Whether or not it’s a good idea to partner with another local business changes depending on the purpose. There’s always risk involved, but sometimes there’s more risk in not doing anything. Partnering together to minimize the cost of a research project that will greatly benefit both of your quarterly revenues can sometimes feel like a no-brainer. If it fails, you both subsidized the costs by sharing it, and the combined research power allowed the project to work. But is there as much worth to local business partnerships based around marketing?
With marketing, it gets a little complicated. When you and another local business partner make a partnership around a shared marketing push, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get equal revenue or an equal loss out of it. It’s more common and easier for this kind of partnership to become lopsided.
When two businesses work together to create a product, service, or just a component, you both get to control and use that patent/discovery. With marketing, you don’t know how much revenue you’ll get.
To Partner or Not to Partner
When you partner with someone else for a marketing partnership, you’re both putting up the money for your marketing campaigns. You’ll likely pair your marketing material together, such as flyers, ads, and deals with both of your brands all over them. There are a number of ways this can work for and against either of you.
Cons of Local Business Partnerships
Most of the risks that come with a local business partner revolve around wasting money, which can happen in a number of ways in a marketing partnership like this. While it is possible for your partner to gain more in revenue than you by wide margins, that should only be considered a con if your revenue didn’t grow.
A partnership is truly wasting your money when you spend more than you gained on marketing partnerships done by yourself. This can happen because:
- Your partner’s audience doesn’t crossover with your target audience.
- Your partner does not put in a genuine effort.
- You or your partner aren’t skilled at marketing.
Also, all industries are competitive, and in a competitive industry, no one can afford to waste money. This includes your partner. If your revenue goes up, but you let them down, you may find yourself unable to get another local business partner in the future. You can even be hung out to dry by the community should your inability to support your business partner become public knowledge. The risk isn’t just to your immediate financials, but to your long-term financials as well.
Pros of Local Business Partnerships
A local business partnership can bring in more revenue, bring new people to your audience, and improve your public relations. But why are these things so important?
If your revenue isn’t growing, your business is in trouble. With the rising inflation rate in the United States, every business needs to make more this fiscal quarter than before. Doing the same old tactics with your marketing may work for the big mega-corporations with money to throw around, but not all local businesses can say the same. When your community knows your marketing tactics by heart, they can ignore them. When they can ignore them, your revenue doesn’t grow.
Local business partnerships allow you to subsidize the cost of marketing while capturing the attention of the local community with something new. A new marketing strategy will likely bring in some more sales, but a partnership is more likely to bring in more new regulars. That raises your revenue for the long haul, and potentially for a smaller marketing budget.
Need Marketing Advice? Hire Help That Can Do Local
Weighing the pros and cons is not an easy thing. While it’s easier for us to recommend that you should consider local business partnerships, making sure they’re with worthwhile partners is another matter entirely. To make sure you’re not wasting your time and marketing dollars, work with a marketing agency that can advise you on these partnerships.
ENX2 Marketing is that marketing firm. We have experience across several industries and can help you figure out what business in your area would make for the best marketing partner for your business. For more information and marketing help, contact us today.
