Make Connections with Co-Op Mailing

Gail Gastelu

Co-op Marketing is a great thing. It is often overlooked since people do not generally think of ways to work with other businesses and usually cannot think past their competition. To join forces with like-minded businesses in a co-op marketing venture, everyone saves money and everyone benefits by a wider variety of advertising exposure. Generally a co-op advertisement or other co-op venture simply brings several businesses together to share costs and reach more audiences. Think past your competitors to others who are offering products or services of interest to the same consumer base, but not in direct competition with yourself. Then, find some unique ways to work together for print advertising and other cross-marketing promotions. Put on your thinking caps!

A unique co-op approach for The Tea House Times is a co-op mailing service. We mail to tea room owners throughout the USA every two months. We started a co-op mailing service to help introduce new resources to new and established tea room owners. Finding such target specific products can be like finding a needle in a haystack at very large gift and food trade shows. We do the footwork and share the resources we find directly with the tea room owners so they can focus on running their businesses and satisfying customers.

Sometimes resources are found at trade shows, sometimes they find us, and sometimes we find them by other means of networking. Many of our co-op mail participants are already our advertisers in The Tea House Times publication or at our online Tea Bureau network. Overall, we focus on connecting consumers and businesses to all facets of the tea industry. Our mailing service is a value added bonus to the tea room owners we are already doing business with. They view it as an expected and desirable mail piece and thus our mailing is actually a piece of mail that is opened and saved and referred to over and over again.

Similarly, other business owners might consider co-op mailing services. All it takes is someone to take the lead and organize it. Surely you can think of a handful of people you have met over and over again at networking events whose businesses would like to reach the same consumer base as you, while not in direct competition. Get together and make a plan for some combined print advertising and direct mail packages. Overall you all save money and you all increase your marketing reach.

Gail Gastelu
Gail Gastelu is Publisher and Editor in Chief of The Tea House Times, a bi-monthly publication for those who enjoy Afternoon Tea. The publication is a resource for tea room owners and a connection with consumers for tea information and related businesses. A big part of what we do is connecting tea rooms, tea businesses and consumers in every way possible. The main element is The Tea House Times publication, but various other marketing strategies we use are also meant to assist tea business owners in finding resources and providing consumers with quality information. The newest offering is our Tea Bureau online network connecting consumers and businesses to all facets of the tea industry. www.theteahousetimes.com www.teabureau.com