Make local marketing more efficient and targeted with cooperative marketing

The digital and online-centric advertising world in which we are currently operating often overwhelms small local providers. In addition, they cannot keep up with the major international competitors. Your local advertising and marketing in general is falling short compared to online shops and international competitors. In this situation, it helps to operate cooperative marketing and to approach customers together with partners and allies.

Cooperative marketing in a local context

Cooperative marketing, also known as marketing cooperation, is the joint collaboration between two companies or organizations in marketing and external communication. The participants try to bundle their competencies and to achieve the best marketing result with conserved resources, i.e. with less expenditure and less time. Cooperative marketing is particularly useful when the two partners pursue similar goals and this creates a win-win situation for everyone involved. In addition, in most cases there is also an advantage for customers who, for example, get products cheaper through a discount or a certain campaign. In order to carry out cooperative marketing and make it possible, different partners can join forces. At the local level, these are mostly dealers who, in turn, can cooperate with other dealers, the manufacturer or the brand, or with individual customers (ambassadors).

Why cooperative marketing makes sense

Cooperative marketing is becoming more and more important in general (regardless of the type of partnership). Due to the increasing supraregional and international competition, local retailers have to gain advantages that bind customers to them in the long term. In addition, cooperations offer local dealers growth potential that they cannot achieve alone without a partnership. Through joint marketing, the dealers can alliance with the manufacturers or other dealers without forcing a merger of the companies or organizations directly. Only the competencies in marketing are bundled and used jointly. These competencies are used to strengthen and build the image of your own brand as well as to reach new customers and markets and to bind customers more to your own brand. In addition to these long-term goals, the reduction of the costs for joint local marketing is a decisive point why local dealers choose marketing partnerships.

Types of Marketing Cooperations

In order to conduct cooperative marketing and promote jointly, companies and retailers can join forces in various ways. You can work together on product development (co-branding), communication (co-advertising) or on marketing measures (co-promotion). In addition, those involved can form sales partnerships in which dealers, for example, exclusively represent products from one manufacturer. In addition, sponsorship contracts, licensing or product placements can be made possible. Depending on the target group, objectives and partnership, individual cooperation can be enabled and developed.

Cooperative marketing and software systems

To implement this individual partnership, the parties involved need clear agreements and stringent communication between the partners. This can become a challenge, especially for larger companies and manufacturers, as soon as various local partners come into play. It helps to organize the cooperative marketing together using a software system and to control all marketing processes using it. A marketing portal enables brands to provide their partners with advertising material for individualization and local adaptation and make them accessible regardless of location and time. In this way, they enable local retailers to have simple local brand communication that improves and strengthens the brand image externally by adapting the advertising material, but not changing its corporate design. In addition, all agreements and coordination for cooperation can be regulated via the marketing portal and an overview of all actions of the partners can be provided.

Are you also interested in developing and managing new marketing partnerships? Contact us, we will be happy to advise you!