How romantic.
Valentine’s Day is here and the cool, beautiful nights put us in a romantic mood. Yes, yes, in marketing too.
So in preparation for Valentine’s Day, we wanted to talk a little about marketing ‘couples’ , or what is also known as Co-Marketing (commensal marketing).
Just like a family, co-marketing is a couple +1 . The couple is the vendor and its business partner, the child is none other than the product. It has value for both, they are both proud of it, and, well, the child’s success is their success.
Each of the members of the couple has his own objectives about the product’s future, but they both want it to leave home, for someone to take it. In short – both want to sell. The vendor aspires to make a sale; the proceeds of the sale being the profit. The partner, on the other hand, wants to sell but also to establish a long-term relationship with the customers and provide them with additional services like implementation and support.
On a daily basis, both sides make all possible efforts to achieve their business objectives: they invest, talk about the benefits of the product (the child), and describe its capabilities and skills. But the most significant effect is achieved when they talk about the product together.
This is the essence of Co-Marketing.
It is a commensal (symbiotic) marketing project or campaign, with a common budget, common messages, and common success. Co-Marketing is a process jumpstarted by a vendor with its partners, for the benefit of the product, the relationship with the various channels, and the reinforcement of their commitment towards the product. Co-Marketing processes are powerful marketing methods because, as everything else we do together with someone else, their power is doubled, in terms of both budget and image. It reinforces the brand, the vendor, the business partner and the relationship between all involved.
To succeed in implementing targeted and effective co-marketing, ‘controlling’ marketing is not enough. It is imperative to know how marketing works. It is about the ability to identify the interfaces between the vendor and the partner, develop a marketing plan that supports them both, and execute the entire campaign effectively, including the more unpleasant tasks like dealing with bureaucracy.
There is no doubt that such processes empower the relationship between vendor and business partner. If we are aware of and understand the relationship and its sensitivities, we will succeed in creating campaigns that reinforce all interested parties: the brand, the vendor and the business partner. A true win-win for all!
