Making Fusion Marketing Work for Your Business
by Larry Slusser on January 25th, 2008
Fusion marketing sounds cool, and it is. It works like this: you have an e-tail site, and you put some coupons and links on your site to another site that has a product or service that is a nice complement to your products. The visitor to your site clicks the link and goes to the other site, purchases something, and finds more coupons linking to other similar products or services that again are a nice complement.
Also referred to as alliance marketing, this kind of cooperative style of linking is very effective not just for the business, but for the consumers as well. Many times we entrepreneurs think we have to do things alone, but it is amazing how much traction we can gain from collaborating or aligning with partners. Fusion marketing can allow you to take your business to levels you never dreamed were possible.
Fusion arrangements can come from different avenues such as combining your mailing or email list with your partner’s list to do a joint mailing. You can offer an incentive to your alliance partner for each purchase of your product on their site and offer the same incentive to your partner through your site.
Here are few quick steps you can take to set up your fusion marketing arrangements:
Step 1: Define who you want to align with. Who will your alliance partners be? An alliance partner is someone who has similar prospects as you, but isn’t in the same business as you, so you aren’t in competition.
Step 2: Get together with your alliance partner and work together to figure out what your offer will be. Maybe you give a two-for-one offer while your alliance partner offers 25% off. Work together and come up with a joint offer that makes sense.
Step 3: Write up a general letter of agreement between your two businesses. This is not an expensive legal document you need to have attorneys review. The goal is to have a general letter of understanding that will help you communicate. This assures who does what and gets what. It can be a simple e-mail exchange if need be, just make sure what you are agreeing to is written down.
Step 4: Market your joint offering. Write up the ads, email, and copy for your offering and then send it out to your prospects. Combine mailing lists and communicate to both sets…be creative. Don’t worry about who has more or less prospects, your goal is to reach as many prospects as possible.
Step 5: Make sure the deal you’re offering is easy for the customer to take advantage of. The easier it is for the customer, the better chance you have of success. When you get a communication from a customer, ensure follow-up happens as soon as possible and that results of the communication are tracked. Always close the loop and make sure the customer is 100% satisfied with your business.
Fusion marketing is cool and can take your business to heights you never thought possible. It also helps you connect and benchmark with other similar businesses that you are not in direct competition with. Use this synergy to reach new levels of performance for you and your business.