Guerrilla Marketing

by Charles Rubin

Content is the key drawing card for any online effort, and every site operator scrambles to provide useful content for his or her customers. With fusion marketing, related companies agree to display one anothers' information. This gives each participant more exposure while adding to the content and quality of every site where the information is displayed.

Fusion marketing trades can be simple links to other services, or they can be whole directories of information. For example, an environmental consulting firm might supply a short article about environmentally-friendly design to a Web site maintained by an architectural firm. At the end of the article, there's a link to the consulting firm's Web site. In exchange, the environmental consultants' Web site might contain a directory of architects and designers or a series of architects' portfolios, along with links to each architect's home page or e-mail address. Once a Web site is set up, the cost to add a few more pages and a couple of links is trivial, but the payoff can be large.

Seek out fusion marketing relationships on your own by thinking about and searching for Web or Gopher sites maintained by companies in businesses related to yours. Here are some possible fusion combinations to get you started:

• Graphic designers, printers, ad agencies, PR agencies, ad specialty companies
• Software developers, hardware companies, software distributors, integrators, and VARs
• Construction firms, architects, interior designers, developers, real estate companies, property managers, relocation services, and security consultants
• Financial consultants, tax consultants, accountants, investment firms, investment banks, brokerages, law firms, finance companies
• Bookstores, publishers, office supply companies, gift shops, information consultants and research firms, and stores or services related to specific book genres, such as cooking, automobiles, business, computers, etc.
• Manufacturers, distributors, integrators, VARs, management consultants, engineering firms
• Transportation companies, movers, import/export firms, oil companies, automotive supply, repair, and manufacturing companies
• Hotels and resorts, travel agencies, relocation firms, event planners, speakers' bureaus, industry associations, trade shows

Each fusion arrangement is an opportunity to display your expertise before a different audience in a different location, and make it easy for them to learn more about you. It could be the beginning of many new and profitable relationships.