For small businesses, co-marketing can be a hugely beneficial strategy. Co-marketing is the strategy in which two, like-minded organizations partner together to promote each other’s product or service and expand their reach. If you’re looking for a fresh, new marketing tactic to help generate leads and strengthen partnerships, co-marketing is a great place to start.
Define Your Target Audience
The first step to effectively marketing your small business is to develop a clearly defined target audience. The target audience defines items like age range, gender, location, family size, etc. By understanding who your target audience is and how to best reach that audience, you can then reach out to similar organizations to help further your marketing efforts.
When developing your marketing efforts, narrow the focus. Avoid broad generalizations or statements. Instead, use statements that apply only to the specific target audience you’ve identified.
Develop Marketing Ideas
Co-marketing can help you reach and attract new clients. Co-marketing involves marketing to another firm's employees or clients and vice versa. To develop the relationship, consider contacting the company through any mutual contacts or professional associations you have to pitch co-advertising. In this arrangement, they’ll advertise back to your staff and clients making it beneficial to you both. Below are some examples of co-marketing in action.
Ways to Implement a Co-Marketing Strategy
- Present talks to their employees and clients.
- Write educational articles for their newsletter or blog on need to know topics.
- Create custom offers and a website splash page for each company with which you co-advertise.
- Create a referral program that rewards those who send new customers your way.
- Place brochures in the company's reception area and allow them to do the same in your reception.
- Create educational posters for the other firm to hang in their break room.
Marketing doesn't have to be expensive or complicated. Using targeted ads in a co-marketing strategy can help you save effort and money and expand your clientele.
For more information on how co-marketing can work for your company, or for help with any other marketing efforts, contact our marketing experts today!