Cross-Company Marketing Pieces for the Technical Marketplace

One idea I like for Web-based and written marketing materials (brochures, case studies, white papers, etc.) is when companies partner together to get more value for their promotional pieces by producing cross-company marketing materials.

Cross-company marketing pieces focus on products or technologies from two or more companies that are used in conjunction with each other. A good example are some dual brochures Hertvik Business Services produced last year for a hosting company and an ERP vendor. One brochure sold the benefits of using the ERP company’s software in the cloud provided by the hosting company; while the other brochure sold the benefits of using cloud-based hosting for the ERP company’s customers.

Each brochure exposed one company’s offerings to the customers of the other company. This type of material is beneficial to both companies because it goes out to pre-screened similar customers; it cross-sells complementary products; it can promote joint ventures and business partnerships; and it allows each company to cut their marketing costs by sharing the production cost of the marketing material.

This idea is great for straight marketing material such as brochures and case studies. It can also work for white papers where two different processes are used in a unique way to solve a particular business problem, essentially creating a third problem-solving technology.

It makes sense to combine marketing efforts as IT departments don’t use products in a vacuum. A typical company will use many different products together to solve their business problems, and it makes sense that the companies making these products would do more cross-company promotion. Everyone has a business partner. Cross-company marketing materials help leverage partnerships by reaching customers that a company might not otherwise be able to market to.

The other nice thing about producing cross-company marketing material is that the companies can share their production costs, as many of the materials used in one of the marketing pieces can be used in anoother marketing piece. So done correctly, cross-company marketing can leverage your marketing dollars.

There’s lot of good ways for companies to produce good crisp marketing material that helps sell more product. If you’re interested in exploring ways your tech company can generate more business through well-written marketing materials, email Joe Hertvik at Hertvik Business Services for a discussion of how we can help you reach your goals.