Joint Venture Marketing: A Legitimate Shortcut

The term “shortcut”, particularly in business, is often considered to be almost as offensive as four-letter word. But when it comes to building a successful marketing platform for your Internet business, setting up shortcuts to make your work easier and more successful is indeed a good business strategy.

Joint venture marketing offers just such a legitimate shortcut that can decrease your workload and increase your profits. Forming a joint venture marketing partnership is an excellent way to breathe new life into your marketing strategy if you are in a bit of a rut or just entering into the marketplace.

This is a strategy where your business forms relationships and partnerships with other companies who can assist with advertising and getting the word out to their clients about your business, products and services.  You, in turn, do the same for their company. It is a mutual and reciprocal arrangement where both parties benefit equally from the partnership.

Exponential Results

Joint venture partnerships can incorporate more than two companies, and the more companies you incorporate into your platform, the more results these partnerships have the potential to yield.

Of course, you don’t want to involve so many companies that managing the partnerships becomes overwhelming, but keep in mind the more businesses you do incorporate into your strategy, the more contacts and clients you have the potential to reach. This gives you results that are exponentially proportionate to the results you could achieve either on your own, or with just one partnership.

Building Strong Relationships

Joint venture marketing is a subset of the relationship-marketing platform, in which customer relationships are put at the forefront of the company’s concerns and attention. Client relationships are still the central focus, but you simultaneously develop relationships with other businesses as a way to expand and further your client relationships. A successful JV marketing partnership has the potential to significantly increase your client base. The stronger your relationships are, the more potential for an increased client base you will gain.

We all tend to go the extra mile for people we like or care about, it’s human nature. Relationships are the focal point for all marketing platforms, and the stronger your relationships are with your partners, the more likely your are to benefit from the relationship. This is a somewhat calculated maneuver, but it is something that develops naturally. You are not pretending to like people you don’t – it’s a matter of giving your partners extra attention and taking the time to get to know them on a personal level, as well as on a business front. This will help enhance your professional relationships and bottom line. Forming a strong network of joint venture partners is a savvy way to increase your business, and a valid shortcut to gaining a wider client base.

Joint Venture Marketing: Reducing the Costs of Your Advertising

A joint venture marketing partnership is an enterprise undertaken by two or more people or companies, who typically share the expense, and ideally the profits, created by their union. Joint venture marketing agreements do not create new business organizations or third party companies from their union – the idea is for two, or several parties to come together to share ideas, expertise, clients and contacts.

Advertising Joint Ventures

One of the most popular types of joint venture marketing partnerships involves a sharing of advertising space. This can take several forms:

• Trading space on your partners website for space on your site
• Pooling resources to purchase ad space
• Selling space on your website to your partners.

Trading Ad Space

Forming a joint venture marketing relationship where the venture involves trading space for website advertising is fairly straightforward. If you have only one partner, you would swap an equal amount of space on your website for advertising for your partners company, and receive the same amount of advertising space on their website in return.

These types of partnerships are mutually beneficial to both parties and usually don’t require an upfront investment of capital.  The same principle holds with more than two partners – each partner would be granted ad space on each of the respective websites of their joint venture marketing partners. This can be a highly beneficial arrangement at very little cost or risk – you could expand your advertising capabilities several times over and reach more people than you would independently. This is also a valuable resource because you will often be able to reach a niche of people that you would not be able to reach solely through your own website advertising.

Purchasing Joint Ad Space

Forming a joint venture marketing partnership where you pool financial resources to purchase advertising space is a valuable way to achieve the high-profile exposure of a paid ad, with a decreased expense. Advertising space, whether on a website or in print, is usually sold in increments of three or four spaces per page. This, of course, will depend on the publication – some will sell as little one sixth or one eights of a page, and you always have the option to purchase a full-page ad.

It is more cost-effective to pool resources with a joint venture partner to purchase ad space because it is cheaper to buy a larger chunk of advertising space, even if it will be used for different ads, than it would be to purchase each advertising spot separately.

Selling Website Space

Selling ad space on your own company’s website can be a profitable way to raise revenue for your company. If you have already made an agreement to trade ad space with a joint venture partner, but they would like additional space, you may charge them a fee.

Another option is always to sell space on your website in the open market to companies with whom you do not as of yet have a joint venture marketing partnership, and this can also increase your professional contact list and increase the potential for future joint venture marketing partnerships.

What’s In It For You? Being Selfish In Your Joint Venture Partnership

Joint venture marketing, also known as JV marketing, has become a very popular way for businesses to maximize their exposure in the marketplace, as well as their profits. When two or more businesses combine their resources, contacts and clients in a synergistic way, it has the potential to create a larger marketing impact, and greater profits than either entity has the capacity to create on its own.

Put your needs first – even if you are a new business

When entering into a new joint venture marketing partnership, you are creating a relationship, and one that may potentially be a close, profitable and long-term one. Given this, it may be tempting to look at the partnership from the perspective of your partners to be sure that their needs are being met and that the deal is fair to them. This is important, as people who are not being offered a fair deal are unlikely to be happy with the long-term relationship.  But, the first thing you must ask yourself and have a positive answer for is, “What’s in it for me?” It is essential to secure a fair and profitable deal for yourself and your company.

If you have just started a business, or are new to the practice of joint venture marketing, it may be tempting to think that you should accept a lesser deal because your partner is “doing you a favor” by deciding to engage in a partnership with a novice.  This is the time to be selfish! Do not undermine your potential or sell yourself short by getting into a partnership that doesn’t offer equal benefits to you. If you accept a deal like this, it has the potential to backfire down the road for a couple of reasons:

• Your partner may develop an undervalued perception of your company
• It may affect your partnerships and profits down the road
• You may not be enjoying your fair share of joint revenues

Don’t set precedence for lowered profits

When starting a new joint venture marketing partnership, if you accept a lower percentage of profits or of advertising space, this tends to set a precedent where your partners may then expect you to continually accept a lesser deal. And if this sort of thinking continues, it has the potential to breed resentment on your part and affect your professional relationship with your partner, but it may also affect the future of your bottom line and company profits.

If you are new to the market or new to a business, you have just as much to offer as an established company. They may have a larger and more grounded client list and more experience, but particularly with the climate of Internet business, it is vital to offer something new and cutting edge.  You may benefit from their expertise, but they will benefit from your fresh ideas and perspective.

Keep in mind that you may not have the same things to offer as your partners, but you have just as much value to bring to the venture. It is fine to look out for yourself and the interests of your company, and probably a good way to embark on your joint venture marketing partnerships. Being “selfish” doesn’t entail being unfair or rude – simply keeping the interests of your business at the front of your mind, which is exactly what your partner will be doing for his or her own company!

Discover Underutilized Assets In Your Business

Which one are you?

A Business  Owner?
An Employee?
A Consultant?
A Single Parent?
A College Student?
A Grand Parent?

Regardless if you have an existing business, are an employee of another business, are a consultant, or you’re someone who’s considering starting your own business, Joint Venture Deal Making can be one of the most profitable ways available to you to create “Income at will”. You don’t need any special education or lengthily training.  You can start putting deals together with just a few hours a week. Once you understand the fundamental mind set of doing Joint Venture deals, you may just rethink the way you do business or create income for the rest of your life. It’s that powerful, diverse, exciting, and profitable.

If you’re a business owner, you can implement a Joint Venture Marketing strategy to create new profit centers with little to no money or risk. If you don’t have an existing business or you’re an employee of another company you can broker deals with your employer or create an additional profit center outside your full time job.

Let me fill you in on an overlooked and underutilized fact about 95% of all businesses out there (this is were you come in). It’s something so fundamental that it’s often overlooked and not given nearly the amount of attention, care, and time that’s needed to create additional profits.

Ready…

“The majority of all business’s have underutilized assets”

That may not be very exciting at first read, but let’s dig a little deeper. These underutilized assets represent huge opportunities for additional income for you.

Let’s define what an “asset” is.

A quick Google search defines an asset as being:

1.    Anything owned by an individual or a business that has commercial or exchange value.
2.    A possession of value, usually measured in terms of money.
3.    Valuable items, encumbered or not, owned by a person, corporation, or entity.

So it’s basically something of value that a person or business has that is not being optimized.  Now remember I just told you that the vast majority of business owners have “underutilized” assets. This is where it get’s interesting. This is where you can provide a way for these business owners (and yourself) to create income from the sale of their existing products or services by combing other complimentary type companies “assets” with their “assets”.

Let me give you some background and a quick example of what an underutilized business asset is.

“Simon opened his Web Design Company with a passion for creating websites, logos, and custom graphics for his clients. Simon was a skilled graphic designer, but his sales and marketing skills were based solely on theory and what he learned from a few books he had recently read. Simon wanted to do a promotion offering 25% off his services for new clients. Simon and I had a conversation about this promotion and asked me my advice and thoughts on this type of promotion. His objectives were to find new clients quickly without spending a lot of money on marketing. I told him that he had two primary objections to overcome since his business was new, he currently had only one client and his competition in the Web Design space was fierce and while competing strictly on a discount price point may work, I suggested he use a Joint Venture Strategic Alliance to keep his prices at a competitive market rate to obtain new clients.”

So we see that Simon has an underutilized asset, his time and his Graphic Design services. He’s only got one major client, which is a dangerous thing for Simon if that client decides to go elsewhere and stop using Simon’s services.

Remember when I said that a Joint Venture deal is about combining underutilized assets? Well, in this scenario lies your opportunity to make extra, recurring, residual income.

Let’s continue with the story.

I suggested Simon call local printers, illustrators, and web programmers in his area. I had him pick local vendors (so he could actually go meet these other business owners, which builds rapport and trust) that work in complimentary, not competitive businesses. Simon contacted a local print shop, introduced himself and offered to provide a “Web Design” division to the print shops existing base of over 300 clients. Within one week, Simon and the owner of the print shop wrote an email letter to his existing clients announcing the new service. Within two weeks Simon gained an immediate influx of client requests with an acquisition cost of zero!”

So you can see how Simon used his underutilized asset, his time and Graphic Design services to incorporate into the printing companies underutilized asset, their existing clients. This is only one type of Joint Venture scenario that can generate additional income very quickly. Simon only did this type of deal with a single company. What if he did it with 5 other companies that offered similar type services?

If your thinking, “Christian, that sounds all good and interesting, but how does that effect me or my ability to make more money?” Good question. This is why I asked you at the start of this conversation about “Which one are you?” You see, it doesn’t matter if you have an existing business or if you’re an employee, a student, or even if you’re currently unemployed.

Please take what I’m about to tell you very seriously…

“Just about every business owner is silently begging to find new clients”

Read that 5 times.

Business owners are constantly trying to increase their profits from their existing clients, yet they’re so busy running their companies, they don’t spend nearly enough time on this. This is where you can earn extra money, possibly a lot of money if done consistently and executed correctly.

Take a look around you and see if you can find any businesses that you know of that have underutilized assets that you can recommend to other companies. As I said, just about every business out there either needs or has assets that other companies can benefit from. You just introduce the two companies and make a profit for structuring the deal.

I hope this has gotten you intrigued about the possibilities of using Joint Ventures to create additional income for yourself in a very short amount of time.

I’ll be showing you many, many more examples of how to create these types of profitable relationships in the days to come.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report

Solving Your e-Business Needs

The supreme solution to e-business

Yes, I realize the title does sound a bit strange. Looking at the title, you may question what kind of problem exists that need when it comes to e-business. An optional different title would have been “Solving all your e-business needs, among them tracking leads, sending emails, keeping track of clients and payments, and managing your affiliates. You will probably agree that the alternate title is entirely too long.

If you are an internet marketer, or thinking of becoming one, you will have to have an answer for these tasks, which come up frequently. Why not start off on the right foot and take advantage of bundled services to get your work done. Making the title even longer, I could have added, “Expanded options in credit and payment, tracking prospects, advanced email statistics, options for tracking your marketing campaign, customer management tools, recurring billing and commission calculations, payment tools, affiliate tools, customization tools for order forms, affiliate center, and order forms. Very, very long!

We’ll stick with just “The Ultimate e-business Solution,” as it’s short, sweet, and to the point. How about you though? Most e-business companies and their owners are relieved to discover that other companies can handle these tasks for them. Additionally, these services are frequently offered for as little as per week. Why would you try to handle all the multiple tasks yourself in a growing, thriving e-business?

It also doesn’t make good sense to pay a bunch of money to several individual companies or persons to take care of individual tasks when you can simply pay one low fee to a single company to take care of the multiple tasks you need.

What is Outsourcing?

Outsourcing involves the transfer of the management and/or day-to-day execution of a single function or an entire business function to an external service provider. This becomes a necessity to building a growing business.

What can be outsourced?

Businesses typically outsource information technology, customer support and call center functions customer service, market research, product distribution, web development, content writing, ghostwriting and SEO.

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