How,Make,Cross-Promotion,Work, marketing How to Make Cross-Promotion Work for You
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Before getting into how you can use cross-promotion as a marketing technique, lets define what exactly it is. Cross-promotion is when two groups (usually businesses) advertisetogether. Each group pools their money together to slash advertisingbudgets or helps promote the other group. Visa does this a lot. Theyllmention a product or store in their commercials and advertisements, andin return, their partner will mention using Visa to pay for purchasesin their store. Both groups benefit and are possibly bolstered by theiraffiliation with each other. Follow these steps for creating a cross-promotion strategy that willgenerate more sales than you could have produced on your own. 1. Find a partner. Obviously, this is a great first step forcross-promotion! Of course you cant just put your finger on a companyin a phone book and partner with them. You have two options forapproaching this: do some research to find out what other businessesyour customers shop at, or find businesses that have products thatcomplement yours. Once you find some businesses that you think might be a good fit, dosome more research to find which companies share your values and wantto reach the same target market. Think about what companies you wouldbe proud to be associated with. You also want to pick a partner whoseresources and reputation are equal to yours. 2. Evaluate your shared customers. Determine what portion of yourtarget market likes to shop at your partners business and vice versa.These are the people you want to advertise the most. What do they like about your product and your partners product? Howcan you enhance what they like about each by working together? Checkout their demographics: Where do they live? What kind of car do theydrive? Youre constructing a niche market out of already niche marketsso you need to get very specific to make sure you reach your sharedtarget market. 3. Decide on a test-run cross-promotion event or sale. Its a good ideato start with a simple, small cross-promotion just to test yourrelationship, make sure that itll work. One safe idea is to both holdsales at the same time and include incentives for customers to shop atboth places. For instance, a hardware store holds a sale on wood and a deck builderhas a sale on deck-building services. They advertise for their salestogether in one flyer, brochure or commercial. They then split theadvertising cost, which will either save them money or allow them toafford using techniques, such as color printing, that they wouldnthave been able to afford on their own. 4. Evaluate the partnership. How did things go? Did you both bring inmore business? If you did, great! Its time to brainstorm some moreideas to use later. If it didnt work, try to figure out why it didntand if theres any way to correct the mistake next time. Or, you can start over again and find a new partner. Seems like a lotof work, but itll be worth the time to do it right than to have apartnership that isnt working.
How,Make,Cross-Promotion,Work,