Marketing - Mutual Promotion

[Peter]

Hi Guys,

Just wondering how many companies use mutual promotion as a way of creating brand awareness?

I am marketing executive for the Airlink Group, Paisley and we own off airport parking at Glasgow Airport. I have used mutual promotion to help build our brand but it is often very difficult to get companies interested.

By mutual promotion I mean, we display a poster of flyers on our buses or customer waiting areas and in return that company perhaps displays a discount for us in their retail outlets etc. Anything that ticks both companies boxes in terms of creating business.

I would be interested if anyone has any opportunities or experiences of trying to promote their business in such a manner?

Thanks,

Peter

 

[themiddleman]

I think there's a lot that businesses can do together. I always offer business people a share of my (very modest) profits if they can acquire me business that I wouldn't otherwise have got. In theory this can have a viral effect, though I'm not quite there yet.

 

[Former Member 1]

Mutual promotion... It could mean many things...

I think one possible reason people might be wary of what is essentially a 'barter' of services is it raises the question of how one might account for it? And of course how do you formalise the relationship?

It's not that it's a bad idea. But I seem to recall doing a news story many many years ago where a small community enterprise scheme had fallen foul of the taxman; The set up was that money rarely changed hands; but people could barter goods and services, effectively freezing out the revenue... Who didn't like it up 'em!!

IIRC the issue was the relative 'growth' of this group... Can't quite remember the details of what basis Inland Revenue wanted to tax them on it...

Of course VOLUNTARILY promoting a friend, colleague or contact... that's a different matter... And I believe (for instance) some of us here carry links to each other's sites; purely as a courtesy...

Likewise bona fide advertising agencies, PR firms, web designers, online broadcasters etc etc can all avail themselves of my services at a discounted rate; provided they charge out to their clients at (a minimum) of 5% below rack rate... Likewise reciprocal arrangements exist; and I'll actively promote appropriate people from my contacts where it becomes apparent a client has a need...

Certainly nothing wrong with it as a concept. And I for one wouldn't be entirely averse to a little 'barter' in terms of more tangible goods/services...

Collaborative effort; that's the phrase I think...

 

[Boydie]

Hi Peter,

Great post, that is something that I think more companies should do.

 

[Peter]

I think collaborative effort is a very good way to put it!

Many of the things we do are relatively informal and just an extra way of promotion and pushing our brand.

 

[Gutsy]

This makes me think of a simple little agreement my friend and I have. She's a work at home writer, I'm a work at home transcriptionist, and proofreader. We each have a blogroll on our blogs. So mine features her blog, and hers features mine. This works well for us as we're both fairly regular bloggers and we can both write with a degree of literacy. So neither site is bringing down the standard of the other - in fact, we're each enhancing the other blog purely by writing on our own.

 

[Murray]

Hi Peter,

I think that you ideas are very good and certianly the type of relationship that we look at as a company. We are based throughout the UK and Glasgow is a main area for us.

We have had varying degrees of success with different business partners that we have but are always open to new ideas and willing to give things a go. These types of partnerships can be very productive if managed properly and it helps both company's in terms of exposure and potential revenue.

Let me know if you think that we could maybe work together.

Murray

 

[Adventurelife]

We do this a lot. If you find companies that are aligned with what you do it makes perfect sense we tend to club together with one two or three companies but sometimes much more and do things like the following

Joint promotion leaflets and distribution
Joint discount promotions when suitable
Joint verbal promotion of each other products services
Joint film production for marketing
Joint events in order to share costs

The critical thing is to get companies that are non-competing but have a product range that crosses over all companies to enhance the overall customers experience

It is much more well developed overseas than in Scotland. In my spare time ( whats that) I am working on some large joint promotion works for companies involved in tourism

Peter