The best kind of relationships are those where each party gains something, and this is a great example.
I recently stayed at my first ever Premier Inn on a business trip, and I was very pleasantly surprised. The room was thoughtfully designed, nicely lit, clean and true to the ads, had a very comfortable bed. I never sleep well in strange hotel rooms, but in fact on this occasion I did pretty well. Perhaps because the expectation had been set by Lenny Henry, but nevertheless it was a pretty good experience all round.
From a marketing perspective, it was really interesting to see the note on the pillow offering the chance to buy a Premier Inn bed. How clever is that?
According to the website, the bed manufacturers, Hypnos don’t sell direct to the public – as you know, it’s extremely expensive to do mass market advertising and promotion – so by using Premier Inn as a channel, they are benefitting from exposure to literally thousands of targeted customers who get the chance to try the product before they buy.
In return Premier Inn presumably get some kind of commission or discount on any beds they sell through their website.
http://beta.premierinn.com/gb/en/why/sleep/our-bed.html
Very simple, but very appropriate.
Could you team up with somebody who offers a complementary service or product to provide extra value to your customers?