One of the corner stones of a good Street Fighter Marketing program is the cross-promotion. A cross-promotion is where two parties work together to help each other out. The "Merchant Cross-Promotion” is where two different businesses, which are not in competition, work together to send customers to each other.

Consider the cross-promotion done by Jayson Link of Big League Sports in Warren, Ohio. He set up a promotion with a movie theater during the release of Batman Returns. With each ticket sold the moviegoer got a special savings off Batman products. The movie theater handed out 10,000 and 150 were redeemed. Out of that, 50 became regular customers spending an average of $10 per week in his store. One of the redemptions came from a 12 year old kid who pulled up in a chauffeur driven limousine and spent $3,000. This promotion generated nearly $30,000 of yearly revenue on a one-time $100 promotion! The $100 was the cost of the printing. Now that is being a Street Fighter.

Not all cross promotions have this dramatic of a result. Still, why does this type of cross-promotion offer such a high return on investment? To understand this, let's look at the "three C's of Cross Promotion": Cost, Control, and Credibility.

Cost -- The most expensive thing about any advertising is the cost of getting your message distributed to your potential customers. When you buy radio, you pay for the number of people listening. When you buy newspaper you pay for the number of people reading. With a cross-promotion, on the other hand you get free distribution of your advertising message. Even the cost of production is minimal. You don't have to use full color and special papers. Simple black ink on standard color paper stock works fine at your local quick printer.

Control -- With a Street Fighter cross-promotion you get the same control as you would with direct mail. You can target it geographically and demographically to reach just the people you want to reach. In Jayson's situation, he figured those people who went to a movie based on a comic book character would be an ideal group with which to promote. And he was right.

Credibility -- One of the biggest advantages of a Street Fighter cross-promotion is that it allows you to protect your price credibility. One of the biggest problems facing retailers today is the discounting because your customers become addicted to the discount and then refuses to pay full price ever again.

With a cross-promotion on the other hand, you can offer a special savings of some kind but because the cross-promotion partner is handing out your offer on their behalf they take full credit for the special offer. You've transferred the responsibility of the discount to the other merchant and your regular price credibility is protected.

1. List 10 non-competitive businesses in your geographic area as potential partners.
   (if you know them and they are already your customers, it makes it easier)
    
2. 2 Approach them with these ideas you have as a benefit to their customers with a special savings at your place.
    
3. Get the certificates printed with the number equal to their weekly customer count. After one week the partner will get tired of passing out the certificates.
    
4. A true Street Fighter will repeat this process 30 times a year.