
Would you be happy to meet next week to flesh this out a bit more? Just let us know when it might be convenient.
Thanks for taking the time to consider this, {{Recipient Name}}, I don’t think you’re going to regret it.
All the best
{{Your Name}}
{{Contact Information}}
Collaboration Follow-Up Email
Not everyone is going to reply to you from the first email. Chances are you’re going to need to follow up with them if you want to get a response. This template serves this purpose. Remember to include personalization where you can to build rapport with the recipient.
Subject: {{Recipient Name}}, Let’s Not Miss The Chance To Collaborate
Hello {{Recipient Name}},
It’s me, {{Your Name}}, again. Founder of {{Your Company}}. I recently sent you a quick email proposing a collaboration on {{Previous Email Date}}.
My team has been asking if I’ve heard back from you, and I’ve been saying no, not yet. I’ve said you’re likely considering your options, but now I’m thinking you might need a bit more information or you didn’t think we were a good fit.
I’m reaching out again because I think there is a genuine synergy between the two of us, and the mutual benefits we could both receive are huge.
So if it’s further information that you require, please just ask me. If you’re unsure if we’re a right fit, I’d welcome the feedback to find out why I might have missed the mark here.
The offer of a meeting to discuss this is still very much there. In fact, I’ve got a relatively free week next week if you’d like to suggest a time.
Thanks for taking the time to read my mail. We’ve got a great opportunity here. It’d be a shame to miss it.
All the best
{{Your Name}}
{{Contact Information}}
Key Takeaways
Collaborations are exciting. It’s an opportunity for growth for both you and the partner that you’re hoping to collaborate with. Make sure that you’re reaching out to the right people, in the right way, and you’re sure to build partnerships that boost your business to the next level.
- Always personalize your collaboration emails.
- Test different email variations to see which gets the best response.
- Don’t forget to follow up. Few people respond to the first email.
If you’re looking for an email outreach tool that will make this process a breeze, then Instantly is the tool for you. It has everything you need to launch a successful email outreach campaign, and you can get started for free.