> Cross-Marketing

by Carolee Anita Boyles

Why settle for one piece when you can share the whole pie?

CROSS MARKETING CAN BE LIKE a pizza party. If you have a pepperoni pizza, someone else has cheese, and you each want a slice of what the other’s got, why not share?

Mark Diss, Damar Management retail consultant and former minister, says cross marketing may mean tapping into supplier and distributor co-op dollars or coordinating advertising with another local store.

“Christian stores [can] take advantage of promotions done by other stores in town,” Diss says. “Let’s say you know the owner of a secular jewelry store. You might put together a cross-marketing effort where he puts a jewelry display in your store and you promote his store if he’ll take some of your gift items into his store.” This is a good springboard to sharing advertising as well, especially around Easter, Christmas, and First Communion.

28 CBA marketplace › March 2005

“One of the mistakes that I see Christian retailers make is…to believe there’s ‘them’ and ‘us,’” says Diss. “They think the other retailers in their marketplace are working against them. It’s so simple to meet other retailers at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon or just to walk in to buy something and say, ‘Hey, I own the store down the street; have you ever thought about getting together and running a cross-marketing project?’”

Just because a store doesn’t brand itself as a “Christian” store doesn’t mean that the owner or manager isn’t a Christian, or that it won’t make a good cross-marketing partner for your store.

“What you have to remember is that the vast majority of retailers in your marketplace are probably Christians,” Diss says, “and they’re running [their] business in a Christian manner.”

Involve yourself in a local retail alliance,

Chamber of Commerce, or other retail organization; it’s a good place to make connections with retailers who may be open to cross-marketing with you.

Partner and Promote

For Sheila Sattler, (The Closer Walk Christian Bookstore, Fredericksburg, TX), cross-marketing is all about partnering, whether with a manufacturer, another Christian retail store, or a secular store.

“We partner with The Dove’s Nest in Kerrville, TX, to do a pastors’ lunch for the two cities,” she says. “That’s been really well received.”

Closer Walk is in a small town of about 9,000, where there aren’t many fun youth activities. So last spring, the store held a pre-spring-break music night for teens.

To promote the event, Sattler put an ad in the town’s only high-school newspaper

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