Experimentation Is the Cornerstone of a Great Partnership

In our industry, certain terms get thrown around and overused so much that they lose their meaning. One great example is the term "partnership." What does it mean to be a true partner in the media industry today? When I think about partnership and where I have found the most value throughout my career, it can be bucketed into two key values: transparency and trial. While it may seem obvious, transparency is often the most difficult to achieve but always the most valuable. It can mean the difference between success and failure, enabling creation of the best work toward shared goals. Think about a time when you had an honest conversation with someone on a personal level about something that was bothering you or a problem you were having. I’d expect you probably shared some context and detail on the problem at hand in the hopes that, by sharing upfront, you’d get a more informed and useful answer in return. Transparency in partnerships helps break the mold beyond the traditional and expected solutions. Take the example of lead generation. On the surface, the standard solution is usually form-fill data capture—leads are collected, then shared with the brand. But upon further exploration into the use cases for that data within said brand, what if there was another division focused on creating content to attract and engage key audiences? What if, through the process of capturing new leads, there was also an opportunity to track the types of content these interested parties were consuming? Now you have a singular program that services and fulfills several initiatives at once. At Quartz, we’ve created deeper partnerships with our clients by helping to solve business challenges, rather than just executing on media objectives. This discipline requires a strong understanding of our clients’ businesses and long-term success metrics beyond a clickthrough rate or video completion rate. Our most successful client partnerships start from collaborative working sessions with open forums on sharing priorities for growth and challenges met to date. From there, anything is possible. How else would you invent a lead generation strategy anchored around a chatbot? I’ve found that once you are able to establish a transparent working relationship, an appetite for experimentation usually follows. With a foundation of trust, both parties are more inclined to push boundaries to find new ways to succeed together. Trial is my favorite part of what we do, probably driven by my creative side. This is the blank canvas approach of trying something new with the understanding that what you’re planning might not work. However, it could work—and when it does, it’s going to be fabulous. A true partnership distributes the onus for success to both parties. By applying these principles to work with your partners, everyone wins.

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Experimentation Is the Cornerstone of a Great Partnership With Clients

Deeper brand and client relationships come from testing new ideas together

Natalie Diamond

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Natalie Diamond