If you are uncertain what is cross promotion and how you might use it, this post is the right one for you. I’ll discuss the definition of cross promotion, how it works, how it can help you increase sales, and also show some examples and ideas.
What is Cross-Promotion?
Cross-Promotion is a marketing channel where customers of one company are targeted with an offer to purchase a related product from the same company or a third party. For example, a buyer that bought an antivirus software subscription may receive an email offering a reduced price for a VPN service, sold by a different business.
A Cross-Promotion campaign is happening anytime someone is offered a new product or services because he purchased a related product.
Different Cross-Promotion campaigns
Cross Promotion has been around for years, and it’s a proven way to grow a company’s audience and paying users. It happens online but also offline, and it comes in various forms:
- Share newsletters. Two companies are sharing their services to one another’s list of users. This is the most usual case of cross promotion and it’s often used among software businesses. It gives a company the opportunity to present their services to new prospective customers.
- Discounted product or services offers. If two online businesses are selling complementary products, they can promote their services to one another’s users and offer discounts. The user will be happy to buy a new service at a discounted price, and his satisfaction will increase.
- Add-on suggestions during or after the buying process. Users can be presented to purchase another product that’s related to the one they have in their shopping cart. Alternately, after finishing the purchase, on the thank you email or further newsletters, they might find suggestions to buy a new product with a discounted price.
- Joint marketing arrangements happen when two companies are promoting each other complementary products. For example, a company that sells trousers can cross promote with a tailoring business. You’ve probably come across such campaigns the last time you’ve been on your vacation and bought an all-day city pass. These include tickets to different museums, restaurant vouchers or other discounts.
- Joint contests. Companies sometimes run contests together to reduce the participating cost and increase the prize. This way, both companies get equal exposure.
- Referral arrangements. A typical example of a referral cross promotion campaign takes places between a company that provides a tool and a business that sells related services. A scenario can be between an SEO tool, and a company that sells SEO services. Whenever the company providing the SEO tool is asked if they provide SEO services, they can refer the user to the company with whom they have an agreement.
- Ad space exchange. Often comes in the form of banner or ad space, where each company has the chance to promote their services to a new audience.
How to do cross promotion online and run successful campaigns
For years, finding partners to do Cross-Promotion online has been challenging and sometimes not very reliable. Trust was the biggest concern everyone has faced. That’s because you had to trust that your partner will cross promote your product with real users, and not just regular subscribers. Luckily things are about to change, forever.
Cross.Promo is going to be the first Cross-Promotion tool that will allow users to find easily and run campaigns only with real people that are spending money on products that are similar to theirs. Cross.Promo will have one-click integration with the most common payment providers and will give partners the opportunity to choose with whom they want to cross promote their services. A scenario would be a partner that wants to cross promote with users that are interested in antivirus software, and are actively paying at least $50 a month for such a subscription. The partner will also have the option to segment the location of those users.
Our developers are working hard on making the Cross.Promo tool available soon. Meanwhile, you can request an invitation to the platform, and you’ll get preferential benefits FOREVER. Learn more about Cross.Promo here. The first version of Cross.Promo will be primarily focused on Software As A Business companies.