The small business owner is strapped not only for cash but also for time. Running your small business often forces you to wear a lot of hats: sales person, customer service department,accountant, etc. It’s easy for marketing to take a back seat when it comes to your time. There are only so many hours in the day. The beauty of cross-promotion is not only that it saves you money and hooks you up with customers you might not reach otherwise, it also saves you time.

When you plan your cross-promotion activities with a partner think about all the steps involved with making the campaign a success for everyone involved. Maybe you’re co-sponsoring a sweepstakes with another company. While it’s fine for each of you to just tell your own customers about this promotion, you’ll both benefit a lot more if you and your partner make an effort to tell the whole world.

Now, telling the world is quite an undertaking so your first order of business is to decide exactly how you’re going to get the word out about your campaign. Are there bloggers who might write about this sweepstakes? Are there places you could advertise the sweepstakes, either in print or online? Can you use social media to spread the word about your sweepstakes (message boards, Myspace, StumbleUpon, etc)? Identify all the ways you can get your campaign exposed to potential customers and then make a list of who is doing what.

Maybe your partner has stellar banner design skills and can design ads to promote the sweepstakes. Maybe you’ve got in an with a popular blogger who might mention your campaign to her readers. Maybe you’ve just got a really good media list you regularly correspond with when you’ve got a promotion going on. The idea is to pool your resources, time and skills with another company to get your mutually beneficial campaign seen by your audience.

Whatever you and your marketing partner decide you’re bringing to the table make sure you clearly define roles and responsibilities and stick to them. Establish time lines for activities to take place. If you’ve promised to tell 100 bloggers about your promotion make sure you follow through and get it done by the date you promised to do it. When it comes to cross-promotion you and your partner or partners are counting on one another to ensure mutual success. Failure to deliver on promises you make hurts your campaign, your business, your partner(s) and your credibility — not to mention your karma.

It’s also important to make sure you and your partner or partners have evenly distributed the tasks involved with promoting your campaign. There’s no better excuse for slacking off than feeling like you’ve been given an unfair share of the work to do.

Lastly, make sure you and your cross-promotion partners check in when tasks are completed. Let each other know when that ad arrives at the magazine for press or that blog editor promises you a write up. Keeping each other on track means keeping your campaign on track and enjoying terrific results.