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For more than 30 years now, Chris Schneider, Honda Motorworks owner in La Crosse Winconsin, has been selling cars that are environmental friendly. Having difficulty in convincing people to shift to vehicles with alternative fuels, he has tried many strategies in marketing.

Teaming up with a real estate agent in July of 2008 made the greatest impact in his marketing strategy. Using the attention- grabbing tactic in sales the “Buy a House, Get a Free Electric Car,” captured the attention of many people. As Schneider share his story, the offer was made available on a Friday morning then resulted to three messages coming from people who are interested in the car just in the afternoon of the same day. After a month, though the house hadn’t been sold yet, an increase in the number of people who visited Schneider’s office were noticed.

When two businesses having different products, joined a marketing effort to a similar clientele, it is called “horizontal marketing.” Schneider has learned this intelligent way of increasing the customer base without having an increase on the budget for marketing.

The author of Principled Profit, Shel Horowitz said, “In the case of horizontal marketing, a competitor might be someone who overlaps with you but doesn’t duplicate your offering exactly.” She added that by pleasing clients and being able to offer broad variety of services, both businesses will benefit.

But, pleasing your customers doesn’t mean giving away expensive products. Here are other innovative, creative and cost-effective ways of doing a horizontal marketing campaign.

Cross-endorsement
According to Denise Patrick, vice president for creative services of Pierpont Communications, a small company can ride in the success of a company with a stronger brand by offering some kind of promotion such as product, coupon, etc., to their customer. In an example given by Patrick, she said that if you are an owner of local miniature golf park, you can offer the big movie theater in your area with an offer of ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ tickets. In this case, it allows the movie theater to give free gifts, you gain your credibility and you give teenagers an access to a fun place to have a date.

A chiropractic office in California, OC Back and Body Doctors, founded by Dr. Desiree Edlund has a neighboring gym as its cross-endorser for seven years. She offers a discount on services for gym members. Once in a while, a representative is assigned in the gym to offer a free on site analyses of body fat. Its results are then written on Edlund’s business card.

Spread out the cost
In an example which Patrick gave, a bookstore owner, with a location next to children’s clothing store and a store of discount linen, can create an afternoon for children. Coordinating with one another, “Build a Fort” day can be a project where the sheets for the forts will be provided by the linen store, the costume will be provided by the children’s store and the reading will be hosted by the bookstore.

Offer a complete-service brand experience without escalating your operating cost.
A small- business marketing consultant for two decades, Michael Hart, said that all you have to do is to anticipate what other services your customers would like to have. By recruiting eight other businesses with the same clients, Hart had helped a heating and air conditioning company by featuring them in a home services coupon catalog. All the businesses in the catalog offer different services but have one thing in common, the type of customer that they cater to.

Hart said that what he did was a success with an increase in sale by 20 percent or more for each business and an expansion of their client base while reducing the cost of their advertising and mailing expenses.

Horizontal marketing gives an opportunity to increase clientele to all types of businesses.