Summary

For many brands, providing a co-op marketing program is viewed as a “necessary evil.” They understand the role it plays in their go-to-market strategy, but it’s often difficult to realize that value — and it’s even more challenging to measure in terms of ROI.


With the right tools and partners added to your arsenal, however, the impact of your co-op program can thrive, driving more sales and building better brand equity.

Valassis will provide an in-depth look at the co-op marketing landscape through a series of blog posts. We will offer the perspective, insights, and action steps necessary to develop a successful and sustainable co-op marketing partnership strategy.

Here’s a sneak peek at five keys to maximizing the results for your co-op marketing investment:

1. Give your national programs a hyperlocal focus. At its core, your co-op program is a hyperlocal undertaking. When partners help campaigns target the right message toward the most receptive and relevant audience, everyone wins.

2. Add some context when you review your dealer’s campaign performance. Did the campaigns spark the results you and your local dealers hoped it would? Partnerships inspire brands to take a transparent look at the fruits of your co-op investment, allowing you to adjust your future co-op plans and better manage the accompanying costs.

3. Leverage the full marketing spectrum. Unnecessarily limited understanding of the marketing options can hinder co-op success. But a full range of marketing methods provides brands with data-supported tactics and effective co-op strategies that they can put into practice with minimal disruption and confusion.

4. Become a real marketing ally to local dealers and partners. The local stores, retailers, and affiliates you work with don’t purport to be media or marketing experts. A media partner ready to collaborate on co-op campaign intricacies can minimize a whole litany of issues, including determining the right media mix and creative requirements. The right partnership can also help you identify performance metrics and maximize ad impact.

5. Show what works (and why). When a co-op strategy works, everyone involved needs to understand how to replicate that success. All of the co-op stakeholders evaluating and addressing the good, the bad, and everything between will go a long way to build programs that continue to help brands, retailers, and distributors for years to come.

Your co-op marketing is just scratching the surface of how effective it can be. To dive deeper into what it can do for you, visit Valassis Co-op Solutions.

Need to improve the ROI of your co-op marketing program? Explore this series from Valassis which explains each of these five recommendations in greater detail to help you actualize your co-op marketing objectives. Click through for more details on taking a hyperlocal approach to co-ophow performance can help the partnership grow, where a full-funnel approach might fit in, when to provide advice to a retail partner, and how to uncover insights for campaign success.

Greg Potts is currently a senior sales executive at Valassis. He has more than 20 years of experience in the marketing and advertising industry including martech, media, and branding. Co-op advertising has been a part of each of Greg’s career stops and he has worked with all three sides of the co-op advertising triangle: media, brand, and local affiliate.