Marketing partnerships: fast and easy ways to grow your business and test the market

A marketing partnership involves two or more professional companies or organizations with common target markets and/or complementary services. They join forces to market to a specific audience. Each member of a marketing partnership benefits from this efficient marketing with more exposure to their customers and prospects.

The key to a successful marketing partnership is a lot of strategic planning. It’s not smart to jump feet first without discussing how to structure the partnership so that it will serve your needs.

Consider:

What are your goals? Do you want to develop new customers? Increase brand recognition? Enhance your relationships with existing customers? Introduce a new product?

Who are you targeting? Make sure the marketing opportunities are going after the same people you want to reach.
How will this marketing partnership multi-faceted? Are they using PR, advertising, face-to-face, social media, email, direct mail?

Does the marketing partnership offer you some unconventional opportunities? Can you attach your name to fun events and activities such as contests?

Example: Mid-America Events & Expos’ marketing partnerships enable you to place your literature directly into the hands of thousands of people within a specific targeted group (seniors, healthy choosers, women). We have well-honed media lists and consumer email lists through which our marketing partners can communicate their sales messaging. We offer marketing partnerships for contests, pageants, event-day activity rooms, guest speakers, and more. We also include our marketing partners in our TV, radio and print PR and advertising campaigns.

One last tip: look at the duration of the marketing partnership opportunity. Although we produce 2-day events, our marketing partnerships typically extend anywhere from 6 months to one year. Each partnership is customizable depending on your goals and budget.