Welcome to the Partner Co-Marketing Toolkit!

At Gusto, we want to take the mystery out of good marketing and make its magic work for you. That’s why we created the Gusto Partner Co-marketing Toolkit, to help you share how your expertise dovetails with Gusto’s tech-forward platform – so you can offer more services to existing clients, expand your client base, and grow your advisory practice.

Introduce your clients to payroll they’ll actually love.

Get Started

Click on the links below to access the Toolkit. In this blog post, we’ll introduce the key parts of the Toolkit, and share how to approach co-marketing in a client-focused, high-impact way.

Toolkit Contents

General

• Introducing your clients to Gusto. A guide to telling your clients about Gusto. 
• Telling your clients about people advisory. After you get People Advisor Certified, share how you help small businesses with people-focused advising, powered by Gusto.

Email co-marketing

• Sending a great email about Gusto.  A strategic guide to email marketing. 
• Sample emails to send to your clients 

Web co-marketing 

• Designing a beautiful Gusto landing page. A guide to co-marketing on the web. Please give your partner advisor a heads up before publishing a co-branded landing page, so we can make sure the information is up to date. 
• Model landing pages for inspiration or using as is

Images and logos

• Gusto product images to show your clients what Gusto looks like
• Gusto logos for you to use
• Custom co-branded logo featuring Gusto and your firm. Request one from your partner advisor.

Other

• Gusto brand guidelines. For more information about our brand

What is co-marketing, anyway?  

Good co-marketing puts your clients at the center-–something you already do. It’s about understanding your current or prospective clients’ business goals, and then proactively offering to help using Gusto’s platform. In this way, co-marketing with Gusto is an extension of your advisory practice because you’re advising small businesses on how to do things like cut costs, save time, or stay compliant. Since you already know what good professional advice looks like–-relevant, actionable, and timely – you can create excellent co-marketing by applying this intuition when you share how Gusto and your firm add value as a team. 

What makes good co-marketing? 

Thinking about co-marketing as just another form of business advice helps crystalize four key principles: Audience, value proposition, goal, and timing. 

Audience

Be sure to define the specific group of clients you’re communicating to in your co-marketing, so you can make recommendations relevant to them. You’d probably never give identically worded advice to your entire client base. The same principle goes for co-marketing, where communications tailored to clients’ business needs are most effective. When co-marketing with Gusto, think about sending different marketing to clients based on their needs: for example, small businesses spending too much time running payroll, clients planning to hire employees, or businesses interested in offering benefits to boost employee retention. 

Value proposition

For each audience, let them know about the Gusto tools that would add the most value – based on your unique knowledge of their business, financial statements, and regulatory landscape. To help, the Co-marketing Toolkit includes a guide to talking about Gusto’s main features and benefits, called Introducing your clients to Gusto, which you can use as a starting point.

Goal

Consider what you want your clients to do when they see your co-marketing, and make it easy for them to do it. Good co-marketing, like good business advice, is immediately actionable. If you’re advising clients to call you to discuss improving their payroll process with Gusto, for example, make sure your phone number is prominently visible. If you’d like them to set up an appointment, consider sharing a link to an online appointment scheduler, where they can immediately set up a time. 

Timing

You’re an expert on the rhythm of each client’s business, like year-end close, tax season, and open enrollment for benefits. Use this knowledge to send clients messages at the right time, so they feel enough urgency to act, but still have a comfortable amount of time to work with you on any transition. 

Don’t forget to consider your own firm’s timing, as well. If there are periods when you’ll have more capacity to think about marketing, plan ahead to take advantage of these windows. 

Related

Marketing for Accountants: How Blogging Can Boost Your Practice

Grow Your Firm

How do I get started? 

Email is a simple, powerful way to begin. That’s why the Toolkit includes a strategy guide to email co-marketing, as well as sample emails tailored to key audiences and goals. It also includes high-resolution photos of our product to show your clients what Gusto looks like, along with instructions about getting a co-branded logo featuring Gusto and your firm. 

While email is a common co-marketing channel, you can use the Toolkit in any channel that supports your firm’s strategic priorities. If you find most of your new clients at events, consider using the Toolkit to create a pamphlet to share. If you want to expand your advisory practice among current clients, use the Toolkit to create talking points or a slide deck to guide your conversations. 

Coming up, we’ll be releasing even more co-marketing resources, so stay tuned! As you think about co-marketing, remember that you’ve got an entire team at Gusto behind you. Don’t hesitate to reach out to your partner advisor for any questions. We’re here to help.