SaaS companies face significant financial pressures in today's economic climate, with event marketing budgets often the first to be cut. This leaves event teams frustrated, struggling to deliver impactful campaigns with fewer resources. Having faced this challenge myself during my time at Greenhouse, LinkedIn and Oracle, I’ve found that leveraging partner communities is one of the most effective ways to stretch your event marketing dollars. By tapping into these ecosystems, on many occasions, we halved costs and doubled the impact of our efforts.

Here's a guide on why this approach works, how to implement it, and some critical dos and don’ts.

Why Ecosystem Partner Are Key

**Shared Costs:** Collaborating with partners allows companies to share expenses like venue costs, promotional materials or speaker fees. This reduces the financial burden on any single entity.
**Synergistic goals:** You may be a big US brand looking to enter a new market but have no in-region presence or local market knowledge. Local ecosystem partners can provide just that as well as easy access to local influencers. On the flip side, your ecosystem partner will benefit greatly from the credibility of your global brand, thought leadership alignment and access to some of your accounts in their home market.
**Amplified Reach:** Partners bring their customers, enhancing attendance and visibility. This increases the event's overall value while providing access to new leads.
**Value-Added Content:** Partners can contribute valuable content, such as co-hosted panels, technical demos, or case studies. These contributions enrich the event's agenda without requiring additional budget allocation.
**Co-Branding Opportunities:** Partnered events often offer mutual credibility boosts. Smaller companies can align with more prominent names, while larger partners can access niche audiences, creating a win-win scenario.

How to Leverage Your Partner Community

Choose Strategic Partners: Identify partners whose goals align with your own. They should target a similar customer ICP and personas but offer complementary solutions. For example, if your SaaS platform provides recruitment software, partnering with an HR solution partner could attract shared interest from Recruitment and HR professionals.

Collaborate on Planning: Develop a co-hosted strategy where all partners have a clear role. This could include shared venue sourcing and contracting, internal team alignment, joint promotional campaigns, etc.

Offer Joint Value Propositions: Work with your GTM teams to craft exclusive offers or bundles that combine your product with your partner’s solution. These could be event-specific deals that entice attendees to explore both offerings.

Utilise Co-Marketing Tactics: Split advertising efforts, such as email campaigns, paid media, and social posts. This spreads the workload while increasing event exposure.

Measure Joint Success: Define and track KPIs collaboratively, such as lead generation, attendance growth, and pipeline impact. Share the results with your partners to build trust and encourage future collaborations.

Dos and Don’ts When Working With Partners

Dos:

Test first, scale later: Align on creating and making a successful pilot event first rather than committing to four of five events upfront. This lets you ensure the fit is right and helps secure internal buy-in to scale the strategy.
Focus on Quality Over Quantity: Instead of large-scale events, prioritise smaller, highly-targeted gatherings where meaningful connections can be made.
Be proactive with your internal stakeholders: Engage with your sales and customer teams early to secure their buy-in. Collaborate with them to align on the strategy and ensure they play a key role in getting the right people in the room.
Provide Partner Visibility: Ensure your partners’ logos, speakers, and contributions are prominently featured. They need to feel the collaboration is worth their investment.

Don’ts:

Ignore Your Audience's Needs: Don't let cost-cutting overshadow attendees' experience. Poorly executed events can damage your reputation.
Overcommit Resources: Avoid stretching your internal teams too thin with excessive asks. Bring in agency support when it is needed.
Overlook constraints: Don’t overlook legal and contractual agreements regarding data-sharing or co-branding rights, especially in Europe.
Underutilise Your Network: Don’t rely solely on your partners’ networks without leveraging your own.
Assume Equal ROI: Not all partnerships will yield the same benefits. Maintain flexibility and analyse partner contributions critically.

Conclusion

For SaaS companies operating in cash-constrained environments, leveraging smart partnerships can transform event marketing into a high-ROI strategy. Companies can deliver meaningful events even with limited budgets by working with the right partners, sharing costs, and amplifying reach.

Remember: it’s not just about cutting costs—it’s about creating opportunities to thrive. Follow these strategies, focus on collaboration, and watch your event marketing efforts become a powerful growth driver during even the toughest times.

Leveraging Ecosystem Partners to Maximise Event Marketing Budgets