By Carol White

[Editor's Note: I have long been an advocate of the kinds of strategies Carol describes here. I go into some detail about the possibilities in my award-winning book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First. Carol is an example of doing everything right in building these alliances, and of the amazing synergies that can result. My own business is also much, much stronger as a result of these types of relationships. �Shel Horowitz]

Advertising and marketing gurus tell us that it takes �multiple impressions� of a message to get potential buyers to make that buying decision. Seven is the number they often cite. So how do we get those precious impressions? One way is through cross-marketing.

The concept is simple. Find products and services that complement yours and work with the companies that provide them to promote their offerings and yours simultaneously.

Here is a real-world example.

Late in the manuscript phase of preparing our book -- Live Your Road Trip Dream, which is subtitled Travel for a year for the cost of staying home and tells the story of a lengthy cross country trip -- we discovered a Web site called MyTripJournal.com. Having struggled to maintain our own site for ongoing reports on our journey, we immediately recognized the potential for cooperation. So we talked with the site�s owner and, after gaining a better understanding of what his company did, we decided to include a little bit about its services in the book. Our relationship had begun.

The Multi-Purpose Demo

As time passed, we stayed in touch with Dan Parlow, one of the principals in the firm (remember to constantly build your network!). Dan called one day to say he was looking for robust demo sites and wanted permission to turn our old travel site into a MyTripJournal.com site. Of course we said yes. Having our book featured as a demo site created a great way for people to hear about Live Your Road Trip Dream as well as a great way for Dan to demonstrate the power of MyTripJournal.com. A cross-marketing relationship was born.

From that time on, we included MyTripJournal.com affiliate links in several places on our old travel site and on our book site as a resource, further cementing cross-marketing efforts.

In addition, we suggested to Dan that he explore the RV traveler market in more depth. I had been a speaker at the Great North American RV Rally in July 2004 and we thought it would be an excellent venue for MyTripJournal.com too. We gave Dan the contact information, let the contact know that Dan would be getting in touch with him, and off Dan went.

Having already formed a trial partnership to co-promote his product with the Good Sam Club� a very large national RV club, Dan not only got booked as a speaker; he signed up for a booth and was invited to have his booth in the rally�s prestigious Good Sam area because of his trial partnership.

As rally time grew near, MyTripJournal.com and the Good Sam Club collaborated on a fun marketing project -- an online scavenger hunt contest. People would scavenge a MyTripJournal.com website for answers to questions that appeared there, and compete for prizes to be announced at the rally. Great marketing idea! The scavenger hunt would be promoted on the huge Good Sam Club site and through its e-newsletter.

But whose MyTripJournal site would be used?

Dan immediately thought of using RoadTripDream for his demo site because the trip that it journals ended in Oregon, where the Rally was being held. It took only a little sleight-of-hand to position the end at the Rally location rather than at our home. We revised some content to match the progress to the Rally � and we had ourselves a great cross-marketing opportunity. Thousands of people would now be exploring RoadTripDream on MyTripJournal.com and encountering a link to our site that would let them purchase our book. Thousands of �impressions� � and some sales.

But we didn�t stop there. Since we were already so tightly linked with MyTripJournal for the Rally via the scavenger hunt, we decided to staff the booth together and, again, promote each other�s offerings. We also did a couple of joint press releases targeted to different market segments to maximize our visibility. At the Rally, the combination of a real-life example of an actual trip (we used our big US map tracking our trip as part of the booth display) and a demonstration of the MyTripJournal.com website generated more sales of both companies� products than either company could have generated by itself. It was a win-win situation -- 1+1=3 for both of us � and we are now working together to create still more cross-marketing opportunities.

As we talked with Dan at the show, we hatched another idea, this one involving book marketing professionals � all of you! Many of you travel promoting your books. Why not stay in touch with family, friends and business associates using MyTripJournal.com?

The site is like a blog on steroids. It keeps all your journals, thoughts and pictures organized by travel location. It is map-driven and very visual. All you do is click on a map location anywhere in the world to view all your information associated with that place. Its integrated email notification service allows you, with one click, to notify everyone on your email list that you have made updates so they can view the new materials at their convenience. No more clogging associates� and friends� in-boxes with emails and pictures.

Where and What the Opportunities Are

Prospective partners are everywhere and ways to cooperate are limited only by your imagination. Opportunities exist for every field and every type of product.

Here are six ideas to get you started.

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