What is Cross-Promotion: Ideas and Examples - Meaning (2024)

Cross-promotion is a set of actions aimed at promoting products from different brands with similar audiences that are not in competition. It helps promote products and services, generate leads, boost sales, and establish brand awareness.

This video contains 5 cross-promotion examples for local businesses. Check it out to find out more.

Sometimes, you can see one brand promoting another brand’s goods or services in banner ads on websites, posts on social media, mentions in articles and videos, recommendations in email newsletters, and more. You have probably asked yourself why companies do this.

Brands that have common interests and audiences that don’t compete with each other can cooperate for mutual benefit. According to Partnerize’s research, 54% of companies mentioned that partnerships drive more than 20% of total company revenue.

Cross-promotion is a convenient and profitable way to promote products. Because it is quick and effective, cross-promotion became especially popular during the financial crisis. If a partnership is built right, it can help double your audience. During this collaboration, companies exchange knowledge and ideas, give advice, and mention each other in articles on their websites, social media pages, and in emails, all while developing their promotional programs.

So, now let’s highlight the main benefits of cross-promotion:

• an influx of new leads;
• increased brand awareness;
• increased sales;
• audience growth;
• lower advertising costs;
• improved reputation.

To cross-promote, companies need to choose channels that their audience prefers. The right channels will generate the most profit, engagement, or achieve a specific goal. Different channels are suitable for different purposes.

To drive traffic to your website, you should think of referrals, email campaigns, guest blogging, mentions in articles, and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you aim to boost sales, you can focus on channels such as blogs, mobile apps, conferences, webinars, and social media like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. To increase brand awareness, we recommend you use podcasts, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, guest blogging, webinars, conferences, and more. According to Databox, organic content, email marketing, and social media are the most effective channels to reach your target audience.

Let’s walk through the 3 steps of cross-promotion. They will help you start a mutually beneficial collaboration and reap the benefits.

If you want to benefit from implementing cross-promotion into your business, you should follow several steps. Consider these to succeed.

1. Set goals

When you are thinking about cross-promotion, it is critical to define your goals. Decide what you are trying to achieve: expanding the market reach of your product, creating a positive image, or increasing sales. It will also help to correctly layout the tasks you will need to complete to achieve your goals, as well as determine the key performance indicators (KPIs) you should monitor.

2. Choose the right partner

It’s all simple in theory, yet there are a lot of factors you should take into account when choosing a partner for cross-promotion. To achieve your goals, select a compatible and reliable company. Firstly, consider brands that don’t compete with you. The most successful examples of partnerships happen when products or services are complementary.

For instance, the collaboration between Spotify and Uber drove awareness, increased recognition, and expanded the audience. This partnership allowed users with Spotify Premium to listen to the music from the playlist in their Uber driver’s car. As a result, Uber users were eager to pay for Premium accounts on Spotify, and Spotify users booked vehicles from Uber.

Secondly, remember that you can cross-promote to generate leads, expand your target audience, and as a result, boost sales and establish brand awareness. That is why you need to make sure that the products you and your partner are promoting are of good quality and will be useful for your target audience. One of the conditions for successful cross-promotion is satisfied customers.

When choosing a brand for collaboration, make sure that it shares your values and conveys the same marketing message. Besides, keep in mind that the reputation and professionalism of the company that decided to cooperate with you are essentially important. Promoting their products or services means endorsing them. This indicates that you guarantee the quality of their products, recommend this brand to your clients, and you are confident that it is a reliable company.

3. Select channels

One of the keys to becoming well-known online is choosing a platform that works for you. While YouTube may be more effective for video promotion, a blog can help deliver advice, instructions, or a guide. So it’s up to you to decide which channel is the best for achieving certain goals. The only thing you need to do is figure out what works well for your products.

You can also cross-promote using guest blogs, mentions, and links in articles, Telegram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, referral programs, webinars and conferences, podcasts, and more. Also, consider social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. In addition, use various social media tools: Instagram Stories and IGTV, Facebook ads, giveaways, live videos, tags, and hashtags.

You should also consider email marketing since it is the third most popular distribution channel. Statistics show that 87% of marketers use this type of marketing to promote companies. Furthermore, emails deliver some of the highest ROI among other channels for cross-promotion. SendPulse offers an email service that doesn’t require any technical skills, and it’s free for small businesses.

To sum up, when thinking about collaboration, choose a reliable partner with a good reputation, define what you are going to achieve, and what channels are a great fit for it. These are the points that will influence your brand and pave your way to success. Next, we’ll suggest several ideas for cross-promotion.

There are a lot of ways to collaborate with a brand. When implemented correctly, your collaboration will be mutually beneficial. Let’s consider the most popular strategies.

Influencer posts

An influencer is an individual who affects the purchase decisions of people due to their authority. Research says that opinion leaders are good at driving purchases. According to statistics, 58% of people buy a product based on an influencer’s recommendation. So, consider such a collaboration to increase your sales and brand awareness. This personality can show off your product by creating a post or video and sharing it on various channels.

Here is an example of cross-promotion between La'mariette and Selena Gomez. La'mariette is a swimwear brand that tries to convey the idea that all bodies are beautiful.

For one of their recent promotions, they collaborated with Selena Gomez, a singer and influencer who has 195 million followers on Instagram. Selena posted a picture of herself posing in one of La’mariette’s swimsuits. With this post, she introduced the brand. Also, she tagged La’mariette and placed a link to their Instagram account. The brand, in turn, posted Selena's photo on their website.

Promotional videos

Sometimes cross-promotion campaigns also involve creating videos for your target audience. Video highlights the benefits of both companies and showcases the product from all angles.

Here you can see an example of such a promotion from Adidas and IVY PARK. To attract the viewer’s attention, they use recognizable aspects of these brands. In the case of Adidas, these are white stripes and sneakers that differ from other brands. At the same time, in this video, you can find clothes and accessories from IVY PARK and frames with its logo.

Giveaways and contests

Giveaways and contests are interactive content forms that are extremely engaging. Additionally, giveaways and contests are cost-effective and may even increase your audience very fast. According to Tailwindapp, an Instagram contest or giveaway can help you increase your number of followers 70% faster in three months. Moreover, contests have a 34% conversion rate.

By incorporating giveaways, you have the chance to demonstrate your products, generate leads, make your followers more active, and show that you care and appreciate them. At the same time, contests, and giveaways allow you to create lasting impressions, build loyalty, boost sales, and make memories.

To run a contest, you need to select a goal for your giveaway, choose a good prize, define the rules for your competition, promote your giveaway and, finally, choose the winner. Often, companies conduct giveaways when they introduce new products or when these products aren’t popular among buyers.

You can see Fabletics and Bliss’s collaboration for their giveaway on Instagram. By doing this, they increased their number of likes, comments, and subscribers on Instagram.

Guests on podcasts

According to Medium, approximately 155 million people listen to podcasts at least once a month. So, it's a great possibility for you to develop your brand. An authoritative person can promote your brand by talking about it, and sharing your values to generate new leads.

One of the greatest examples is Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS, on the Tim Ferriss Show. This show is the number one podcast on Apple Podcasts that gave Blake the chance to talk about TOMS and Madefor. As a result, the equity of his company was boosted.

Mycoskie, in turn, notified his followers on Instagram about the podcast. This allowed Tim Ferris to expand his audience as Blake’s followers listened to the podcast to increase the popularity of the show through Mycoskie’s post.

Here you can see a post on the Tim Ferriss’ page on Instagram. It informs them about the new podcast episode with Blake.

Email marketing

Use email to build a partnership and provide customers with valuable information. This channel allows you to nurture prospects, promote partner companies, inform subscribers about upcoming campaigns, sales, invite them to events, and make personalized offers. McKinsey & Company research says that email is one of the most effective ways to acquire customers.

With our service, you can create an email newsletter without any knowledge of code or technical skills. You can use ready email templates, personalization, segmentation, and other tools.

Here is an example of a SendPulse email template. On the left, you can see the necessary elements which we drag to the working field, on the right, we design them.

Webinars

There are many alternatives to replace traditional events for your cross-promotion. As an option, consider online events such as webinars. A webinar is an online event hosted by one or more companies to convey information, provide value, or promote products or services to the target audience.

Here is an example of collaboration between Wistia and Mention. As you can see, the primary goal is to teach viewers how to boost social media efforts by creating the right videos. At the webinar, companies cover five types of videos that work.

Now that you found out a few cross-promotional ideas get inspired by successful brands’ collaborations.

Adidas and IVY PARK

The partnership between these two companies had excellent results. Adidas and IVY PARK perfectly complement each other because Adidas focuses on selling sneakers whereas IVY PARK promotes clothes.

Beyonce, as a brand ambassador and influencer, drives purchase decisions and establishes brand awareness among her followers on social media. She tries to promote brands in several ways.

Here you can see an example of cross-promotion on Beyonce’s Instagram account. She placed a post wearing clothes from IVY PARK and sneakers from Adidas and tagged these companies.

Here is an example of a promotion on Adidas’ website. You can see Beyonce wearing products from IVY PARK and Adidas, which means that she as an influencer recommends these brands.

Apple Watch Nike

Collaboration between Nike and Apple brought a new product to its consumers. Together they managed to create the Apple Watch Nike. These partner companies claim that this watch, along with the Nike Run Club app, will be a great fit for runners.

Customers can find this product among a series of watches on Apple’s website.

On the website, this multinational company describes the new product, and at the same time, promotes Nike by mentioning the Nike Run Club app and Nike Twilight Mode, which this new watch has. This brand also allows clients to create their style by choosing any Nike case and pair any Nike band. Apple’s website includes many visuals that demonstrate the product.

You can find the same information about this new product and visuals on Nike’s official website.

Whirlpool and Swash

Swash is a laundry detergent designed to care of your clothes and belongings. Whirlpool is a multinational manufacturer of home appliances, among them, washing machines. As these brands are complementary, a collaboration between them is a step towards success.

So here is an example of Swash promoting a manufacturer of washing machines by posting a picture where customers can see Whirlpool’s logo.

At the same time, Whirlpool recommends Swash by placing its picture on the website and providing a discount for the first bottle of this laundry detergent. Moreover, the manufacturer of home appliances suggests a promo code to redeem the offer.

Cross-promotion provides great results for brands: improves their reputation, increases brand awareness and sales. To achieve this, you should define your goals and choose a reliable partner for collaboration. Together you can provide consumers with outstanding products and achieve your goals.

References

1. The article “Using cross-promotion to strengthen your digital product brand” on Easy Digital Downloads blog defines the benefits of cross-promotion and the steps necessary to implement it.
2. The article “8 Amazing Cross-Promotion Ideas to Triple Your Customers” on Optinmonster blog provides cross-promotion ideas for business.
3. The article “What Is a Cross-Promotion & How to Find Cross-Promotion Partners?” on Woodpecker blog defines the term and explains how to find partners for cross-promotion.

Last Updated: 02.07.2024