Cross-promotion is an easy, inexpensive method for generating more traffic and more revenue for your business and for the business of your promotional partners.
What could be better than a real win-win situation? With cross-promotion not only can you generate more customers and profit, usually for free, but you can help another entrepreneur do the same!
One simple example of good cross-promotion is swapping business cards with another business in your area. The idea is to find a related, yet non-competing operation, give them a stack of your cards to hand out and take a stack of their cards in exchange.
For example when I ran a local Web design company I swapped stacks of business cards with a nearby computer repair service. It made sense because both of us targeted small businesses, and nearly all small businesses today have computers in their office and a Website to promote their products and services. So often my customers would have an interest in a good computer repair service, and the repair shop's clients might be interested in somebody to build or re-design their Website.
It's easy to see how both parties stand to benefit in this arrangement. And the customers of both businesses also benefit!
Putting together a win-win cross-promotion on the Web is even easier, and here are a few examples of how you might do this:
Exchange Thank You Page Ads
Thank you or confirmation pages that prospects see after they make a purchase or register for a free mailing list are great places to post promotions. The people who see these pages are action takers, making them the ultimate target for a good advertisement.
You could place an ad for your cross-promotion partner on one or more of your thank you pages and have them do the same for you.
Unannounced Member Bonus
If you and your promotional partner run membership programs, you could place unannounced bonuses within one another's secure member areas. For instance, when members login to your site they could find a "free gift" from your partner, and be required to register at your partner's Website to receive access to their free gift; of course you would place a similar promotion in your promotion partner's member area.
Swap Autoresponder Messages
You could include an email in your automated message series promoting your partner's product or service, and they could reciprocate with an email for you. You could even promote as affiliates for one another so you both earn commissions in the process.
Cover Page Promotions
If you and your partner both produce digital information products such as e-books and special reports, you could swap promotions on the first page of your PDF products. This would provide both of you with quality exposure as your ads would be seen by the people who purchase and actually open digital products; so prospects generated by this measure are both buyers and action takers.
These four examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Once you sit down and really brainstorm about innovative ways to cross promote you might be amazed with what you come up with.
Both you and your promotional partner(s) stand to benefit, and neither of you will need to pay any advertising expense to generate new traffic and sales.
About the Author: Tim Whiston is a professional Internet marketer who enjoys his work. He has owned numerous Websites and ezines and has created hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for his clients.
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