Protect Your Brand: Cross-Promote Your Supply Chain Partners

The power of social media makes 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 own 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. It may also be a source of differentiation for your product and tell a unique story about your brand.

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 completely 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, which helps drive traffic to their location. It also tells your end customers where they can find your products or buy your services. Co-marketing your wholesale accounts generates goodwill – and oftentimes results in their free promotion your product or services more than they would ordinarily, if ever, on social media.

Conclusion:

Leading the charge by co-promoting your suppliers and customers ensures that your brand and your company’s story is controlled by YOU. It also makes it easier for your wholesale customers to explain why your product or service is so wonderful to your end users. Suppliers may also think of better applications of their product or service to better yours, if they know more about your company’s goal 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 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, so that you can track who is using your hashtag 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, your partners may be more willing to support your company in a response effort in order to increase your collective impact. Document and market your group effort and all partners will receive a goodwill boost in brand reputation for their community efforts.

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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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