Increasingly, you will notice that various promotions are held with the active participation of partners. Companies boldly declare that prizes and gifts are provided by other brands, emphasizing their "friendship" with another business. Why is this needed? After all, you can completely confuse buyers by piling in your minds a complex scheme of advertising several products at once? But specialists in partnership projects know that this is the only way to kill several birds with one stone. Firstly, reduce the cost of promotional activities. Secondly, improve communication efficiency. And thirdly, to increase the number of fans of your brand by attracting partner customers.
Various forms of interaction between brands with each other, from the neighborhood on the shelf in the supermarket to the creation of a joint product, can be combined under the concept of co-marketing.
Co-marketing, or co-marketing, is a special marketing area that involves mutually beneficial partnerships. Partnership can be organized in various ways: a joint advertising campaign, cross-distribution of promotional materials, sampling at an event or developing a joint product. Co-marketing projects are implemented both on an equal footing and on conditions of unequal partnership; they may or may not be legally executed depending on the requirements of the project participants, but in any case they bring positive results.
According to experts of the Russian Co-Marketing Association, there are a number of advantages that can be obtained using co-marketing in your practice. And if you take into account and pay attention to the features of cross-promotion, this will contribute to an even more effective strategy for the development and promotion of the brand.
So, what is the best approach to choosing a partner and what to look for when preparing a cross-marketing project?
Best Partner - Related Product
This is the golden rule of successful co-marketing. Ideal partners are those companies whose products or services are designed for the same category of customers. Ideally, companies should complement each other, like shampoo and conditioner, it is impossible to imagine one without the other. When using this technique, you don’t have to further explain to the consumer why he needs a second product. And so everything is clear.
This is how hundreds of coffee houses around the world work, including the world-famous McDonald's alliance and The Coca-Cola Company. In San Francisco, the Primo's coffee shop chain has been working with the Sweet Charlottes Chocolates confectionery for many years. As part of a co-marketing partnership, exclusive partner rights are sold in the coffee houses of the partner's chocolates. In addition, for each cup of coffee purchased, a bar of chocolate comes as a gift. In turn, pastry shops sell coffee beans. When buying sweet products, all customers are given a coupon for free espresso.
Mutually beneficial partnership with neighbors
Another option that allows you to easily and quickly find a partner for co-marketing is cooperation with neighbors. The location in the nearby territory allows companies to redirect the traffic of visitors who visit the same place, but with different goals.
In this case, companies may not offer related products, but the terms of the promotion should be designed for the interests of both audiences. Audiences themselves should also be similar.
For example, the owners of neighboring establishments - a pizzeria and a jewelry salon - once noticed that they have much more in common than it seems at first glance. These are their customers. The key visitors to the pizzeria are not only families with children, but also young, still unmarried couples who are also welcome customers for a jewelry salon.
In the shortest possible time, a cross-marketing campaign was developed and prepared. All pizzeria visitors were invited to take part in a one-carat diamond draw. It was proposed to find it among hundreds of similar stones; it was possible to confirm the authenticity of the stone only in the jewelry salon, which was nearby. In case of failure, the selected stone remained in the memory of the participant of the action, it became a kind of discount coupon, presenting which you could get a 10% discount.
The pizzeria noted the unprecedented effectiveness of the action. Some visitors visited the establishment several times a day in the hope of finding a diamond. The jewelry salon as a result received a number of large orders for individual product design. And the customers were those customers who came from a nearby pizzeria.
The development strategy of the American hotel chain Ace Hotel is based on offering its customers the best services, including coffee. That is why the owners of one of the best coffee chains, Stumptow Coffee, were involved in the partnership. Coffee sales points are located on the territory adjacent to or adjacent to the hotel so that guests can easily find fresh and tasty coffee.
Co-branding as a way to overcome negative
Sometimes only a joint advertising campaign with a partner becomes the only option in the fight against negative rumors. Naturally, for such an interaction, the partner must have the appropriate fame and reputation.
A classic example is a joint advertisement of Lukoil and Porshe. When rumors spread about the low quality of fuel, a reliable partner came to the rescue - a symbol of quality, speed and reliability. After the co-branding project, the level of negative assessment decreased, and loyalty to the fuel brand, on the contrary, increased.
An equally interesting example is the collaboration of the famous electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and the Australian airline Qantas. In this case, the companies had no task to overcome the negative. But the airline wanted to inform the public about its development in the use of biofuels as an alternative to jet fuel. As a result, the companies shot an exciting video in which an electric car and an airliner compete on the runway. The video scored millions of views, thousands of likes and hundreds of reposts. In addition, a number of influential media outlets posted news about the cooperation of brands, and for free.
How to expand your customer base with cross-marketing?
Cross-marketing offers great opportunities to expand the customer base in the shortest possible time. Attracting a partner’s clients or the opportunity to open a new audience are the key advantages of a co-marketing partnership, so do not lose sight of it during the preparation and conduct of the action.
The easiest way to increase your customer base is to join or create your own coalition loyalty program. Each member of such a club comes with its own base, after which joint offers are created that are used for mailing. Two companies can do the same. For example, a manufacturer of baby diapers decides to conduct a cross-marketing campaign with a network of children's clothing stores. You can put a nice bonus in the letter - a promotional code and, of course, a link to the partner’s site.
Any marketing activity with a partner can be broadcast on the following channels:
- Social networks: VKontakte, Facebook or Odnoklassniki groups, Instagram and Telegram accounts, messages on Twitter. All resources can be doubled at least by attracting a partner.
- Joint press releases on news aggregators.
- Joint interview with local media.
- Joint advertising on the radio.
- Joint advertising on TV.
- Cross mailing by email.
Co-Marketing Helps Cut Costs
Everything is clear here. Competition is escalating every day. Advertising is becoming more expensive. Even large corporations find it increasingly difficult to increase marketing budgets, let alone those who are not at all spoiled by a large advertising budget. But you can’t even do without advertising, because you can lose the necessary level of pressure on the consumer and lose your niche in the market. As a result, companies are forced to look for new ways to attract customers that are low cost and at the same time effective.
Cross-marketing is just what you need. Joint advertising on TV to two brands that appear on the screen will cost much less than an individual advertising campaign. The same can be said about the radio, and about advertising in the media, and about online promotion.
Use someone else's fame
Seeing opportunities where others do not see them is one of the most valuable qualities of entrepreneurs and marketers. It was this quality that allowed the marketer from a Canadian company of building materials and products for home repair to organize a fantastic campaign in terms of simplicity and efficiency with the world famous Apple brand.
RONA's promotion specialists were faced with the task of creating an effective campaign in support of a new direction for the processing of unused paints. Among the promotion options, outdoor advertising was also considered. But how to make the billboard work 100%?
On the way to work, a RONA marketer once saw a huge new billboard promoting new iPod models. On the poster, bright colors from the players flowed in bold drops down. It was almost a ready-made advertisement for the collection and processing of waste paint. Having agreed with the main advertiser - Apple - to place another advertising banner , RONA unfurled its poster below. It depicted how dripping drops of paint fall into neatly framed cans, and the slogan read: "We recycle the remaining paint."
Using someone else’s fame for your own purposes is an ideal option to make your company even more recognizable. Apple had nothing against the second advertisement, since it did not present a competing product, it did not cause any damage and did not jeopardize the perception of the main advertised product.
At the same time, RONA got the opportunity to place its ad next to a product that attracts the attention of millions of people around the world. As a result, the company collected more than two million liters of waste paint. It was not just a success. Even in the wildest dreams, marketers could not imagine that the proximity to a popular brand would lead to such an incredible result.
Summing up, it is worth noting that co-marketing partnerships with other companies are what can make your business more attractive to customers, your marketing more effective, and the results higher. This approach combines all the most relevant requirements to date: the ability to reduce the advertising budget, increase coverage and ease of evaluating results.