Co-op Marketing Partnerships: Benefits, Challenges and Tips

Properly allocating marketing funds can be a challenge for manufacturers, vendors and retailers alike. Many brands and vendors establish reciprocal co-op marketing relationships where they can collaborate financially on building high-quality initiatives to advertise their products. Understanding this marketing strategy better may help you understand how you can use it to your advantage.

In this article, we discuss marketing co-ops, the benefits and challenges of using such a strategy and some helpful tips for developing your own successful co-op marketing program.

What is a marketing co-op?

A marketing co-op, or cooperative marketing, is a type of cost-effective, mutually beneficial advertising relationship established between manufacturers and their partners, such as retailers or distributors. Typically, manufacturers set the terms of the relationship, which can vary depending on the level of the manufacturer's investment in the product's marketing campaign. Brands may contribute sums of money, promotional products or display items for retailers to use when selling a product line. Often, manufacturers offer to pay for a certain allotment of advertising costs and provide promotional materials for retailers to use in their product marketing campaigns, such as:

• Photos

• Graphics

• Brochures

• Flyers

• Posters

• Logos

Related: Partnership Marketing: Benefits and Examples

How do co-op marketing programs work?

Brands develop guidelines that govern how their partners can market their products. The vendor can usually make their own decisions about what tactics to use, like paid ads, social media posts and physical displays. Manufacturers, then, reserve co-op marketing funds to promote the sale of their products across different retailers, with each sales channel receiving a designated amount. Brands may offer co-op funding partnerships exclusively to larger retailers that have the ability to purchase more merchandise. 

Manufacturers may also offer co-op marketing to reward retailers who have previously shown excellent product sales performance. Retailers may accrue co-op funds as they purchase products from vendors or manufacturers, meaning that a retailer's co-op funds typically grow as they purchase more products. In exchange for the co-op funds, manufacturers may require retailers to get pre-approval for their advertisements.

Related: What is Co-Marketing? Definition, Types and Benefits

Benefits of co-op marketing

Here are some of the benefits manufacturers and retailers can enjoy from co-op marketing programs:

Collaboration on marketing strategies

Co-op marketing programs may allow brands and retailers to collaborate more closely on the creation of marketing strategies. This type of teamwork, in which strategists come together from two sides of production and sales, can encourage more innovative and creative methods than is usually possible. Brands are more likely to be well-versed in the technical aspects of the products they create and can lend such expertise to retailers looking to sell the products. Conversely, retailers typically have a deeper understanding of their customer base and sales techniques that appeal to them.

A co-op marketing partnership between manufacturers and retailers may even help drive forward overall brand cohesion because brands control the branding used for their products. If consumers come to know brands in a consistent and reliable way, they're usually more likely to remember what such brands offer when they go to purchase products.

Related: 8 Goals and Objectives You Can Achieve Through Collaboration

Mutual financial benefit

Establishing co-op marketing partnerships can help both retailers and manufacturers reduce their overall marketing costs. Some brands may have larger marketing departments than small retailers, so they can craft complex strategies and effective advertisements for smaller retailers to use. Therefore, when brands offer co-op funding to retailers, they present a financially sound opportunity to drive excellent product marketing forward. Conversely, large retailers that sell a wide variety of brands may lack the knowledge to create targeted, specific campaigns for every brand they sell, making co-op marketing an effective solution.

Product marketing campaigns can be costly endeavors, so creating a co-op partnership where brands share the responsibility of marketing with retailers can be a cost-effective initiative for both parties involved. With co-op funds, retailers can enjoy the opportunity to execute high-quality marketing campaigns with little financial commitment, and brands can see a mutual financial benefit from establishing shared ownership of marketing processes.

Related: How To Manage a Marketing Budget in 6 Straightforward Steps

Sales potential

Co-op marketing partnerships can lead to increase sales for both retailers and brands. Since retailers receive more funds by purchasing larger amounts of a brand's products, co-op relationships can help brands incentivize their vendor sales.

In addition, when brands rely on assistance from retailers to market their products, they may reach a more localized audience which, in turn, could help create a higher sales demand for their products. This principle may also apply to retailers with the objective of maximizing product sales for profit. With more effective and targeted marketing campaigns funded by brands, retailers may see a higher number of sales.

Related: Sales Strategies: 27 Strategy Examples To Boost Your Results

Challenges of co-op marketing

Here are a few challenges of co-op marketing you should be aware of when developing such a program:

Potential restrictions on marketing campaigns

Sometimes, brands place comprehensive restrictions on how retailers can spend their co-op dollars. These restrictions may include specific product placement guidelines, prioritized brand name placement in advertisements, fixed formatting requirements for promotional materials or pre-determined design components. They may also require lengthy and particularized pre-approval processes for promotional materials and submission of receipts and other documentation of advertisements.

Brand restrictions can limit creativity and agency for retailers and complicate the marketing process for their teams. Therefore, it's important for brands and retailers to effectively negotiate the terms of their co-op marketing partnerships before entering agreements.

Related: What Are Brand Guidelines? (Plus How To Create Them)

Divergent marketing needs

Manufacturers and their partners often have different marketing goals. Manufacturers are interested in fostering strong brand identities and building consumer loyalty to specific product lines. Comparatively, retailers focus less on how they market specific brands. Rather, their marketing campaigns typically strive to encourage consumers to shop with loyalty at their locations, regardless of the products they buy. It's important that brands generate cohesive advertising materials that properly address both parties' objectives to increase overall sales.

Management of funds

Depending on the situation, brands may experience challenges with managing co-op marketing funds. Some retailers may request more funds when they experience overages, and others may disregard the explicit restrictions brands set out for spending co-op funds, resulting in unapproved advertisements, costly initiatives or less effective campaigns. Further, restrictions may place too much pressure on retailers and create a marketing impasse, resulting in unused funds. 

Properly managing these funds requires strong administrative capacities and effective communication with partners. It's also critical to promote transparency so brands have oversight over how partners spend co-op marketing funds. When brands have more control over what happens with their money, they can try to more closely monitor marketing campaigns and guide retailers toward efficacy. Transparency also helps both parties manage their tax obligations regarding co-op funds.

Tips for developing a co-op marketing program

Here are a few additional tips to help you design a successful and mutually beneficial program:

Build a sustainable partnership

When designing a co-op marketing program, try to ensure that the partnership you establish has feasible and sustainable expectations. One of the reasons brands and retailers commit to such relationships is the ease of collaborating on marketing solutions. Therefore, aim to simplify the marketing process for both parties involved by providing comprehensive media packages that include creative materials can streamline implementation processes for retailers. For example, making some assets customizable may allow partners to create targeted materials without brand interference.

Pre-allocate funds for impact

Since brands typically allocate co-op funds in large sums, it's important that partners are purposeful and strategic in how they use funds. Both parties can collaborate on how to best use the funds to create a significant impact on consumer purchasing practices. Successful co-op marketing programs often pre-allocate funds to ensure that partners use them effectively.

Make an effort to communicate

It's essential for brands and retailers to regularly communicate their expectations and decisions to maximize the attainability of specific goals. This can help all parties feel satisfied with the relationship and fulfill their respective needs.

Establish branding guidelines

It can be helpful to establish particular branding guidelines while developing a marketing co-op program. With explicit standards for logo usage, typefaces, colors, photography, graphic design and copy, retailers can easily meet brand expectations. Even further, branding guidelines can help establish a cohesive identity for a brand's marketing materials, which may lead consumers to easily recognize products and the stores where they can find and purchase them.

Related: 9 Steps To Build a Strong Brand Identity (With Tips)

Monitor and measure results

It's essential to keep track of the success of your co-op marketing program. You can do this by monitoring key metrics and creating evaluation processes to help you understand what strategies have been effective and what areas could benefit from improvement. Communicating such results can guide both brands and retailers toward understanding how co-op fund investments are performing in the long term.

Co-op marketing campaign examples

Below are some examples to help you understand how these programs can work:

Example 1

A skincare brand sells its proprietary sunscreen at grocery stores, beauty stores and drugstores. It creates a series of banners and displays each retailer can use. The brand's marketing team also designs a series of digital marketing materials, including videos, social media graphics and email marketing banners, that each retailer can localize. Further, grocery partners may use their funds to purchase end-cap displays that prominently highlight the sunscreen in the spring and summer months to attract the attention of customers.

Example 2

A coffee shop chain launches a new line of affordable at-home coffee beans available at select grocery partners. Because this is the cafe's first grocery item, the team has specific guidelines for partners. It creates a series of unchangeable marketing assets to ensure the branding is the same in every grocery store. After monitoring sales for three months, the brand issues additional funds to the top-performing grocery store to create video materials according to a set of specific brand guidelines.

Example 3

A publishing company releases a new book from a best-selling author and creates a co-op marketing program for retailers, which includes a bookstore chain, a department store chain and a series of independent bookstores. Because the author already has a dedicated fan base, the publishing company allows its partners freedom in how they allocate co-op marketing funds. 

The large chain bookstores receive the most money, and they invest in end-cap displays and posters to place the book at the front of the store during release week. Independent bookstores invest in social media posts, emails and paid ads to target local customers and previous buyers of the same genre. The department store chooses to create a short video campaign appearing on social media and television, which the publishing company approves.