How to use co-op marketing funds with dealers: pay for proof, not promises

You told four dealers on the phone that you would share the cost of promoting your brand, and now an invoice has landed for a hoarding you have never seen. Co-op money stays safe when it leaves your account after the work can be seen, and only against a list of spends you named in advance. What follows sets the match, the order in which to fund things, and a claim card that stops a bill turning into a gift.

What is the money meant to buy?

Dealers do not ignore your brand out of spite. They stock six others, and the counter staff push whichever gives the best margin that day. A fund buys visibility the dealer would not pay for alone: your name on the fascia, your range at eye level, an announcement when a model arrives.

It does not buy loyalty. If the dealer's real complaint is your margin or your delivery gaps, the dealer will take the board money and still send orders elsewhere. That case belongs with dealer incentives that do not damage margins. Run a fund only when the dealer is willing to sell you and merely under-exposes you.

How do you set the match?

Put three questions to each kind of spend. Whose name is on it? Do the dealer's other brands share it? Who keeps it once the scheme ends?

A fascia board that carries only your name gains you most, so you pay the larger share and the dealer pays for upkeep. A counter display that sits beside other makers' goods suits an even split. A newspaper insert that features the dealer's shop mostly builds the dealer's business, so your share is the smaller one. The splits are starting points to argue over, not rules from a book. Whatever you settle, write one split per kind of spend for all dealers. Separate deals for separate dealers tend to start quarrels nobody wins.

Then cap the yearly total per dealer and tell each one the cap. A dealer who knows the ceiling plans around it. One who does not will send a bill and hope.

What do you fund first?

Fund what stays put and can be checked without a journey. Shop-front branding comes first, because it works every hour the shop is open. A demonstration unit comes second, since a customer touching your product learns more than one reading about it. Announcements tied to a dated launch come third. Events and sponsorships come last, because they are easy to inflate and hard to verify.

Leave off the list any spend whose only proof is the dealer's word. If a photograph, an invoice or a call to someone present cannot confirm it, you cannot pay for it.

What goes on the claim card?

Give dealers a single card, as a printed page or a WhatsApp template, and pay nothing that arrives outside it:

Claim card Dealer and town. What was approved, with your date and message. Amount spent, and your share. One: a photo from across the road, shop name and our board in one frame. Two: the supplier's invoice in the dealer's name, GSTIN on it, dated after the scheme began. Three: for print or posts, the actual cutting, leaflet or screenshot. One line from the dealer on what it was meant to do. Overdue balance with us today.

Photo, invoice and one line from the dealer cover the usual claim. The across-the-road frame matters: a close-up can be reused for another dealer. The last field matters as well. Say at the start that overdue balances are set against claims, so the rule feels fair when it bites.

A mattress maker who paid first

Imagine an invented mattress maker in Hubballi, every detail made up, who sells through dealers in Dharwad, Gadag and Belagavi. The maker had agreed over the phone to "share" boards. Five invoices came in. Two dealers sent the same photograph, shot at an angle where the shop name could not be read. One invoice was from a printer whose GST number would not verify. The maker had already paid two dealers ₹25,000 in advance, so could not tell which boards existed.

The repair was a page. It held the approved list, a yearly cap, the claim card and a rule that payment follows approval. For the five old claims the maker asked each dealer for a fresh photo with the shop name in frame. Three sent one and were settled. The other two were told their claims were closed. One grumbled and stayed. The other shifted stock to a rival, which cost the maker a dealer who had been buying very little. The ₹25,000 paid in advance was never recovered.

How do you tell whether it worked?

Keep one sheet. Columns: dealer, what was approved, amount, your share, proof received for each of the three items, date paid, and the dealer's orders in the quarter before and after. That last pair tells you more than the others. If a dealer's orders have not moved after two or three claims, stop funding that dealer and fund another.

You also need someone to check the cards. An unchecked fund is a gift, so if nobody in your office has the time, wait. Wait as well if you have fewer dealers than you can visit in a season, because a visit and a handshake do the same job for nothing. And if overdue payments are your larger problem, collect first.

Circulate the one page

Send the page to dealers through the channel you use for price lists, and answer the first questions in the same thread. Co-operative partner marketing is the related work for the rules, and the wider dealer picture is in our sales section. To have a second pair of eyes on your rules, tell us what you need.