How to go about Parasitic Marketing?

Parasitic Marketing does not have a set procedure. However, there is a standard set of procedures followed by companies in the past.

Step 1: Establish your Marketing Objectives

The first step is common to whatever Marketing or Promotional Strategy you adopt. You need to identify the Marketing Objectives of the firm which are based on your overall Corporate Objectives and on which will be based your Marketing Strategy. Such a strategy should include identifying your Target Audience, brand image and brand positioning, etc.

Step 2: Establish your Promotional Strategy

This involves formulating a strategy for Promoting your brand and achieving the objectives that were set during the previous stage. A decision needs to be made on how to promote your brand; advertising, corporate sponsorship, etc.

Step 3: Selection of event

After Corporate Sponsorship or using events as a medium of promotion has been identified as a promotional strategy a decision needs to be made on – which event. This stage can be broken into two steps

a) Type of Event: Identifying the type of event you want to associate your brand like Sports or Cultural, etc. This is based on your brand positioning objectives.

For e.g. Nike has positioned its brand as a Sports brand therefore, it has always been associated with sports event

b) Specific Event: After the Event type has been identified a decision needs to be made as to, which particular event should be selected for brand promotion.

for e.g. After Nike has identified Sports as the Event type it wants to target, the next step is to select a specific event, like Ice Hockey or Soccer World Cup.

Step 4: Why do you want to associate yourself with the event

An obvious question that needs to be asked is – Why do you want to associate your brand with a particular event? Is it essential for your company? Will it give the company the leverage it wants? Do you think that associating your brand whether directly will help you position your brand better? Is it in co-operation with the image you want to create your brand? If the answers to the above questions is yes. Then, the option with you is to either to sponsor the event or to use Parasitic Marketing.

Step 5: How much are you willing to spend?

This, along with other factors will determine whether Sponsoring an event or Parasite an event is the option to be selected. If you think sponsoring the event is worth the investment and it helps you achieve what you want to achieve from the brand then go ahead with it. However, beware of your competitors who will be trying to Ambush you. If you actually do sponsor the event then ensure there is enough protection against potential Ambushers.

However, if you think the investment required in sponsoring the event is not worth it and will not help you achieve what you wanted to, from the event. Then Parasitic marketing might be the best bet available to you.

Step 6: Implementing

The last and final step in Parasitic Marketing is Implementing your strategies. Parasitic marketing needs to be creative and the ramifications of your strategy needs to be assessed. Parasitic Marketing does not have a set procedure so, your creativity matters the most. Parasitic Marketing implementation has to have a few essentials.