If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to advertise and market your products, a cross-promotion could be just what you need. Cross-promotion is a simple “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” philosophy. Two or more companies join forces for the purposes of promotion and the sum of the parts is often more than the whole.
If you’ve got $100 to advertise your product this month, you’re not going to get a whole lot of exposure in most traditional promotional plans. In order to get the most mileage out of your budget, why not consider joining forces with someone who offers a product or service that is the “dip” to your “chip?” If you’re selling tennis shoes and the guy across the street is selling socks, you are both likely to clean up if you promote each other’s sales?
The same tactics work online as well. You can cross-promote products in several ways on the Internet, making it an inexpensive and very popular form of Internet advertising.
If you host a blog and add a banner or a button from another blog and they return the favor, you are cross-promoting. Similarly, if you publish a post on your blog recommending someone’s site or product, providing a link so your readers can check out in exchange for a little “link love” in return, you are cross-promoting.
Cross-promotion can also take place on social media sites. If you recommend products for partners while they chat it up about your best sellers, you both gain the inside track into a targeted list of traffic coming to your business on the recommendation of someone they already know and trust. In other words, people who’ve already got their credit card out of their back pocket will be heading straight to your website.
Cross-promotion is generally maintenance free once you put it into place. It’s a great way to get some advertising buzz going for your business. Find a new partner to cross-promote your products with today.