December 2002
MARKETING ANGEL ™
The secrets of cross-promotion
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
| Recent columns by Kimberly McCall: | |
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Over the past five years, I've watched the marketing business change from one in which Forrest Gump could've been a Madison Avenue contender, to a climate that's about as hospitable as Mount Washington in January. In the past 60 months, I've moved my office five times, seen my first full month in business sideswiped by a monstrous ice storm, and rode the rickety Internet rollercoaster. I've wooed and relinquished wonderful clients, lived through the lying, non-paying variety, and fired a few bonehead customers (no vacation days or bennies = low b.s. threshold).
Through boom and bust, one thing has remained constant: Small businesses are ceaselessly seeking low-cost, high-impact marketing techniques. Looking forward to 2003, I asked Kare Anderson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of Pocket Cross-Promotion Marketing, for her thoughts on next year's trends. Anderson is a co-founder of Sausalito, California-based Say It Better Center (www.sayitbetter.com), a consulting, speaking and writing company that helps businesses attract clients.
Kimberly McCall: Marketers are planning for 2003 marketing with meager budgets. How can a small-business owner squeeze extra mileage from a minimum budget?
Kare Anderson:
1. Join forces with others who serve your kind of client to gain access to each other's client base, cut overhead and multiply contacts with hot prospects. For example: Refer to each other's products, display each other's products (perhaps as they might be used together)
or offer samples of each other's products.
2. Inspire customers to buy more at one time, or over time, by giving them a prize/product from your cross-promoting partner (your customers must pick up their prize at your partner's premises); you do the same for your partner.
3. Rather than selling products or services by name, sell the situation in which they can be used, especially situations that your most lucrative kinds of customers crave.
4. Multiply positive exposures people have to your product (fun, fast, convenient) and reduce negative (boring, irritating, confusing, "unfairly" priced) exposures.
McCall: Crystal ball time. What marketing trends do you see for 2003?
Anderson: Times and the economy will be uncertain, so people will want to:
- be coddled (called by name).
- get personalized treatment (let me offer my product to you, your way).
- get guilt-free excuses to make small splurges (a timeless cashmere sweater or gourmet coffee beans)
McCall: You're a big proponent of cross-promotions. Please give a few examples of how two businesses might partner up for mutual benefit.
Anderson: Use a "marketing multiplier method." You dramatically cut marketing costs while multiplying the credible ways and places hot prospects see your product in use. Many prospects will see your product along with businesses they already know and trust. For example:
- Take a digital photograph of a situation in which your product/service and those of others can be used with other products/services. Add an inspiring and instructional message about why and how to create that situation, with the names and contact information of the participating vendors. Turn this into a multi-use promotional piece: a poster for all participating vendors to display on-site; a print ad for the local shopper newspaper; an outsized postcard to mail to your local market area; put into each customer's bag when they buy from you. With three to ten partners, you can afford a high-quality photograph.
- Print joint promotional messages on your receipts.
- Offer a reduced price, special service, or convenience if customers buy products from you and your partner.
- Lease space within another establishment or agree on side-by-side sites. Examples: Noah's Bagels sells Starbucks Coffee. A restaurant or fast-food operation leases space within a hospital or motel (Pizza Hut in Days Inn). Kinko's leases space within certain hotels. Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits in a Kroger supermarket increases traffic for both guest and host companies. The post office locates a substation in a supermarket. An accessories store leases space within or next to a clothing store and is joined by internal doors. A stadium leases space to a concession operator.
- Co-produce an in-store or office event, a demonstration, celebrity appearance, experts' free consultations, free service or "how-to" talk from a master.
Talk to Marketing Angel: What trends do you see taking shape for 2003? How will you market differently in the upcoming year? Send your ideas/thoughts/musings to Kimberly McCall at: talk@MarketingAngel.com. I'll share a few of the best in my January column.
Kimberly L. McCall (a.k.a. Marketing Angel™), is president of McCall Media & Marketing, Inc., a business communications company in Freeport, Maine. McCall writes monthly columns for Entrepreneur magazine and contributes to inc.com and The Wall Street Journal's StartupJournal.com. Sign up for her free weekly bulletin at www.MarketingAngel.com or contact McCall at 207-865-0055.