It was in 1960’s when the very first 4Ps of marketing were published, since then product, price, promotion, and place, has been the core of marketing mix. Customer retention has been, however, the end goal of marketing or shall we say, an output of a premier component of business management. But, how marketing is implemented nowadays has changed, and it didn’t happen overnight. From print ads to natively promoting a product/service through content marketing in the digital world, this all has happened ever since. Two constants were observed all the merry way; every effort circled around the prospective customer (retaining the existing ones, too) and how to do it all and keep the cost to a minimum.

While the concept of marketing has never ensured lead generation, compelling and effective marketing has always been relied upon as a catalyst to drive sales and awareness. So, in a market of rising marketing costs and no guarantee of a fixed ROI, what would you do? Well, invest in collaborative marketing – it’s the next big thing which you can rely on.

A Small Reference to Start with

Let's say, to get a print ad for your brand; it’d cost you 1000USD per A4 size page. What if you’re told that you could reach out to the same audience and have a bigger impact in a mere 100USD? Collaborative Marketing is the solution.

You must have come across the quote saying - “A single twig breaks easily, but a bundle of twigs is strong”, in collaborative marketing a company gathers its strength from other companies marketing funnel and its customers. On that one single page of advertisement where only one firm bears the expenditure and reaches out to a limited audience, collaborative marketing enables them to market themselves in the same market with a wider reach, and larger base of prospective customer. It not only

yields better results regarding lead generation but also assists in building more influence and a better brand image in the existing market. The growth rate becomes stagnant in the absence of competition, and herein with this strategy, healthy competition is born.

To give you a better understanding with respect to the real world, imagine a cab service collaborating with an online music platform allowing the traveler to listen to their own music preference rather than listening to the song played on radio which s/he has no interest in. A MNC clothing brand associating with other premium brands bringing the mass on the same platform and benefiting everyone by providing them with more options and also showcasing all the other products which people might be unaware of.

Collaborative marketing is more about tapping into the similar audience than making an attempt to diversify the product chain. The same was observed when the 4 Ps were replaced by a customer-driven approach in 1990 by Lauter born's model of 4 Cs stating Consumer, Cost, Communication, and Convenience as the primary focus.

The consumer is the key and unlocking them leads you to a world of infinite opportunities. Millions of social media pages exist in the Internet world today which means it’s equally tiresome for each entity to build a vast follower base. And, there’s always a limitation as to how much content one can create which means a need for an alternate is in place and an optimum one, too. Features like cross-posting a video are one of the forms of engaging audience interested in consuming a particular genre of content through multiple channels. In the current era of content marketing, just a subtle mention of a product in a content piece (natively) is considered to carry high potential.

Contrary to popular beliefs, when you share content of another brand on your platform – it generates more trust amongst your existing consumers, loyalty, and increases customer satisfaction. A sports-centric page talking about politics once in a while makes them aware ofthe worldly happenings outside the world of sports, for starters. A brand can get real-time insights when they get to build a connection with the mass and especially those who want to become the consumer advocates and witness how it (brand) evolves. Additionally, on the backend of a business, the collaborative approach reaps positive results when it comes to market research inferred from the kind of engagements generated on varied content.

The age of mass communication has evolved, from functioning in the form of printing press, radio, and television to the digitalization to collaborative marketing now. It’s the third phase of social marketing where establishing a deeper relationship with the consumer has simplified, the flow of information comes with less blockades, and user-generated content has become thenew source of gathering ideas for creating content.

To end with, a paradigm shift has been seen where marketing is not done at consumers but with consumers now.