AIMS Canada

Why targeting is so important when choosing marketing partners

Posted by AIMS blog correspondent, Ron Kunitzky, President of Geyser Marketing Group...

I see this on a daily basis…Marketing Partnerships that under perform and as a result, looks of disappointment on the faces of key online marketing personnel.

Why? Well, there are usually many reasons:

• Promoting an offer that is far from compelling
• Lack of compliance
• Having virtually no metrics on hand to measure the success of the partnership against and, ultimately, not being able to calculate that all important ‘ROI’.

So, there you have it; the Partnership underperforms. What’s even more amusing is how companies choose to partner with others without thinking of who they are trying to market their products/services to. We have all heard about demographic and behavioral segmentation and the importance of it (note: their importance will vary, depending on what you are trying to sell), yet somehow those very important aspects of targeting fly out the window when it comes to inking a marketing partnership.

Over the past few years I have analyzed Marketing Partnerships backwards and forwards from Brands that sell watches and jewelry to those that promote e-learning courses and the one aspect that can be clearly linked to an affiliation gone sour is the fact that the parties did not think about who they are targeting? Sounds silly, but it’s one of those cases of believing more in the relationship because “someone knows someone at that company, so that is why we did the deal…” versus understanding who you are trying to target and if the brand that you are partnering with can actually bring those customers to you.

Obviously, that is not the way toward successful marketing partnerships, yet funnily enough; many senior marketers seem to think that it is. It’s not about knowing someone at Company XYZ, it’s about introducing yourself to the right partner that can deliver on a promise. A promise that starts with them having the right online communication vehicles, brand assets, people and systems to turn the relationship in to a profitable one for both parties.

Having said that, I think that targeting and the ability to target is key, but in order to effectively target, you need to know who your best customers are, so that you can go out and get more of them. Don’t go around thinking that another brand that has built hundreds of thousands of online customer relationships can deliver those to your doorstep. Hey, if that were the case, there would be no reason to do anything else but partner! So, as it’s not the case, you really need to understand who your best customers are before forming a marketing partnership with another company. By the same token, you need to ensure that your prospective partner understands who their best customers are so that you can determine if there is a fit.

Without a behavioral and/or demographic fit at the customer level - the partnership will fail, and that is the one thing that I can promise you.

Partnership Marketing: Q&A with Ron Kunitzky

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. 

Canada Post - more than just letters & post-cards

AIMS member and volunteer Ron Kunitzky submits this post about Canada Post's Partnership Brand Marketing...

In the busy world of Brand Marketing, leveraging the strength of a strategic partnership or alliance and featuring it in your communications can do more for your brand than you have ever imagined possible. For example, take the recent Canada Post print/online advertising campaign that features their Partners’ brands that brings their competencies to life. Partnership ‘Brand’ Marketing is often used by a company as a strategy to gain access to new distribution channels or to enhance the messaging that a given brand wishes to communicate via their customer communications channels.

Not only do I think that the Canada Post campaign is clever, but it has to be one of the best cases of brand transformation that I have seen in quite a while. Canada Post has utilized their relationships with companies like ebay.ca and zip.ca to show their customers that they are a modern-age logistics machine that does more than send letters & post-cards. They work with leading online brands and facilitate business for them by getting products from point A to B and back to point A in some cases. Connecting buyers and sellers via their network and using real life examples in their marketing not only shows the features and benefits of their offering, but gives the audience something tangible that they can really relate to.

I’ve often found that organizations place Partnership ‘Brand’ Marketing in the hands of the Promotions Director, yet as in the case of Canada Post, Partnership ‘Brand’ Marketing can be much more strategic in nature. It’s an effective way to communicate your core value proposition to your target audience. Short term Partnership ‘Brand’ Marketing promotions can help a business achieve an immediate sales and marketing objective, yet it’s those longer term strategic affiliations that help build businesses over the longer-term.

 

Online Partnerships: How Wengersdirect.com increased sales by 50% in 2 months

“Online marketing partnerships” isn’t a catchy term you hear bantered around much. It might not have the popularity of blogs, wikis, and the rest of the social media darlings but when it comes to producing results online marketing partnerships is a topic that definitely warrants some serious attention.

Here’s an example that came out of a conversation I had with Ron Kunitzky of Geyser Marketing this morning about the impact online distribution partnerships can have. (Disclaimer: Ron is helping me put together the AIMS online partnership event on Nov. 1^st)

Wengersdirect.com is a division of a Canadian watch & jewelery company that recently decided to sell online in the US Market. They had no major distribution in the United States and wanted their newly created e-commerce website to be the vehicle for getting their products in to the market. Sales to date have been slow and steady, yet a recent distribution partnership with Amazon.com has spiked their sales tremendously and as of last week, that channel alone is now bringing in 50% of their overall revenue.

When faced with the cost of building and marketing their web property the cost of partnering with Amazon.com made a lot of sense. And with 50% of their sales coming from this channel it looks to be paying off for them.