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Sales Strategy
Complete guide to cross-promotion
Christina Miranda
June 12, 2024
|
7 min. read
Christina Miranda
LAST UPDATED
June 12, 2024
READING TIME
7 min.
69% of consumers state that they trust the recommendations that influencers give them for new products or services.
We’re all much more likely to trust a new product if someone we trust recommends it.
So how can you reach a new audience unfamiliar with your product?
Let’s take a look into cross-promotion
What is cross-promotion?
Essentially, cross-promotion consists of two or more parties working together to share their audiences.
You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours
In cross-promotion, you partner with another professional (an influencer, or another business altogether) to promote each other's business or service, therefore increasing visibility and driving sales for both parties involved.
The key idea behind cross-promotion is to create mutual benefits for all parties involved by expanding their reach, attracting new customers, and ultimately generating more sales. This can be achieved through various tactics such as co-branded advertising campaigns, joint promotions, product bundling, referral programs, and shared marketing initiatives.
Cross-promotion is often used by businesses that target similar or complementary customer demographics, but it can also be effective between businesses in different industries that share overlapping interests or audiences.
By partnering with complementary brands, businesses can tap into new markets, enhance their brand visibility, and create valuable connections with potential customers.
A very common example of cross-promotion is McDonald’s! They usually feature a new film in their Happy Meals, or when they prepare a giveaway for festivals, for example:
While you can use cross-promotion at any point in your business, there are some special occasions where it would be much more meaningful.
Product launches
When launching a new product, you want to generate a certain buzz, especially if you are targeting a new audience with your new product or service.
Say you’re launching a new product for runners, a podcast with a seasoned and admired runner would be a wonderful way for you to get the word out.
Seasonal promotions
During holidays, special events, or seasonal trends, businesses can partner with complementary brands to offer joint promotions or themed campaigns.
For seasonal promotions, your best strategies are social media posts and email marketing!
Joint events or sponsorships
Hosting or sponsoring events together with other businesses allows for mutual promotion and exposure to each other's audiences.
This could be done via webinar if you’re just starting, or a large event where you can offer bundles, gifts, and giveaways.
Benefits of cross-promotion
Cross/promotion is meant as a mutually beneficial partnership. It’s right there in the name.
But what are the benefits you can reap from these partnerships?
Increase your audience
First and foremost, you’ll be reaching double the audience you regularly do.
Partnering with another brand allows you to tap into their existing customer base, exposing your brand to a wider audience that may not have been aware of you before.
Not only will you be reaching more people, but chances are, you’ll be reaching different people. This allows you to grow and let your business scale to suit different needs.
By promoting each other's products or services, both brands benefit from increased visibility across multiple channels, including social media, email newsletters, websites, and more.
Drive revenue
By doubling your audience, inevitably you’ll also be increasing your sales.
At the end of the day, this is probably your end goal with your business.
Cross-promotion can drive revenue in several ways:
Increased Sales
By exposing your products or services to a wider audience through cross-promotion with another brand, you have the potential to attract new customers who may make purchases, thereby increasing your sales revenue.
Upselling and Cross-Selling Opportunities
Cross-promotion can highlight complementary products or services offered by both brands, leading to upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
For example, think about the whole Barbie marketing campaign, where many brands sold products teamed up with Barbie.
Higher Conversion Rates
Collaborative promotions and campaigns may lead to higher conversion rates, as customers may be more inclined to make a purchase when recommended by a trusted brand or through a joint promotion.
Subscription and Membership Growth
If your cross-promotion involves subscription-based services or membership programs, partnering with another brand can drive growth in your subscriber or member base, leading to recurring revenue streams.
Especially if you choose the affiliate route!
Expand your network
With a good cross-promotion strategy, partnerships will continue to roll in, meaning you’ll be getting a larger network of trusted partners and colleagues in your industry and in others.
Expanding your network through cross-promotion involves collaborating with other businesses or individuals to reach their audience and vice versa.
Here are several ways to expand your network using cross-promotion:
Identify complementary brands
Offer value to your partners
Create joint promotions, such as giveaways
Use social media to post about each other and share content
Guest blogging or podcasting
Build trust with your partners and clients
Building trust with partners and clients through cross-promotion involves several key strategies:
Select reputable partners
When you choose a partner that has a strong reputation and aligns with your brand values, essentially, you are proving to your existing client base that you only work with the best.
Inevitably, this will make you seem like a trustworthy resource in their eyes.
Keep your brand messaging and performance consistent
Ensure that your brand messaging remains consistent across all cross-promotion channels.
Consistency helps to reinforce your brand identity and build trust with partners and clients who recognize and resonate with your messaging.
In addition, you should also consistently deliver on your promises and commitments to partners and clients.
Whether it's meeting deadlines, delivering quality content, or providing excellent customer service, reliability and consistency help to build trust over time.
Communicate your expectations clearly
Be transparent with your partners and clients about your intentions and expectations for the cross-promotion collaboration.
Clearly outline the goals, benefits, and potential outcomes of the partnership to foster trust.
Always deliver value
Focus on delivering value to your partners and clients through cross-promotion initiatives.
Provide high-quality content, products, or services that meet their needs and exceed their expectations. Demonstrating value enhances trust and encourages future collaborations.
Maintain your integrity
Uphold your integrity and ethical standards in all cross-promotion activities.
Avoid engaging in deceptive or misleading practices that could damage trust with partners and clients. Transparency and honesty are essential for building long-term relationships.
Be open to feedback and collaboration
Encourage open communication and feedback from partners and clients throughout the cross-promotion process.
Listen to their input, address any concerns or issues promptly, and collaborate on solutions to optimize the partnership.
How to set up your cross-promotion strategy
Setting up your cross-promotion strategy requires some careful thought and a well-laid-out plan. It’s not wise to just contact influencers left and right asking for a partnership.
So what’s the best strategy?
Define your goals
Before building your list of potential partners, you need to know what your goals are with your cross-promotion strategy.
Generally, with cross-promotion you are targeting an entirely new audience, so its important to know who it is you want to target.
To this effect, you need to build a new ICP.
You can use this persona generator to help you define your new client. ⬇️
Do your research
Research people with a similar ethic and ideals to you/your business. You don’t want your message to be changed or diminished.
Researching cross-promotion partners is crucial for ensuring successful collaborations and achieving mutual benefits.
Some key aspects of research are:
Relevance
Audience reach
Brand reputation
Engagement metrics
Content quality
Collaboration history
Communication style
Legal and ethical considerations
Reach out to them
Make sure you have decided beforehand what channels and platforms you wish to use, and how you can help them.
Lead with the benefits you can offer them.
It’s important to have a defined strategy when you make contact, bear in mind that you can negotiate if either party is not satisfied with any aspects, but approaching someone without a clear objective can lead to lost deals down the line.
Be sure to use lemlist to create hyper-personalized outreach messages. You can write them from scratch, use AI, or our library of templates!
Be respectful of the schedule you set up
This seems obvious, but keeping up your end of the bargain is crucial.
If you’ve come to an agreement on how you’re going to promote each other’s businesses, it’s crucial that you stick to your plan, if not you’re letting them down and potentially jeopardizing your entire partnership.
If part of your promotion agreement is content posting on LinkedIn, be sure to use a post scheduler. This will help you show your partner your schedule and you won’t miss any deadlines!
Cross-promotion channels
With so many promotion channels out there, it can be tough to choose just one (which by the way, you shouldn’t!)
67% of B2B buyers rely more on content and research across multiple channels before making a purchase decision
We’re going to leave you with three of our favorite channels to carry out your cross-promotion.
And watch out for some templates to get your cross-promotion started too 😉
Referral programs
Cross-promotion can be a powerful strategy when combined with referral programs to expand your reach and acquire new customers.
Referral programs are a word-of-mouth marketing program, a marketing strategy designed to incentivize existing customers, clients, or partners to refer new customers to a business.
In a referral or affiliate program, you work with somebody else to promote your business, in turn, they receive benefits. These can be monetary, discounts, or free merchandise.
Not sure how to get partners for your referral program? Use this template to help you get started!
Podcasts and video interviews
Podcasts, video interviews (and even webinars) are excellent ways for both parties to work together. this can be done remotely or physically together.
Podcasts and videos are fantastic ways to engage the audience and sincerely talk about both your products or services and how they can work together.
Check out, for example, what Tal does in lemlist’s podcast, Simply The Best:
If you need some ideas to find people for your podcast, check out this template for inspiration!
Social media
Consider the nature of your business when choosing your social media platform.
For more business-oriented or professional environments your best picks are LinkedIn and Twitter (X), for online selling or a more one-on-one approach Instagram is your best choice.
If you choose LinkedIn as your cross-promotion platform, you can use apps such as Taplio, to generate your content, schedule posting, and track performance!
Key takeaways
It’s a dog-eat-dog world, so counting on a little help from a friend is never a bad idea!
With cross-promotion, you can double your audience and drive revenue, aside from making great connections that can really help your business!
Christina Miranda
Content creator and translator @ lempire
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