Are You Using Your Coop Funds?

Your suppliers or vendors have a vested interest in your success, and most of them have access to extraordinary marketing funds and resources beyond traditional co-op to help you sell more of their products.

The problem is, seldom does anyone ask for these funds! If you don’t access those funds, you are literally throwing money away, or worse yet, your competitors will scoop those funds and use them against you.

In our How to Leverage Your Suppliers’ Marketing Muscle, tactic number one is “Tender your Next Ad Campaign”. Present a written proposal for submissions for marketing support to all of your suppliers outlining your proposed advertising schedule and investment, along with any special displays, promotions, demonstrations, or other exposure the winning bidder will receive.

Many business owners believe their hands are tied to rigid manufacturers’ restrictions if they use manufacturers’ co-op advertising funds, but seldom is this the case.  The squeaky wheel oftentimes gets the grease!

If you are an appliance dealer, for example, and you sell GE and Whirlpool, your GE representative has a vested interest in you featuring GE versus Whirlpool in your ad.

If you make a presentation outlining the kind of campaign you propose to sell more GE without using the standard GE script or ad copy that the manufacturer supplies, it will generally be approved by their office because they don’t want your campaign to feature their competitor.

Nearly every business that offers products has a supplier, and these manufacturers and suppliers want to sell more products. Give them an idea of how you can sell more and they just might come up with some money. But you have to ask for it!

Still, other businesses opt not to leverage their suppliers’ marketing muscle because it takes time and effort. In today’s competitive environment, you need to take advantage of every competitive edge you can. 

At WOWO Radio, me and my team have helped our advertising partners find and use hundreds of thousands of coop advertising dollars that our advertising partners use to get the the word out about their business to invite our listeners to spend money with them over the past few years.