When Visa wanted to make a major splash with its small-business credit cards, it bought television commercial time and formed an alliance with the Service Corps of Retired Executives.
"There is a lot of equity in the SCORE name because they are out there every day meeting with small-business owners," said Michael Rodriguez, director of Visa business commercial card products.
Such partnerships are increasingly common tactics for financial companies that serve small businesses.
"Usually in advertising you have to spend a lot of time building awareness and credibility, but partnership marketing helps you leap those first two steps," said Kevin B. Tynan, president of Chicago-based consulting firm Tynan Marketing Inc. "It's subtle, and it's more effective."
In its partnership with SCORE, Visa is helping design informational brochures for the group's 389 chapters nationwide, where volunteers provide free counseling on starting and managing a business. The brochures will bear Visa's logo.
"Partnering with SCORE helps us get closer to the market and helps banks target the market more accurately," Mr. Rodriguez said.
In a similar partnership, Wachovia is offering educational seminars for the South Carolina Association of Accountants in hopes of gaining business from accountants and their clients.
"The people small-business owners trust the most for financial advice are their accountants," said Michael F. Ryan, executive vice president of Wachovia Corporate Services.
As part of the new alliance, the bank and the association have linked their Web sites, jointly sponsor conferences, and exchange articles for their respective newsletters.
Mr. Ryan said the alliance generated a number of referrals after bankers promoted an electronic tax payment service for small businesses to the accountants.
"We would like to do more business with CPAs, and their customer base is the same as ours," Mr. Ryan said.
Wells Fargo & Co. recently announced plans to sell medical savings accounts to members of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the largest small-business trade group in the country.
The bank also has a long-standing partnership with the National Foundation for Women Business Owners and sends specialized credit offers to women by direct mail.
"The image they project of being supportive of women-owned businesses is very important when women decide where to do their business," said Sharon Hadary, director of the foundation.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo sponsors research about female business- owners and has promised to lend more than $10 billion to female entrepreneurs over the next decade.
Forming such partnerships is particularly useful because entrepreneurs span diverse industries and have varied interests, said Brannon Cashion, a consultant with Addison Whitney, a corporate identity firm.
"It's more of a direct-marketing approach," he said. "From an image standpoint, it gets the message across that the bank feels small business is important."
Some banks are teaming with other financial institutions to offer a wider array of products to their customers, rather than spending the time and money to develop those products themselves.
These alliances reflect the evolution of the small-business market. Banks do not need a partner to offer checking accounts, but need alliances to cut the time it takes to introduce more sophisticated products.
When California Federal Bank wanted to make a splash in Small Business Administration lending, it formed an alliance with Zions Business Funding Corp.
Zions will process, approve, and fund SBA loans for California Federal customers and essentially use the bank's staff as a giant sales and referral network.
And First Union Corp. is working with Hartford Group to sell small- business insurance products by direct telephone and mail nationwide.
A First Union official said the bank teamed with the insurance company because it had the ability to set up a telephone sales and support center and train the staff.
