MARKETING TO SIMILAR MARKETS?

Go to a home and garden show, and you’ll see landscaping firms right next to window replacement companies. Go to a church festival and you’ll see sausage sandwich trailers next to ice cream trailers. Go to the mall and…well, you get the idea.

These are examples of businesses with different products and services but similar clientele. Companies at a home and garden show are looking for prospects who want to improve their home. Festival vendors cater to people who want some fun and tasty food. 

It’s much easier and much less expensive for companies to participate in these events at a single location, rather than trying to attract customers to their business alone. By renting booth or trailer space, they keep overhead down and get advertising and promotion at a fraction of the cost they would pay on their own.

USE THE SAME CONCEPT

You can use this concept to attract customers (new business) while saving time and money. But you don’t need an event, a large venue and dozens of other businesses to use this concept to benefit you.

It’s called Partnership Marketing, and you can do it by partnering with just one or two other firms. For example, a fitness center can partner with a doctor or physical therapist. A jewelry store can partner with a women’s clothing store. An insurance firm can hook up with realtors and car dealers.

WHAT’S THE PLAN?

There are a few ways to use your partnership. You could go together on a unique ad, mailer or promotion. By splitting advertising costs, you’ll get your message out to a larger group of prospects than you could afford to reach on your own.

You could offer discounts and sample services to the customers of your partner. For example, a physical therapist might station a staffer in the gym one day a month. The staffer offers free on-site body fat analyses, with the results written on her business card. (A discount or free consultation would appeal to a gym rat like me.)

Likewise, a physical therapist or doctor could send out information about the gym in monthly billing statements, or keep the gym’s literature in the waiting room. The gym could offer a discount to the doctor’s patients.

OTHER ADVANTAGES

Satisfied customers will take the association of your business and another as an “implied endorsement.” If they like your firm, they’ll assume the other company that is promoting with you is also a good organization.

You’re also saving your customers time by helping them find a needed service — and you’ll probably save them money, too.

EVERY ONE CAN DO IT

Business-to-business firms, healthcare and service companies…almost any kind of firm can partner with another that targets similar audiences. Use your imagination, pick a partner, stretch your marketing dollars and increase business too. That’s Smart Marketing. 

Stay tuned and Stay Smart.