How ‘Frienemy Marketing’ Can Save Your Online (and Offline) Business

With the economic climate as crazy as it's been, now more than ever businesses large and small are looking for creative ways to increase visibility, sales and leads. One effective way is to leverage the relationships with your 'friendly' competition. By friendly, I mean synergistic and respected formidable adversaries with a like-minded community of followers to your own. You can look to this niche for opportunities to help grow your list and add extra revenues to your bottom line. Even better, this can be done for virtually no out-of-pocket cost. This is a great way to leverage your content and increase market share, enhance brand awareness, grow sales and leads, and establish credibility with a new, yet synergistic list. As a consultant, and even back in the days when I was leading the marketing efforts at top publishers, it's important for me to be "strategically creative" and deploy as many no-cost online marketing tactics as possible for greater return on investment (ROI). I like to concentrate on the marketing and editorial relationships I have forged with fellow publishers and aggressively pursue ad swaps, guest editorials and joint ventures (JV). I'll explain a little more about these three opportunities in a moment. With "frienemy marketing," the idea is to develop synergistic relationships that are mutually beneficial—to look for areas of deficiency in your competitors and think of ways your company can fill the void. One potential partner may have a great front-end product (e.g., a low cost e-book) but no up-sell (e.g., a higher-priced related kit containing DVDs, CDs and workbooks). Another potential partner may have an innovative back-end product but no cost-effective front-end product to bring new customers in the door. Still others may have large, qualified lists but need editorial to bond with their lists. Some tips to keep in mind when looking for partnerships with friendly competitors: • Do your homework. Find out, in advance, who will be at industry events that you'll be attending. (Check the program for speakers, vendors and participants.) Sign up for their e-newsletters. Read their promotional emails. Maybe even purchase some of their products. • Look at EVERY opportunity as a way to maximize your company's brand during presentation breaks, lunch time and cocktail parties. When you go to industry events, don't eat dinner alone in your hotel room. Go to functions. Mingle. Network. Have a genuine conversation with a potential partner … then, if there's a synergy between your two companies, exchange business cards. • Before you contact a potential partner, get familiar with his products and target audience and figure out how your company may be able to dovetail with his product line or marketing efforts. So, once you've made the connection, now what? You need to look at potential marketing and editorial opportunities … Ad swaps are a form of revenue sharing. Typically, this can be a text or graphic ad two publishers place in each other's e-newsletters and each keep 100 percent of the sales they get from their respective ads, no strings attached. Other things to know: Both list sizes should be close in circulation size, hence the reciprocity. You both keep any sales or email addresses collected, and call it a day. Know your "opportunity cost"—the "cost" you will incur for running an outside ad to your list instead of your own ad. If you normally sell ad space in your e-newsletter, this cost could simply be the flat rate fee you typically charge. Or, if you know the average revenues an issue brings in, you could calculate the potential "missed opportunity" of letting another ad run to your list on a given day. You should also agree to share important information with your partner. Before his ad runs in your e-newsletter, point out any creative issues. Provide your partner with your e-newsletter's sent and deliverability sizes, open rate and ad click rate. Exchanging performance data is critical to a long and mutually beneficial relationship. It has to be a win/win situation for the partnership to work. Guest editorials are offering content (editorial) that is relevant and targeted for an external publication and reciprocate. This is a great way to get introduced to a new list with the "implied" endorsement of the publisher. His endorsement gives you credibility. And if you provide his readers with good, solid, useful information, they will bond with you quickly. This is a soft-sell approach that may or may not yield results on its own. At the end or beginning of the article is an Editorial Note or Byline, which can have author attribution, back-link to your website and short sentence for cross-selling, which help with sales, traffic generation and link-building efforts. Joint ventures are similar to affiliate relationships, with the difference that instead of an affiliate program that is openly marketed, this relationship is more personal—it's usually a company that you've built and cultivated a relationship with and are looking forward to a variety of ongoing business ventures down the road. There's more of a vested interest. This is a quick and cost-effective way to make money with your list even if you have not yet developed any products. To determine the viability of a potential JV product, there are several strategic marketing variables to consider. I like to think of them as "PPPGS": P = Product quality P = Price point P = Performance (when promoted to your potential partner's house list, as well as to outside lists) G = General market demand S = Subscriber interest (when promoted to your list, as determined by feedback, surveys, etc.) Remember, with "frienemy marketing" you're looking for long-term partners, not one-hit-wonders. So carefully select the people you approach, making sure their products, brand and message make sense to your business … and, together, you can reap the unlimited profit potential of this underutilized business builder.

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How ‘Frienemy Marketing’ Can Save Your Online (and Offline) Business

Wendy Montes de Oca

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Wendy Montes de Oca