The What

Cross-marketing is essentially smart marketing, it is about two or more companies marketing their products together. In reality however, cross-marketing is a basket for terms like co-advertising, joint sales, bundling, link exchange, co-branding, cross promotion, co-marketing, brand alliances and so on. Please check our online glossary for more defitions.

The diagram below shows cross-marketing as a spectrum that ranges from short-term tactical co-operations between companies, to long-term strategic alliances.

The former are easy to implement but are limited, the latter have more impact on the customer, but are a lot harder to complete.

As examples, you could consider Sony Ericsson as a long-term strategic alliance. A chocolate brand promotion their latest product at Starbucks on the other hand, is only a short term deal.

The Why

There are several good reasons for considering cross-marketing. These are just some of the advantages. Hover over them and receive more detailed information.

• Target and activate specific customer niches

  When your sales growth starts slowing down, it is often time to diversify into new markets. Partnering with a company that is already active in the target group is the best way to reach out to such a niche. Often, it is the only way to gain access to quality leads.

• Save on marketing expenditure

  Cross marketing leads to lower marketing spend as you either exchange or pool marketing resources. These cost saving range from promoting each other in newsletters to sharing costs for tradefairs to even joint product development.

• Cause word-of-mouth promotion

  Creative cross-marketing partnerships tends to surprise people. This creates positive word-of-mouth about your product or service. Test a new product or service and receive feedback Products need real life testing outside the testing lab. Distributing some of your products as free promotion items, acts as a real life test en can deliver value feedback.

• Change your brands perception

  If your brand needs to reposition itself, you can push it in another direction by creating a partnership with a company that has the qualities you need to improve on. For instance, partnering with a charity gives your brand more socially responsible values. Partnering with a start-up will make your firm look more 2.0. A firm, just like people, is known by the company it keeps.

• Improve customer loyalty

  Specific cross-marketing actions that are beneficial to your customers will improve their retention rate and overall happiness.