By Israel Romero
I recall that not long ago, what was done to promote a brand or a company was an individual strategy. The possibility to share that strategy with another brand of the same level was not taken into account by another sector, or even by the same sector.
But the Premium networking being developed at Romero has taught us that co-marketing can be essential to get results from our marketing strategy.
Co-marketing (collaboration marketing) consists of the joint collaboration of two companies to combine their efforts for the promotion of a co-branding offer (shared brand). In our case, on most occasions, our company is the core product and the rest of the companies that carry out co-marketing take advantage of our ability to attract a potential customer to sell their products, and we share it without a problem. The success of this technique is that, from the very beginning, there is no such feeling of selfishness for wanting to keep the final customer for oneself; we do not compete with each other, but rather we reinforce two or even three or four brands when united by these joint actions.
In a co-marketing association, companies promote a portion of the content or product and share the results, as simple as that.
It is more than a marketing action, it implements a philosophy of life into the business world. Co-marketing takes things a step further by integrating different work teams to promote among them a co-branding product or piece of content.
To do this, it is essential to hold a first briefing between the companies that will carry out this joint action, so that everything is well clarified from the beginning and there are no misunderstandings or future shocks as a result of the actions taken by both companies.
What are the benefits of co-marketing?
- It is cost-effective because it binds resources such as budget, talent, human capital and software.
- The audiences with similar interests are shared, thus increasing the visibility of the brands.
- It helps build a positive relationship between two or more brands, so they can continue to work together over the long term.
- It’s a win-win for all parties, including consumers. When you join another brand, you surprise your customers and generate value to them.
- Connections with highly-reputed brands translate into an increase in credibility.
- Complementary knowledge is unified, which ends up being useful for the two companies.
- There is more and better projection of the visibility of each brand through communication (RRSS, blogs, branded content, etc.).
For a co-marketing strategy to succeed in the short and medium term, it is necessary, in the first place, a complete alignment with the prospective partner in the business model, the brand positioning, capillarity and synergy…and the budget. Or, in other words, “equivalence” in expenditure and resources.
For this reason, at Romero we combine the talent of knowing how to join forces to brands through prestige and philosophy, to the sensitivity of uniting big industry players with high economic capacity, with smaller companies, but of high human value or exclusivity in their market niche.
Because what they want, in the end, is to reach B2C (business-to-consumer), in a direct manner and without making any noise in the message conveyed, and many times with a strategy intertwined with another brand. It is easier this way because the end customer is more relaxed.
These are basically the mutual understanding of the business, which involves putting on the table the consumer profiles and information (database) that are being shared. The complete identification between the two partners in time, programming and execution, which implies coordination and symbiosis between the middle managers and senior managers of the organizations. And, naturally, an operating business plan that involves P&L (profit & losses) in which the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), and their way of measuring them, must be aligned.
SPONSORING/SPONSORSHIPS
This is one of the tools or actions where co-marketing can be developed in a clearer and more efficient way.
At Romero we take this tool very seriously, which on many occasions allows reducing costs significantly from actions that without the main sponsor, or the sum of the sponsors, could not be carried out.
Sponsorships are not always tied to the economic component. There are also sponsorships through exchange or barter (i.e., providing a product or service in exchange for becoming a sponsor).
For us, obtaining co-brandings for events with a main sponsor in the high-end sector is a policy on the rise, because it allows the first to obtain an event type or action of a greater commercial value, without having to spend more money and, in return, will share that event with one or several brands. And the second to get access to an event type that, with a more reduced investment and lower visibility, help achieve business or marketing objectives with a better controlled level of risk. However, co-brandings, in addition to contribute financially to the event, should provide a business value that the main sponsor finds sufficiently attractive as a preventive measure.
Sharing databases, scrupulously following the guidelines set down in the LOPD, is not a problem for this alliance when the objectives of each brand are well defined from the beginning.
For obtaining sponsors in a successful way, it is essential to know the sponsorship philosophy of potential candidates, and also have a sixth sense to link business opportunities once we find out the objectives of companies, or the trends where a sector is headed, or the type of profile of a given consumer (for example, groups such as communities of people of one nationality).
And Romero is an expert in this matter and, with a privileged market knowledge and the needs of its partners, looks for reasons to boost ROI through sponsorship in order to generate sales.
But there is still much work to do at pedagogy level toward the partner and, above all, more knowledge on the commercial world by marketing departments, but that’s what we are here for, to help them get there!
