Situation: You’re at the grocery store and realize
you’re out of milk. So what do you do? You go to the dairy aisle and grab a
gallon of 2% (cuz, you know, you’re watching your figure, but not that much),
when immediately you notice a sticker on the carton’s side that reads “Like
milk? Try with Pillsbury cookies!”
Your response: That ain’t a bad idea.
So you go to the appropriate aisle and pick out a package of Pillsbury
chocolate chunk cookie dough. Scanning over the package, you notice a blurb
that reads “Ever tried these with chocolate milk? I dare you!”
Your response: That sounds delicious and
absurd. But hey, I’m still young and fun. Why not?!
Before you know it you’re back in the dairy aisle to
retrieve a half-gallon of the good stuff.Whole this time. All in.
You’ve just experienced effective alliance marketing.
Pillsbury and your local dairy benefit more together than they ever would have
separately. Not only that, you are going to have cookies and chocolate
milk, you crazy adventurous rock star! Good for you. Good for everyone – everybody
wins.
Here are 3 reasons why alliance campaigns get results:
1. They enable companies to reach out to new customers
Sometimes two very different businesses can discover they
share a niche. This discovery can lead to a pool of customers that are yet to
experience complementary products, solutions or services.
Andrew Bird (my favorite musician) recently released an
album entirely consisting of songs written by a group called The Handsome
Family. I’d never heard of the duo before Mr. Bird’s shout out, but have since
added the majority of their albums to my music library. In return, the Handsome
Family often mention Mr. Bird in interviews and social media posts, exposing
their fan base to his music. Alliance marketing in action
2. Alliance partners’ products and services, combined, can
form better or more comprehensive solutions
This is the cookies and milk factor. Take Karl Malone & John
Stockton as another example. Each NBA player is great on his own. But
together? Incomparable.
There are endless companies that could benefit from
leveraging an alliance campaign on Elastic Grid to provide their customers with
something bigger and better than what was originally conceived. At least 40
based on recent partner research. (See below.)
3. Alliance partners can benefit from collective education
With new approaches and new solutions comes new knowledge.
An alliance between aligned organizations can open a channel for collaborative
strategies, feedback on results, and new and improved marketing campaigns for
the future. Don’t just set up an alliance campaign and leave it at that – seize
an opportunity to develop a valuable relationship with your ally! (Create new
markets!)
Recently, we at Elastic Grid discovered that a shocking 87%
of partners said they’re not running their other vendors’ campaigns on the
Grid. They subsequently listed 40 vendors whose campaigns they’d love to see on
Elastic Grid. Clearly, from our perspective, this is an opportunity worth
pursuing. In terms of both customer outreach and solution enhancement, vendors
can get great results by simply helping partners leverage a joint campaign with
the right partner.
Article From: blog.elasticgrid.com
