Partnership Marketing for Greater Traffic

Title: Partnership Marketing for Greater Traffic
Author: Barrett Niehus
URL: http://www.freetrainer.com
Article URL: http://www.realtysoftware.org/articles/pos14.htm
License: Publish freely both online and offline. Please include
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Word count: 525

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Partnership Marketing for Greater Traffic

by Barrett Niehus

Online and offline, it should be apparent to you that the response to your product is directly proportional to the number of prospects that are exposed to your branding. This is the fundamental precept of marketing. The question is, how do you maximize your exposure while minimizing your marketing costs? One of the most productive, and effective, forms of marketing is the leveraging of branding partnerships to expand your product's reach. Co-branding, the sharing of brand space on a product, is extremely useful in increasing the reach of your product and increasing the traffic on your web site.

To create a co-branding relationship, take a look at your web site and the products that you sell. Could an online partner benefit from the insertion of his logo on your product or marketing material? Also what products would compliment your product offering. How could you benefit from inserting your logo on these complimentary products? After you have determined where you and a potential partner could benefit by a co-branding relationship, approach potential partners with a co-branding proposal. Offer insertion of
his logo on your product in exchange for the same consideration with his products. For tangible products, offer inclusion of his printed flyers with your orders in exchange for a similar service. There is no limit to the type of relationship, as long as the benefit is apparent to both parties.

As an example, my organization, http://www.freetrainer.com offers the inclusion of a co-brand partner's logo and a link to the partners web site on the downloadable version of our software. In exchange, the
co-branded software is offered through our partners site. For us the co-branding benefit is our software is placed into the hands of more users. The benefit to our partners is that their potential customers now have a permanent link to our partners' web site installed on their customers' hard drives, and are exposed to our partners logo every time the software is started.

As I indicated above, the type of relationship depends on the products that you offer, and how well you can leverage your partnerships. For organizations that sell e-books, inclusion of co-branding banners in on each page can provide significant benefit to a partner. If you sell a tangible product, you may be able to include a partner's flyer with the packaging. For online classes, you may include a "sponsored by" message during the course introduction or as an addendum to the syllabus. Approach potential partners and propose specific services in exchange for your co-branding. Make sure that the marketing benefit from your partner justifies your proposed relationship. Expect that the increase in traffic and exposure that you receive is at least equal to the benefit that your partner will receive. By creating a mutually beneficial
relationship, you will increase the reach of your products, fully leverage your own brand, and grow your site traffic.

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