Alliance or Co-op
In Marketing/ Distribution

A marketing alliance or marketing cooperative is a partnership of companies/producers/vendors on the value chain level of marketing with the objective to tap the full potential of a market and reduce marketing cost and risk. Cooperative marketing essentially involves understanding or an agreement between participating companies aiming to market or sell the other companies' products along with their own products- for more mutual business and profit.

It is obvious that cooperative marketing is based on mutual benefits for both businesses and brands. They decide to join forces to help each other rather than to market themselves on their own. And there are numerous reasons why some brands and businesses unite under a cooperative marketing strategy.
First off, cooperative marketing is an ideal option for businesses- mainly, for small businesses, that are looking for a rather inexpensive form of promotion. This is because many (maybe 100 or more) businesses share not only the strategy but also the resources. for example- they may hire one graphic designer, and a marketing manager - most importantly, joint in the purchase, logistics, and transportation, and split/share all of the expenses. Whatever the case is, cooperative promotion truly is among the least expensive and tension-free marketing methodologies available these days. 

Marketing cooperative gives an idea of collective efforts as a group to achieve individual marketing goals of each member. Cooperative marketing is an important tool of economic development in India. It gives an idea of collective efforts to achieve a specific objective to carry out the most important marketing strategy.
In other words, marketing co-operatives are for the purpose of collectively marketing the products. The main functions of marketing co-operatives are: (i) help to market/sell the products of the members at fair prices- by lowering marketing /middle agency/advertisement costs (ii) To safeguard the members from excessive marketing costs and malpractice.
Merchants/companies with related businesses can greatly benefit from cooperative marketing. It’s more time-efficient and cost-effective to band together and cross-promote. For consumers of all kinds, cooperative marketing can be highly convenient— as well as economically efficient for the businesses pooling their resources together.
The economy of scale is an enormous benefit. Likewise, combining the marketing efforts of a group of industries into one cooperative marketing campaign benefits everyone in the group, even if they’re competitors. 

Marketing alliance- a network of small enterprises for efficient and cost-effective marketing, where many small companies cooperate for marketing enables participating small companies to market products together and get a stronger voice in the market.
Over the years, more and more companies are looking into new methods mainly in sales and marketing to deal with changing customer behavior, recession, increased competition, increased business costs, etc. The purpose of all companies, no matter their size, small or large, is to focus on increasing market share and market exposure and to become more time effective and cost-effective. Therefore, more and more companies have started to apply the cooperative marketing concept in their businesses.

Marketing co-operatives are sensible when the marketing goals of participating companies can be combined with a concrete performance measure for the end consumers. Successful marketing co-operations generate “win-win-win” situations that offer value not only to both partnering companies but also to their customers.
The importance of marketing co-operations (marketing partnerships) has significantly increased over the last few years: Companies/businesses recognize marketing cooperation as an effective means for exploring growth potentials they cannot attain on their own.  Marketing co-operations especially on the value chain level of marketing often present a much more flexible approach with a more immediate growth impact to participating businesses than merging or acquiring entire business entities.

For small businesses, cooperative marketing can be a very powerful way to get exposure and business. Food products producers,  cloth/garment producers, farmers, stationary item producers, hardware item manufacturers, special item distributors, etc any can market their products through their cooperative marketing- lowering the marketing cost and risk and increasing sales and profit. For example- 100 different food products manufacturers/distributors cooperate in marketing - and each member in this group market/sells/distributes all others' (other 99 members') products- which doubles the profit of each member.

This term signifies an agreement between businesses, brands, or companies to unite their marketing forces and efforts in order to receive beneficial results in a more efficient way.   

Beneficiary industries

• small manufacturers

• wholesalers and distributors

• tourist homes & lodges

• small manufacturing enterprises,

• education & training institutes, 

• service enterprises,

• small logistic enterprises, etc