What's Fusion Marketing?
Marketers are creative folks, always looking for ways to make things more attractive and convenient to the general public. One way they do this is by rounding up a set of practices as old as sliced bread, and giving them a new name.
Fusion Marketing is just such a new name. Some of the old names for the same loaf have been:
referral partners
cross promotions
reciprocal business networking
joint ventures
mutually supportive collaboration
While there may be shades of difference between these efforts, at essence fusion marketing may be an especially good strategy for therapists located in more rural and small town areas, and for coaches who want to develop local community clientele.
For example, in coaching this happens when a wellness coach refers to a certified nutritionist or hypnotherapist, and those professionals refer back to the wellness coach.
The hypnotherapist might feature an article on foods that help you relax written by the nutritionist on her website, while the nutritionist puts anecdotal case stories on the benefits of weight loss coaching in his hard copy newsletter. Each professional gains new clients from the others recommending their services.
Fusion marketing is a strategy for expanding reach — that is, for increasing the number of people who hear about you or see your marketing — and for deepening trust by virtue of borrowing the credibility of the other businesses involved.
This works because the people who already know, like and trust Carla’s Counseling (as an example) will be more inclined to look with favorable interest at Ken’s Coaching.
Whereas old style referral building strategies tend to focus on allied professionals in which therapists solicit referrals from doctor’s offices, or coaches enter joint ventures with other coaches or virtual assistants, in fusion marketing the collaborating partners could be connected by location proximity rather than occupational relevance.
In other words, if your office is in a strip mall with a dry cleaner, a veterinarian, and a music store, you might develop a flier or coupon booklet that promotes all those businesses, and make them available in your waiting room or reception counter.
You might call fusion marketing a way to use the influence leadership of businesses you already have a business relationship with. If you are new to a small town, it can help to build visibility for your practice to have other businesses participating in letting their customers know about you.
The difference between simple business networking (where connections are casual, superficial and sometimes even just self-centered) and fusion marketing is that the businesses involved make an agreement to promote each other, and may even meet to map out a promotional plan that spans a whole year. The intention is that the strategy makes sense for and benefits every business involved.
So, what type of collaborative marketing are you currently doing with other business owners? How can you increase your fusion marketing ?
