Do you enjoy the music of U2, Playing for Change, Dave Matthews Band and John Legend? Like to get their CD, “All You Need Is Love” for free – and help a cause? And wouldn’t it be fun to sing along with these musical rock stars – for the cause and see the crowdsourced result? (Won’t you tell others?) I love the result, involving people from 156 countries.

Let’s make it easy for you. Simply spend $15 at participating Starbucks stores. And why not participate in a mass sing-along by uploading your own video StarbucksLoveProject like thousands did?

With the right partners, support a cause that matters to your kind of customer. Starbucks also sold the CD and donated a dollar from each sale to the Global Fund to Help Fight AIDs in Africa.

Profitable News-You-Can-Use Takeaways

Even if you run a small business, you, too, can benefit from partnering with other popular businesses that touch the life of your kind of customers. Seek unexpected allies. Then you are more likely to be able to provide the positive and unexpected experience that makes all partners stand out in a noisy world. Create the priceless partnership that “pulls” prospects into the conversation about your product, cause or service.

Side benefits? You may attract more customers and per-customer spending without spending more. Customer-centered, social media-involving partnerships create multi-way conversations and can trump traditional one-way marketing – in impact and efficiency.

Tips in crafting your successful partnership

• Create your partnership around an uplifting theme (“all you need is love”) or another positive emotion such as good-natured humor.

• Make it super easy to participate

Starbucks, for example, gave you the option of participating in the mass sing-along: Just “turn on your computer’s web can and sing away.”

• Offer several ways for others to get involved

• Support each action your customers take on behalf of your partnering action.

In addition to the chance to be a part of the sing along, customers could create a Love Drawing at the web site. Starbucks contributed five cents to the fund for the first million drawings submitted.

Enjoy more benefits of partnering in smart ways

1. Get a warmed-up introduction to each other’s most lucrative customers

What event, product, contest, new service or gift card can pull each other’s biggest-spending customers through the doors of your business – and theirs?

2. Attract more attention

• Prospective customers must first hear about you, be curious and have an immediate, compelling and easy way to sample.

• Reporters, bloggers and, well, anybody, likes to tell others about the clever new thing.

3. Deepen customer loyalty

Current customers like to be “in the know” about your new offering (so tell them first) so they can brag about it. That’s an apt way to turn customers into evangelists.

4. Enjoy the camaraderie of shared success

When all partners share their best resources and talents they shine a bigger spotlight on each other and themselves as they delight customers and get motivated to expand their partnership and/or try something new as they now know and trust each other.

Sometimes friendships spring out of these collaborations. For local businesses that join forces to attract and keep customers, especially in this wobbly economy, they find they are cultivating deeper, more diverse business and community ties. That feels good.

A final thought for businesses and the local communities they serve.  ”Why buy local” is a growing theme of many businesses in this bad economy. Other than guilt, why not give people more enticing reasons to buy from you?  If you run a local, consumer-serving business why not join forces with other nearby businesses that serve your kind of customer and support a popular local cause with an event that enables customers to participate?

You, too, may enjoy Andy Sernovitz’s real life examples of how to spread the word about your business, Anita Campbell’s Smart Business Trends and Judy Dunn’s thoughtful (non-hard sell) ideas for growing your online presence.

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