Protect Your Brand: Cross-Promote Your Supply Chain Partners
The power of social media enables cross-promotion of your suppliers and customers, a win-win outcome with minimal investment for both parties, in any industry. By doing so, the reach that you have to grow your brand through social media channels multiplies exponentially.
Suppliers:
By promoting your suppliers, you are indirectly promoting your company’s brand, products, and/or services. It is a proactive way to communicate to your customers and end users that you select only the most reliable and high-quality suppliers. This approach may also be a source of differentiation for your product and a way to tell a unique brand story.
Ask yourself a couple of questions:
Do my suppliers make my product or service unique?
Do my suppliers have patents or trade secrets that make their product unique?
Are my suppliers easy to access?
Where are my suppliers located geographically?
How many other customers of the same products or services do my suppliers have?
Is your company focused on maintaining a sustainable and ethical supply chain?
Customers:
Are you a business-to-business (B2B) company? Promote your wholesale client accounts to drive traffic to their locations. It also tells your end customers where they can find your products or buy your services. Co-marketing with your wholesale accounts generates goodwill and often results in their free promotion of your product or services on social media more than they would ordinarily, if ever.
Conclusion:
Leading the charge by co-promoting your suppliers and customers ensures that you control your brand and your company’s story. It also makes it easier for your wholesale customers to explain to your end users why your product or service is so excellent. Suppliers may also consider improving the application of their product or service to better serve yours if they know more about your company’s goals and vision. Finally, by proactively cross-promoting your partners, you are establishing your company as a thought leader and ensuring your brand messaging is consistent not only across the entire supply chain but also among your target end users.
Recommendations:
Always place your logo on your digital graphics! You never know how or where your content will be shared, and you want to make sure your logo travels with it. In fact, you should go one step further to encourage your partners to use your branded content to promote you.
Create a branded hashtag or group of hashtags (but not too many). Follow these hashtags on social media, such as Instagram, to track who is using them and what they are saying about your brand. A great example of this is Tito’s Handmade Vodka, a B2B company, which has a hashtag just for their charitable giving program: #VodkaForDogPeople.
Encourage your suppliers and wholesale customers to join you in responding to a natural disaster or local crisis, especially if your products or services can directly alleviate the situation. By developing a collaborative relationship and cross-promoting your supply chain partners, they may be more willing to support your company in a response effort, thereby increasing your collective impact. Document and market your group effort, and all partners will receive a goodwill boost in brand reputation for their community efforts.
Elevate Next is a digital marketing and management consulting company that would be more than happy to develop a customized brand reputation management plan for your company. Contact us today!
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