Working with what you’d call a “preferred partner” is a great way to drastically increase your brand’s exposure for no cost. It’s a form of cross-promotion companies can engage in with a carefully selected partner or partners. An easy way to implement this type of partnership is through an exclusive link exchange. This means you and your partner agree to provide prominent placement on each other’s websites, promoting one another’s businesses.

This concept is similar to a link exchange. The difference is that while some companies have link exchange pages loaded with sites, a preferred partner link is more integrated into your overall site, and your partner does the same for you.

You’ll commonly see this kind of advertising on sites owned by companies with more than one website. For example, the Palmer Cash website gives prominent placement to American Hips, an underwear company owned by the t-shirt label. While it certainly makes sense to promote your own businesses this way, the same type of promotion can be used by companies who share a customer demographic, and sell non-competing products. For example, if you sell bicycles but do not sell helmets or bike jerseys, you could choose a preferred partner company that does sell these things. Your site navigation could include a link to your partner’s site encouraging customers to get bike accessories from your partner. Your partner, who sells accessories but not bikes, could provide you with a link incorporated into their site navigation. The benefit here is that you are both marketing to bike enthusiasts, and this cross-promotion activity makes it easier for you to share customers.

Two of the biggest considerations for selecting a preferred partner are:
1. Do you and your preferred partner have a similar audience? Do you both have customers interested in what the other is selling. The more similarly appealing your product lines are to a customer demographic, the better chance you have of this type of marketing working for you.

2. Do you have a similarly sized audience? A company getting 1000 website visitors each day should not choose a preferred partner getting 100 visitors daily. It’s important to form a relationship that’s going to be mutually and equally beneficial.

This type of marketing can be great, but tread with caution before committing to a long term partnership. When developing this type of a relationship with a partner consider a trial period before you commit to anything ongoing. We recommend you agree to exchange links for 30 days at first, and then evaluate the success of the match up before moving forward.

Some other ways preferred partners can promote each other:
- Print ads
- Email newsletters
- Sweepstakes
- Printed promotional materials
- Word of mouth (This works especially well for service based companies,For e because they frequently talk to their customers. For example, if you provide web design services but not marketing, partnering with an online marketer and mentioning each other to your clients is a great way to build your business.)

If you’re new to the world of cross-promotion, you may be wondering where to start. How do I select a partner? How do I come up with a cross-promotion plan? What should I keep in mind when making these decisions? We’ll tackle the basics of these issues today, so you have a clearer understanding of how to get started.

Using the search tools on Brand Torrent, you’ll be able to look for companies that are interested in cross-promotion. The best partner for you is going to have a similar customer demographic, but not necessarily a similar product line. Think about your typical customer. How old are they? Are they men or women? What are their interests? What sort of household income and education are they likely to have? Once you’ve answered these questions about your own customers, you want to find a business with customers who fit a similar description. If you sell contemporary high-end jewelry and your average customer is female, style-conscious, 25-40 years old and middle to high-income, you want to connect with a partner whose customers also fit this description.

The next thing you’ll want to keep in mind when selecting a cross-promotion partner is a fair exchange. If you’re interested in trading promotional mail order inserts and you only ship 5 orders in an average day, you shouldn’t partner with a company that ships 50 orders in an average day. Make sure that you can match whatever exposure you’re hoping to get from your cross-promotion partner in return.

Once you’ve selected a cross-promotion partner, it’s a good idea to talk about what your cross-promotional activities will encompass. If you’re going to mention each other’s websites in your customer newsletters, agree to dates on which the newsletters will be going out. Discuss the actual copy that will appear in the newsletters. To keep a productive and positive working relationship with your cross-promotion partner, it’s important to chart a specific plan of action for your cross-promotion activities, and talk about your expectations.

The next thing to consider with your cross-promotion plans is tracking your success. You’ll want some way to measure the results you’re getting from this form of marketing. You may want to attach a coupon code to your cross-promotion efforts so that you’ll know which customers made purchases through your cross-promotion campaign. You may want to provide a special URL on your site for your cross-promotion audience so you’ll know how much traffic your campaign brought in. There are a variety of ways to track the success of your marketing efforts, so you’ll want to come up with something that works for your own situation.

The final thing to keep in mind about cross-promotion is that it’s like any other type of marketing; the goal is not just to get immediate conversions, it’s also to gain exposure for your brand. Just because you didn’t see an overnight jump in sales based on your cross-promotion efforts doesn’t mean the efforts were wasted. Getting your brand in front of your target audience is the way to begin building a relationship with your customer base. These relationship-building exercises will bring you more business in the long-run than any short-term oriented marketing campaign that focuses only on immediate increases in conversions.