Co-op advertising has been around for as long as there has been
print advertising, and it continues strong even in today's
digital world of television and online advertising. Read this
article to learn more about cooperative advertising and how you
can use it to accelerate the growth of your offline or online
business.
Examples Of Modern Coop Advertising
Co-op advertising is a standard advertising practice utilized by
manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers or distributors to get
their products highlighted in regional and local advertising.
Probably the most common form of Coop Advertising that you will
be personally familiar is with amusement park advertising. Nearly
every amusement park across the country does a lot of coop
advertising campaigns with the soft drink companies or snack food
companies.
If you think about the local amusement park in your part of the
country, you will realize that the amusement park in your area
frequently suggests that you can save $5 on the ticket price of
the park - IF you bring in a Coca-Cola or Pepsi can.
The soft drink companies enjoy the endorsement of their products
by the amusement park companies and the amusement companies get
extra special pricing on product purchases. But more importantly,
since the advertising specifically mentions both the amusement
park and the soft drink product, the soft drink company will help
offset the cost of the advertising campaign by jointly paying for
the advertising with the amusement park company.
Grocery Store ads are another great example of co-op advertising
at work. Whenever you open the grocery store ad in your local
newspaper and see specific name-brand products featured in the
ad, chances are very good that the manufacturer paid part of the
cost of the newspaper advertisement or insert to have its product
featured in the ad by name.
Extend Your Advertising Reach
As a small business owner, one of the most important keys to
success will be the advertising put forward to promote your
business. But when looking at the real cost of some advertising,
it might seem that your business does not have enough money
available to bring the advertisements to life.
But, if you take the time and make the effort to discover the
scope of available coop advertising, you will soon realize that
you can frequently get up to half of your advertising bill paid
by third-party companies.
Honestly - manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers and distributors
set aside billions of dollars every year to help promote their
products through coop advertising programs. In fact, depending on
the coop advertiser, funds are available for television, radio,
print, and online advertising, up to and including display
listings in phone directories.
Think about your local tire store. Often times, the tire store
will highlight a specific "brand" of tires in its advertising,
such as Firestone, Michelin or another brand. The tire company
benefits handsomely in brand recognition and overall sales of
their product line, when the local tire shops highlight its brand
over another in its local advertising.
If you want to explore the multitude of available opportunities
in coop advertising, we recommend "The Co-op Advertising
Programs Sourcebook (tm)", which is the definitive source of
(4,000+) companies that have co-op advertising programs
available. At $619, the cost is a bit on the high side, but a
single advertising co-op deal could easily compensate you for the
cost of this book, which can be found at http://www.co-opsourcebook.com.
How Co-op Advertising Works
As with any type of advertising, there are always advantages and
disadvantages in using it.
The advantages of coop advertising include:
You can use the coop money to either reduce the cost of your
advertising or to extend the amount of advertising you can employ
for the promotion of your business.
You can use the coop money to improve the quality or design of
your advertising - for example, full-color ads or inserts in your
local newspaper.
You can extend your reach and advertise in mediums that you
may never have considered previously, such as telephone
directories or television ads.
The disadvantages of coop advertising include:
Often, the co-op advertiser will have certain restrictions
that must be met in order for you to qualify for the co-op money.
For example, you might have to restrict your advertisement to
their product only, or you might have to use their creative copy
in your display advertising.
You may find time restrictions in relation to the advertising
window in which the co-op advertiser might be willing to pay. For
example, the coop advertiser may only support ads in the Sunday
newspaper, but not mid-week advertising.
Often, you will need to pay for the advertising in advance and
be reimbursed by the co-op advertiser for their portion of the
advertising cost at a later date. Many advertising co-op programs
require that you send them a copy of the print advertising for
verification, before they will issue a check for their portion of
your advertising bill.
Even with the disadvantages associated with co-op advertising,
the disadvantages are usually so small as to make them
non-consequential in your decision to use co-op advertising.
After all, if the other guy is paying up to half of your
advertising bill, then the other guy's restrictions seem a small
price to pay to have him help you advertise your business.
Online Co-op Advertising
Offline businesses have been slow to adopt many online
advertising methods, simply because it is more difficult for them
to measure the direct impact of their advertising dollars.
One could speculate that perhaps I should be able to get some
co-op advertising dollars for having written this article, since
I mentioned Firestone and Michelin tires, and Coca-Cola and
Pepsi-Cola by name. But the truth is that co-op advertising has
not been available on scale in the article marketing industry
until just recently.
With the recent launch of http://www.SponsorArticles.com a system
that provides a method to join advertisers in co-op article
marketing has been made possible.
The system put forward by Sponsor Articles is unique in that it
permits article writers to submit articles for free, and then it
permits Sponsors to bid for the right to sponsor the cost of
article distribution through several article distribution
companies, in exchange for shared advertising within the
articles' resource box.
To put this in perspective, a small business owner who writes
articles for the promotion of his or her website will submit
articles to the system, knowing full well that a sponsor can add
a link to the resource box, in exchange for paying the costs
associated with the mass distribution of the article.
As with any co-op advertising system, costs are shared between
two advertisers. In the case of the Sponsor Articles system, the
small business owner will cover the time or cost investment of
creating an article to promote his or her small business. And
then the Article Sponsor will cover the costs of distributing the
article through a number of article distribution services.
Both parties will benefit from the expanded reach of the article,
with links in the resource box that point to their respective
websites.
In Conclusion
Co-op advertising is alive and well for Main Street businesses,
and there are programs available online that brings the power of
co-op advertising to the online marketing environment as well.
For those who participate in co-op advertising, the process
offers a powerful win for both parties. Both parties are able to
double their advertising exposure with the same amount of
advertising budget.
If you have never participated in a co-op advertising campaign
before, you at least owe it to your business to explore the
possibility. Some of the most successful businesses on the planet
have a co-op advertising budget in place, and that available
money could help accelerate the growth of your business as well.
