Effective Community-Based Networking

Patricia Fripp and Susan RoAne are buddies, and professional speakers. They both live in Northern California. When they attend an event together, they network, and cross-promote at the same time by giving each other glowing endorsements.

First, Fripp will introduce RoAne to someone neither has met saying, “She’s (RoAne) too modest to tell you, but…” Then Fripp raves about RoAne’s accomplishments. Then RoAne says, “She (Fripp) is also too modest to tell you…” And, then RoAne brags about Fripp.

The beauty of this idea is that in a networking situation, someone else tells people how wonderful you are and what you’ve done. Bragging is not necessary. This cross-promotion networking is quite simple — as are most other cross-promotion strategies.

Cross-promotion strategies can range from highly sophisticated with formalized contracts like with the major airlines and certain telephone long distance carriers, to promotions as casual as stuffing your bags with flyers or coupons from other merchants in your community and having them do the same for you. Or, perhaps putting promotional messages on one another’s register receipts.

An insurance agent in my community cross-promoted with a local restaurateur. The owner of the restaurant paid for the printing of the insurance agent’s business cards. The cards doubled as a 20-percent discount coupon for the restaurant and also had a map to the restaurant on the reverse. The insurance agent gave out several of his cards at every business upon which he cold called. The cards ended up sitting around in many of the businesses for a long time. This was because the cards were seen as a valuable discount coupon rather than just another salesman’s business card.

They call themselves the Sonoma County Fine Furniture Association (SCFFA). Eight Northern California fine furniture retailers, all competitors, banded together to survive the recession of the early 1990s through cross-promotion and buying strength. They developed combined events where customers would visit several of the stores to be eligible to win prizes. They promoted one another to their customers within the store, especially if the specific retailer did not have exactly what the customer was seeking. They even printed a combined brochure, including the address and map locations of each member. The front of the brochure said, “People you can trust.” They bought advertising together on the local radio and in the local newspaper. They even dictated to the local newspaper on which pages their advertising would be located. They received impact and results.

Taking the cross promotion idea one step at a time, consider using the below listed basic publicity tactics by collaborating with another merchant in your community to cross-promote through publicity. Do the events together, and whenever possible use the Fripp/RoAne glowing endorsement idea.

To achieve successful cross promotions, you’ll need to develop your process or road map. I suggest these steps:

I suggest you also use this simple cross-promotion checklist :

The owner of several local Dominos pizzerias suggested this to me: “When you cross-promote with non-profit groups, keep the following in mind:

Customer list-based cross-promotions are usually quite successful and inexpensive. Generally each merchant expands the reach of its targeted customers two-fold, at a cost of approximately 40 to 60 percent less than is usually spent on a similar promotion conducted solo. Additionally, each enjoys the credibility of the other. Common direct-mail strategies include flyers, postcards, coupons and calendars. Flyers can be printed on both sides for a two-party promotion or several flyers can be mailed in the same envelope.

Cross-promotion is simply common denominator marketing. You find another merchant or business that has similar or overlapping markets and customers. Then you discover a way to work together to do what you already do more efficiently and effectively or cooperatively do something promotionally that neither of you could not pull off solo.

Ed Rigsbee, CSP is the author of PartnerShift, Developing Strategic Alliances and The Art of Partnering. Rigsbee more than 1,000 published articles to his credit and is a regular keynote presenter at corporate and trade association conferences across North America. He can be reached at 800/839-1520 or EdRigsbee@aol.com. Visit his Partnering University Web Site at www.rigsbee.com.