Joint Ventures and Targeted Traffic

When you want to build a customer base, the obvious solution would be to reach as many potential customers as possible, right?  However, what if your business is scrapbooking supplies and your advertising is reaching middle-aged males who have no interest in the hobby? What if you are selling gardening tools to people who primarily live in high-rises in the middle of the city?

It is clear that not all traffic is created equal. If you marketing approach is not geared to targeted traffic, you may end up spending a lot of marketing dollars for very little return. The best way to get a good value from your advertising dollar is to gear your ads to the people who are most interested in your products or services. One of the most effective ways to achieve this goal is through JV marketing. This article will explain why.

Finding Related Businesses

Let’s go back to the owner of the scrapbooking business. If this business owner decides to form a JV partnership, her best prospects will be those in a field related to, but not exactly like, her own. For example, she might partner with a company that sells cameras and offers photography classes. Since moms are often the scrap bookers of the family, she might look for businesses that cater to products for young children or pregnancy-related supplies. By looking for businesses related to her own, she is more likely to find potential customers that would be interested in the products she is selling.

Time and Money Savings

The business owner in our example has automatically put her efforts into marketing to a targeted audience, without the need for market research or other costly methods to find the people who would be more likely to purchase her scrapbooking supplies. Instead, she simply hunted out the businesses related to her own that would already have a targeted customer base. By adding her business name to this established company, she directly reaches targeted traffic for a fraction of the time and money it would cost for her to fish out potential customers on her own.

Many business owners fail to see the value of joint venture partnerships in locating targeted traffic. Instead, they put their money into companies that provide mailing lists of potential, targeted customers for a fee. While there is nothing wrong with purchasing mailing lists per se, the cost of these lists can be rather exorbitant for the new business owner with a limited marketing budget. Instead, a JV partnership can provide the same benefits, with little or no cost up front.

The hardest part of an effective joint venture partnership is often finding businesses in related industries to your own. The secret is finding a company that is closely related to your business in order to narrow your targeted traffic to potential customers most likely to buy from you. However, if your businesses are too similar, you may find your companies in competition with one another and the JV partnership will not flourish for either one of you. Choose your prospective partners carefully, with targeted traffic in mind, and your JV marketing campaign will provide the best value for the cost.

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 report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Capitalizing on Social Networking for Joint Venture Marketing

Nearly everyone has a Facebook or MySpace page today, and unless you have been living in the Dark Ages of late, you have probably “tweeted” someone through Twitter. Social networking is all the rage, and now businesses are beginning to understand the value of effectively using social networking tools that literally reach millions of potential customers every day.

This article will discuss how to use social networking in your JV marketing strategy to link up with an even broader potential customer base.

Options in Social Networking

One of the biggest draws to social networking in JV marketing is the number of options in social networking today. Some of the choices include:

• FaceBook

• MySpace

• Twitter

• YouTube

One of the most popular options for professionals today is LinkedIn, which is primarily used to market one’s abilities for the job market. However, businesses are also tuning into the advantages of marketing their business through this social networking site as well.

Another option is to find a niche market website that specifically works with businesses or business owners like you. For example, the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur attracts small business owners with the opportunity to read blogs and post comments regarding running a business today. There are also blogs like Networking Effectively, which is designed to help business owners utilize the latest technology in social networking to the benefit of their bottom line.

Tips for Effective Marketing

Perhaps you have thought about posting your business on Facebook or Twitter, but you are unsure how to use the sites effectively to market your company. We have a few tips to help you navigate the world of social networking with professional savvy:

• Think about your audience as you are designing your social networking accounts. Are they young and hip, motivated by trendy purchases?  Are they professional yet cutting edge, looking for the best technology?   Make sure your social networking account is in line with your target audience, as well as your current branding strategy.

• Get the ball rolling with a topical discussion about your product or brand, and listen to what others have to say. You may gain a wealth of information regarding what prospective customers are looking for and how you can effectively reach them through your JV partnership and your advertising campaign.

• Provide real time information about your business, including current promotions and specials going on in your store. Social networks are the perfect way to cross promote your joint venture.  You might be amazed at the level of traffic you receive when shoppers begin to sniff out a deal.  Think about creating JV combo packages exclusively for patrons of the social networks.  When you build relationships online, you build them for your business as well.

Using social networking to build a business is a free marketing strategy that is already proving successful for many business owners today. While a JV partnership is a good beginning to finding a broader customer base, the use of social networking by you and your JV partner may increase business exponentially. Social network websites appear to be the wave of both the present and the future for profitable business owners.

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.

The Anatomy of an Effective Backlink

A backlink is a common tool used in JV marketing, which allows you to link your website with another to boost your Internet traffic. There are a number of benefits to backlinks, but the advantages are directly impacted by just how effective your backlink use becomes.

This article will provide the basics of backlinks to help you use this tool in your JV marketing strategy as successfully as possible.

Benefits of Backlinks

There are many good reasons to use effective backlink strategies in your JV marketing approach, including:

• Building traffic to your website

• Improving your search engine ranking

• Improving your standing on PageRank

• Establishing yourself as an “expert” in your industry

• The risk and cost of backlinking is minimal, especially in JV partnerships

There is no doubt that backlinks are an inexpensive, effective way to bring more traffic to your website. However, the amount of the benefit you enjoy from your backlinks will be directly affected by your ability to use them wisely. We have a few tips for you to consider when posting backlinks on your JV partners’ websites.

Relationship

It’s all about the relationship in backlinking, and the closer you and your JV partner are related, the more value you will get from your backlink. Choose a JV partner that is in a very similar industry, but not so similar that you are competing for customers. For example, a wedding planner might backlink to websites of florists or bakers, or a mechanic might backlink to car dealerships or auto supply shops.

Information

Backlinks are noticed more when there is content to peruse. This is why posting articles to article directories is such an effective way to use the backlinking tool. However, you can also use this concept with JV marketing by providing content along with a link to your website on other business sites.

For example, the wedding planner might write a post about coordinating the wedding flowers for the service and reception at the florist’s blog, along with a backlink to her own business.

Quality, not Quantity

Certainly, quantity is important when it comes to backlinks, but quality is even more likely to get noticed. Posts and articles used to backlink to your website should be well-written and interesting. They should also contain good keywords that make them easy to find on the search engines. The better your content, the more people will take time to read it and maybe click on your website at the end.

Comments

Commenting on other blogs is an excellent way to increase your backlink power, especially if you are working with your JV partner to this purpose. However, the best traffic is received when you are listed as one of the top commentators on a particular blog. You can enjoy increased traffic, as well as better rankings in this top spot.

The biggest advantage to incorporating backlinks into your JV partnerships is that you can enjoy the benefits of backlinking without paying for any of the links you get directly. Instead, you and your JV partners agree to provide backlinks for one another through your company websites, blogs and social networking websites. When the cost of backlinking is minimal to no cost, all the profits you receive through increased traffic and customers is icing on the cake.

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.

How to Use Joint Venture Marketing to Increase Website Traffic

Joint venture marketing is a beneficial way to get your business noticed when you are just starting out in your sector. The ability to link with a more established business is an excellent way to build credibility and a customer base quickly and effectively.

One of the biggest advantages to JV marketing is that you can increase traffic to your website much more efficiently than by simply using search engine optimization techniques. We will show you a few ways to use your JV partnership to your fullest advantage when it comes to building website traffic for your business.

Backlinks

Backlinks are used to link traffic from one website (your endorser) to yours. Backlinks provide two purposes; they raise your search engine ranking and they help customers find you on the Internet.

To ensure you get the most from your backlink, you should not simply purchase it from another website (which is not only a black-hat strategy, but costly as well). Instead, you need to get your link by mutual agreement, such as a JV partnership. The way to build this type of business relationship is to find a website for a related industry, so the traffic at the original website will be more likely to be interested in what you are selling as well.

It is also important to analyze the website you will put your link on, since sites that get little traffic themselves, or link to illegal websites, may not build your traffic and may even lower your standings in the search engines.

Blogs

Blogging is the way to inform and interact in the 21st century. Many business owners develop their own blogs because people are often more likely to read content than pay attention to an advertisement. If your JV partner also has a blog, you can direct customers to each other through your blogs. This is mutually beneficial, since traffic increases to both websites, which means higher revenues on all sides.

Recommendations

If you find a JV partner who is larger and more established, you can rely on that business for recommendations for your goods and services. Your JV partner may put a link on his website, recommending your business for a related or highly specialized type of product or service. Your traffic immediately increases exponentially because your JV partner already sees a significant amount of traffic each day. More traffic means more sales, especially if the customers directed to you are already interested in what you have to offer.

Content is King

Once your customers find your website, the key is to keep them coming back for more. To encourage customers to sign up for your regular email correspondence, provide content on your website that is informative and entertaining. Your articles will draw your customers to your business and make them want to find out what you have to say next. When you have a good customer list for your opt-in marketing program, you build sales by maintaining regular contact that allows you to alert them to new products and special promotions you are offering.

JV marketing is an excellent method for building high-quality traffic to your website. When your customers come to you, your sales will effectively increase.

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.

6 Effective Ways to Use Twitter as a Lead Generation Tool

As you may or may not now, Twiter.com is a hot social networking community right now.  According to compete.com, in November, 2008 Twitter had approximately 3,478,239 people visiting the site.  Twitter grew 640% between November 2007 and November 2008.

So how can you harness all this growth into a relationship building system for lead generation or joint venture alliances? How do you provide value, direction, and an authoritative impression in the minds of your followers?

Here are 6 effective ways that I’ve found to contribute to the Twitter community that can be beneficial to your business or consulting practice.

1.    Target your market to follow the right people

Ask yourself, “Who’s my ideal client?” Once you define your target market, finding other people who share an affinity for your products and services is much easier. Twitter may have over 3.5 million users, but that’s not your audience. More than likely your universe is much smaller than that.  Even if you’re in abroad spectrum market such as “online marketing” or “social networking specialist” you’ve got to narrow down your focus to a definable niche, industry or demographic.   Instead of being a “social networking consultant” to all companies, being more to less is a smart idea. For example, narrow your target audience or define a specific program for Graphic Designers who want to increase their sales by using social media.  Once you’ve got your target market clearly defined, you go can use Twitter based tool sites such as TwitterGroups, http://twittgroups.com/showgroups.php or the Twitter advanced search page, http://search.twitter.com/advanced to find other Twitter pages that contain specific keywords to find specific people.

2.    Offer actionable advice

Once you define your target audience and search them out, you should be focusing your tweets on solutions to issues, concerns, cares, and problems that your target audience may have. Focus your Twitter posts (tweets) on providing useful and actionable solution to problems that your ideal clients are facing. You don’t want to use blatant sales pitches here. Remember, your objectives are to offer advise, direction, and act as an authoritative source of answers to your target market. Offer them advice (not just rehashed information), case studies, software, specialized articles, etc.  Anything that may help them do their jobs better, easier, faster, more efficient or provide them a higher level of achievement, joy, and satisfaction.

3.    Use your 140 character wisely

Just because your have 500, 1,000, or 5,000 followers doesn’t mean they’re all going to read your tweets.  It’s human nature to only be interested in things, ideas, and tweets that are important, interesting, or provide value to what’s going on in your follower’s life at this moment.  So consider what your followers want to hear about. This goes back to number one on our list. Targeting your market. If we’re searching out a specific audience, your tweets are essentially your headline. The reason why someone is going to take the action to click your link in your tweet to find the benefit that you’ve promised in your headline.  Don’t just write, “marketing ideas for Graphic Designers”.  Even though you’re talking to a specific group of people, the phrase “marketing services” is vague, undefined, and abstract. Use a more defined, tangible, and clear benefit in your tweet, such as “Traffic conversion best practices for Graphic Designers”. See the difference, one is a general blanket statement, yet the other is focused to solve specific problem that your target marketing may be facing.

4.    Your offer and call to action

Obviously you can’t provide much of a solution within 140 characters. So providing a link back to your site, ideally your Blog first before directing them from Twitter to another site.  Think about your end objective here. If you’re trying to build your opt-in list, then posting your tweet with a link to another website defeats the purpose. What I like to do is write my tweet as a Blog post on my site first, then copy and paste my Blog post link into the tweet box. This way, I have the opportunity to get a new or returning visitor to my Blog where I can provide useful solutions to their problems or concerns, but I can also present them with the option of joining my opt-in list. You can see an example of this on my Blog if you click here.

5.    Frequency of your tweets

If your serious about using Twitter as a lead generation tool, you’re going to have to tweet a minimum of 3 times a day. I’d suggest once in the morning, once midday, and one at night. Reason being is that your target audience is online at different parts of the day. If your followers have  a large following of themselves, your tweet will only be seen by a small fraction of your followers.

6.    Tracking your results

One way that I’ve found to track your tweet subjects is by naming your Blog post the same as what your use for your tweet post. For example, if I create a tweet called, “8 quick tactics to find joint venture partners”, I’ll create my Blog post to be, www.christianfea.com/8-quick-tactics-to-find-joint-venture-partners. I suggest you use Google Analytics to track your website traffic. It’s very in-depth, easy to use and it’s free. All you have to do is copy and paste your Javascript code into your Blog page header and every page on your site will be tracked. If you don’t know how to do this your Webmaster can set this up for you in less then 10 minutes. By doing this you’ll know exactly how many visitors you’ve gotten to visit your site and your can test different tweet topics to see which ones generate more clicks for you.

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.
Join his JV Wealth e-zine.

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