AIMS member and volunteer Cecilia Jy, sends in this interview with Ron Kunitzky. Ron is speaking at our partnership marketing event next week.
Q: You cited that online partnership is often overlooked. Why do you think this is? Why should we pay more heed to it?
A: There are many reasons for this:
1) Most companies lack the expertise and ‘know how’ to develop profitable marketing partnerships.
2) The marketing mind-set of not wanting to ‘taint the brand’ and having concerns over affiliating with others often gets in the way.
3) Marketing Partnerships are not channel specific unlike branding, sales, retention, corporate communications or direct marketing.
4) The practice of Partnership Marketing typically falls in to a promotions department or is sourced out to sales-promotions agencies which typically do not have the skill sets and competencies to develop and execute longer-term strategic brand affiliations, either.
From a marketer’s standpoint, there are brands out there that are already marketing-to and developing relationships with the target audiences that you want to communicate with, so why only market alone?
Encompassing broad ranging initiatives from tactical co-promotions through to major strategic alliances, the essence of brand collaboration, sharing of budgets, customers, communications routes and sales channels are proving invaluable in all economic situations. Leading brands like Dell, Aeroplan, MSN, Yahoo, Rogers, Toys R Us, Rogers Communications, have leveraged Partnership Marketing to help them gain market share, shape their brand, increase customer loyalty and ultimately, drive sales and all at a better ROI than their other marketing programs.
Q: Who is online partnerships relevant for?
A: If you are marketing a service or a product to and end-consumer, then it’s relevant. Not only is it relevant, a partnership marketing program can be the catalyst that builds your business.
Q: How can a small business/company utilize online partnerships?
A: Just as the medium sized businesses or large corporations do; by leveraging relationships to add value to your proposition or by adding value to someone else’s.
For example… Joe Smith from Sarnia, Ontario produces a unique line of ‘tequila flavored nuts’. Those that have tried them, think they are out of this world, yet he is having trouble getting shelf space at key retail chains that sell to the audiences that he is targeting. For some reason, he can only get them on the shelves of independent shops.
After several meetings, his frustration builds from not getting anywhere because he doesn’t have the pull, so he decides to call Jim’s Tequila (the brand that he uses in the recipe to create the nuts) and tells the Marketing Director that he has created a great product which has their Tequila in the recipe.
The Marketing Director is intrigued and asks for some samples to be sent over, immediately. They get the samples, pass them around and everyone loves them. Furthermore, it’s just what they are looking for as an ‘added value’ proposition against their number one competitor in the tequila category.
They discuss opportunities together and weeks later they decide to place a huge order for small packs of nuts to be bundled with Jim’s Tequila and to be promoted at LCBO stores across Ontario, just in time for Christmas!
Joe Smith now has his distribution channel because he is bundling his ‘tequila flavored nuts’ with Jim’s Tequila. He is happy because he is selling the nuts and the brand association is a great one while the people at Jim’s Tequila have a strong added value offering for their end- customers and once again, they beat the competition with their highly compelling offer.
It’s promoted in-store and online, especially at the LCBO website which provides huge exposure for Joe Smith’s little company. Joe then builds his own website, links to the LCBO site and creates a series of promotions and online campaigns around the product. He then gets calls from other world markets after they learn about his product online and want to distribute his ‘tequila flavored nuts’ as well.
Due to the popularity, Joe starts to sell the nuts online at his site and builds some major online distribution partnerships with some leading e-commerce specialty nut sellers across North America. Joe is no longer worried about getting that retail chain ‘shelf space’. The marketing partnerships that he has developed (both offline and online) have taken his business to the next level.
