A short YouTube marketing tip by Jeff Harrison (Local Marketing Insight) explaining "cooperative marketing": partnering with non-competing local businesses to share access to customer databases, offer referral gifts/coupons, and provide reciprocal in-store exposure. Jeff illustrates with a women's boutique partnering with a jewelry store (example: a $20 coupon sent as a referral) and reports the approach produced some of his best months during the 2008–2010 downturn for golf-related business. The piece is practical, low-cost, and focused on driving foot traffic without advertising spend.
Chapters
Hey, welcome back. I'm Jeff Harrison with a local marketing insight where we provide tips and strategies to local businesses to help them succeed and excel online. And today's topic is about cooperative marketing. Now, maybe some of you haven't heard about cooperative marketing, but I was involved in this project and I kind of coined the term back in 2000, 2008, and I was at La Quinta Resort in PGA west during the time. And it was a time where really no one had a whole lot of extra money out because that was a time when economically we were in some pretty tough, tough conditions economically here in the desert. So what it is, I started reaching out to business partners in the desert that had, like, clientele, but we didn't compete. So as an example, you know, we wanted golfers to come to our facility. And so we said for those golfers, they are this type of.
You know, standard as far as what would they, what would they buy, where would they spend time? So we go out to high end jewelries or we go to higher end automobile dealerships and we create a relationship with them so we could communicate with their database and really offer them a solution or a gift, if you will, from that company. So I want to break this down for a second. Let's say you are a business and you don't have a database, but you need to generate some sales. Well, one of the ways you can do it, and let's just say, let's say, say you have a retail women's clothing store and you're, you know, pick a spot in the desert, you're a retail women's clothing store. So what other kind of businesses would be your ideal clientele, but you don't compete against them. Because here's the problem. Let's say you don't have a ton of money to do advertising, traditional or otherwise, online or traditional. By the way, if you can't afford to do online advertising, you're just not trying because at the end of the day, you can run fashion shows every day if you want to and not cost you a dime with live streaming programs like Periscope or even Meerkat or Blab. Probably not Blab. Blab is a little different, but you might get some of the people on Blab who actually are the designers of those clothes you're doing the Runway on. And you could have conversation with them. What a great idea. You might want to write that one down if you're having women's or men's fashion. So anyway, so let's say you go out and Say, I don't have the money to do this advertising, but I need to get some traffic in my store. I want foot traffic in my store. Well, you say, well let's see, I have my clientele. My ideal client is this age, this is the demographic. Financially, this is where they're at. And then go out and look and say, well, what are the kind of businesses out there would provide that platform that I could communicate with? Well, let's just say for instance, it's a jewelry store. And maybe it's, I'm trying to think of the jewelry store here in the desert's name, Leads and Sons. Okay, so real nice. They do a ton of advertising. But now for, let's say for instance, you're able to communicate with their database. You go to them and say, hey listen, I have this women's boutique down there, high end, it fits your demographic. But what I like to do is I want to offer you and your clients a special pricing on our product. And I'll write the letter and it'll be a referral letter, but I want, if you would just send it out to your database and it's a referral letter. So it's a gift, if you will. Maybe it's $20, it's a $20 coup coupon that they could use in our store, but now it's a gift from them to you or excuse me, from them to their guests. And when they see this because it's a referral, the chances are they'll take higher action. We all know when something's referred to us, we take higher action versus just let's say a direct mail piece that comes out that has maybe a 1 or 2% success rate. I think you'll see your success rate go way up. Then on the other hand, we what are you going to do for that company? Well, maybe what you can do is you say, well, jewelry, gosh, what if we put a display in our store? Because remember I'm saying you don't have the money, you don't really have a database, but you do have foot traffic, you do have another place. You almost give them a second, let's say a second showroom if you will. Now of course you're not going to put a lot of high end stuff in there because you don't want the place to be robbed. But at the same time you want to showcase that. And maybe it's one of those things where you might put it next to the next to a clothing line that would be great with that necklace or those Earrings or maybe the type of watch, whatever it might be. So there is some cooperative marketing. Neither of these cost either business any money whatsoever because you're going to email that. You're going to have to put together, you know, some kind of an email piece that you can put out, which, again, you can do virtually free. I call this cooperative marketing. Now, let me give you kind of some results of this. Back in 2008 through 2008, 2010, the golf business was terrible, terrible, horrific. We did this process and in this process, we actually had some of our best months on record and we grew our rounds by doing this. It was very, very successful. And I didn't have an advertising budget, none. I had to make it happen. And this was very, very valuable for us. So I suggest you guys sit down and think, who's my ideal customer? Where else do they shop? What else do they do? And go out and try to get yourself three to five partners in the desert that you can reach out to and put together this opportunity. You'll be surprised how many people say, hey, I like that idea. I mean, it's not going to cost me anything. You're actually going to write the letter, it's going to be a referral from me, and you're going to give my customers a gift and I get to do it. So it's like you're the business that's actually given the gift to your client. Instead of asking them to buy something, you're actually giving them a gift. Yeah, it's a win, win, win. And I'm going to put some kind of display or something in, let's say, in my brick and mortar store down the street that would help drive traffic to your store. It's a massive win win. It's called cooperative marketing. I hope this makes sense. And I want to thank you again for joining us on the Local Marketing Insight. I'm Jeff Harrison, where we help you get your business to the next level. Thank you.
