Community & Affinity Marketing

We are in tough economic times right now and often businesses will cut their marketing to save money. Sometimes their marketing isn’t working BUT cutting marketing in one of the worse things to do. How will people find your business, learn about what you offer, or what specials you have? Getting rid of your marketing is not the right decision, but maybe changing your marketing is. A wonderful option is affinity marketing, or as I like to call it community marketing. Community marketing entails partnering with other businesses to do marketing together. For example, lets say I own a restaurant and my business is down. I go to a few of my favorite hotels in town and create a special for their guests only. I also offer my guests various specials for the hotel (spa, a room discount for someone who drank to much). It is a win-win situation. I get more customers from the hotel and they get more customers from me. There are many ways that this can work and in a touch economy I think one of the best ways to market your business. Community marketing helps everyone involved get more business and more customers. One thing about community marketing is that more time is involved then in traditional marketing. You have to make the extra effort to partner with other businesses. It is very important the businesses you partner with have good reputations and customer service. If you recommend someone to a hotel, restaurant, etc and they have a bad experience it can reflect poorly on you. If you would like more information about community marketing, email me kendra@klaconcepts.com