Pad Your Online Business From Recessionary Conditions - Focus On Joint Ventures

2008 got off to a dismal start, with the stock market performing at historical lows. Non-manufacturing production dropped to its lowest levels since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Federal Chairman Bernanke has not been upbeat about the economy in either his words or actions, especially as he announced a historical intersession rate cut earlier this year before he implemented yet another rate cut. Consumers laden with the disaster of variable rate mortgages are tightening their belts and poor Christmas sales are indicative of shrinking expendable income. With the economic walls falling all around America, many business owners are asking, “How can I keep my business growing, or at least stable, during these difficult economic times?”

Growing your company during a recession is not easy, but there are several strategies you can employ to ensure that your cash flow remains stable amidst the economic downturn:

1.) Evaluate your expenditures: Just as it is important to grow your revenues, managing your expenses is equally critical to your financial success. As consumers tighten their belts, you may want to consider tightening your business’ belt too. Thoroughly evaluate all of your business expenditures, and you will find that marketing and advertising often take up most of your working capital. Are all of your marketing avenues working effectively for you? Do you enjoy high ROI equally on all of your options? If not, it is time to cut the fat - stop the bleeding on those marketing strategies that are not producing top results. Those funds are better spent on more productive campaigns - or better kept in your own pocket.

2.) Offer discounts to your clients: As economic times grow harder for consumers, offering discounts and sales to your customers is an excellent way to motivate them to spend. Research shows that consumers are much more inclined to buy when they think they are getting a great “deal,” and if you give that deal to them, you can increase the volume of your sales. You may want to reconsider your business strategy during a recession. Instead of holding high pricing and requiring lower volume, you could change your model to incorporate low pricing but higher volume to maintain or even grow your revenues. In times of recessions, all of the major discount retailers grow - and you can too.

3.) Ask for customer feedback: Economic conditions cause customers to reevaluate their own needs. Sending out a survey coupled with a drawing for a free product or gift certificate is a great way to gauge what your customers need. Based upon this information, you can meet their needs accordingly, while maintaining the prosperity of your business revenues.

4.) Find a Joint Venture or Strategic Alliance: Teaming up with another business that has similar synergies to yours is a great way to increase your client list and marketing campaign without incurring any additional cost. Many businesses decide to scale back on traditional advertising, saving thousands of dollars, while engaging in strategic alliances that can generate significant sales leads and increased revenues.

Although 2008 may not have bode well for the economy, you can still ensure the growth and prosperity of your business in the upcoming year by making smart decisions now, both when it comes to generating customer interest in your product or service, as well as managing your operating costs.

Marketing Counseling 101: Your Strategic Alliance Relationships

As strategic alliances continue to grow in popularity, with small and large companies alike, many people write asking me about the different types of strategic alliances available. Indeed, like all relationships, there are different ways you can structure your strategic alliance. Whether you want to keep it casual or prefer a committed, long-term relationship, there is a wide range of options when it comes to strategic alliances.

Developing the foundation of a strategic alliance

Fundamentally, a strategic alliance is a partnership between two or more partners, who share the same customer base and carry synergistic products and services. For example, if you own a graphic design firm, then you could partner together with a web design firm. You would share a similar base of customers: businesses that are looking to start or re-vamp their image. The services you provide have synergies with each other, while simultaneously being complimentary from the customer’s perspective.

Taking the strategic alliance to the next level, there must be inherent value built into the relationship. The benefits you offer your partner, and vice-versa, must be lucrative enough to allow the strategic alliance to rise to its full potential. Whether you create a commission or cross-promotional relationship, the key is to develop value for each partner.

With some creativity, the potential for strategic alliance relationships are endless. However, the key is to find a close fit, as the more niche your common customer base is, the more fruitful the strategic alliance.

How to format the strategic alliance partnership

There is a wide variety when it comes to formatting your strategic alliance partnership. First, you must determine whether the partnership will be a one-way or a two-way street. Will you provide them with the benefit, or will the benefit go both ways? For example, will you be offering a commission for each sale they recommend? Or, will you also recommend clients to your partner, resulting in a two-way commission structure?

Once you have determined if the strategic alliance will be a one-way or two-way structure, it is time to ascertain what methodology you will utilize in the partnership:

1.) Shotgun announcement: Your partner sends an email or letter out to all of their customers with an exciting offer from your firm, such as a discount code, free shipping, or credit towards purchase.

2.) Tortoise speed: Sending out the announcement or promotion in smaller batches can be a great strategy, especially if the partner has a very large client base. In addition, this can allow you to tailor the promotion to each particular audience, as well as any current trends in the marketplace.

3.) Customer appreciation sale: When your partner’s customers make a purchase, they are offered a “bonus,” customer appreciation product, which comes at a discount.

4.) Giveaway offer: You can jointly offer a free giveaway promotion, choosing a product that has very low-cost for you both. This gives you an ability to increase exposure, branding, and a greater client list.

There are many other creative ways to structure a strategic alliance, but these are the most popular and time-tested methods. Remember, each industry can benefit from a targeted, niche approach, and with planning and the right partnership, your strategic alliance can take your current business to the next level of sales.

Joint Venture Marketing: Higher Profits Through the Psychology of an Endorsement

Psychology is at work all around us in our everyday lives, and it influences why people buy certain products and how people shop for those products. Understanding some basic tenants of psychology will help you get a competitive edge when it comes to marketing your products and services. Entering into a joint venture marketing partnership can help you target customers in a gentle and effective way, without being overbearing or invasive.

A joint venture marketing partnership is an agreement with at least one other company, where you share your industry experience and expertise to raise mutual awareness for your products and services. There are many forms that a joint venture marketing partnership can take, but one of the most widely used, effective, and inexpensive methods that capitalize on customer psychology is sharing website advertising space.

Website Advertising and Psychology

There are several ways to share advertising space with your joint venture partners, from creating a third party website for advertising or simply placing ads on one another’s existing websites. Using your partner’s existing websites to advertise your own company’s products and services is by far the most cost effective method for increasing exposure for your company. It is also a psychologically savvy way to gain the trust of new customers.

Why Your Joint Venture Ad Looks like an Endorsement

When you place an ad on your one of your joint venture partners’ websites, it has the look of being an endorsement, rather than a cold advertisement. This increases the likelihood that the customer will click to visit.

All businesses have a loyal client base.  It is the bread and butter of any business. Your goal is always to increase and gradually grow your foundation of loyal customers.  Advertising on a partners website will appeal mostly to their existing base of loyal customers, which are the most stable and reliable consumers.

You have already selected joint venture partners who are likely to have clients who will be interested in your products because they are in the same realm as your partners, without being in direct competition.

It is human nature to buy things from people we like and to give our business to people we trust. Shared website advertising in a joint venture marketing partnership is capitalizing on this psychological truth. If a customer regularly buys something from your partner’s website, the client obviously believes in the products that your partner sells, and trusts their previous experiences with your partner.

When this customer goes on your partner’s website to make their monthly purchase and they see an advertisement for your products, they immediately associate your company with the positive experiences they enjoyed with your partner’s company. In this way the customer is more likely to trust your business and its products than a company they would find by just searching the web with a search engine.

The Internet is a seemingly endless realm that can be quite overwhelming. There are many products out there offered by different companies that appear to be almost identical so which one do you choose to buy from?

Just as you are more likely to take the recommendation of a friend than a stranger, customers are more likely to buy from a company who is suggested by a company they trust. A joint venture marketing partnership is an effective way to maximize on the principles of consumer psychology to boost your exposure and ultimately your bottom line.

How to Build Your Online Client List

Creating a successful online business is not an easy endeavor, but your probability of success increases proportionately with the size of your online client list. Indeed, the larger the targeted email client list you have, the greater the chance they will turn into repeat customers.

Think about it this way: You have a client list of 100, and your conversion ratio is 10%. Thus, you sell 10 products. In stark contrast, you have a client list of 1000. With a conversion rate of 10%, you would sell 100 products. Or, you could have a low conversion rate of only 5%, but still sell 50% products. Although the mathematical calculations are simple, the value of volume in your client list is dramatic.

Strategies you can utilize to build your email client list:

•    Engage in a strategic alliance: The tried and true method of growing your client list is to find a strategic alliance partner that has synergies with your business. For example, if you sell accounting software, partnering up with a small business consultant could be a fortuitous strategic alliance. You can either choose to exchange your client lists, or provide each other’s clients a discount, which will lead to additional referrals that grow your email list.

•    Select targeted clients: One of the most cost-ineffective mistakes business owners make is purchasing email lists from companies. There is a difference between a real lead for your client list in comparison to a list of emails. There is a high probability that nearly all of the people on the email list you purchase will not be interested in your product or service - it is too generic. The key is to target clients that are niche to your product or service offerings. For example, if you sell wedding invitations, your niche audience is very niche, and buying a general email list is essentially useless.

•    Utilize a squeeze page: Properly implementing a squeeze page can significantly increase your client list, as well as your conversion rates. In a good squeeze page, it details exactly what the subscriber will receive in exchange for the email address, and it is important that a privacy policy is also included. With growing Internet crime and consumer hesitation to give out email addresses, it is important that the squeeze page not only exude professionalism, but also assures that the information will be kept safe.

•    Implement a joint venture: Another savvy strategy for building your email client list is to utilize a joint venture partnership. Similar to strategic alliances, you approach another business that has similar synergies to your client base, offering a commission structure. Your partner would then broadcast out your product or service offerings, and then the interested clients will choose to opt into your email list before they obtain the free product, discount, or other offerings.

The Internet provides business owners with easy and effective ways to build client lists. By capitalizing upon these strategies, such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, and squeeze pages, you can successfully grow your client list to lucrative levels.

Joint Venture Marketing: Sharing Customer Service Concerns With Your JV Partner

With any type of business, maintaining and providing consistent and superior customer service is an ongoing challenge.  For companies who can offer excellent customer service, they enjoy a serious competitive edge.

When running an online business, customer service can be a particularly difficult challenge, as you don’t have the opportunity for direct interaction and personal contact with the customer.

Forming a joint venture marketing partnership can help you improve customer service by identifying less than optimum areas that may exist in your current customer service scheme. In this way you have the potential to expand your customer base, improve your sales, and create a type of checks and balances system for your customer service plan.

Tenants of Customer Service

There are a few basic tenants of customer service that are important for any business to follow:

• Be a good listener - Take time to identify the concerns of your specific customers
• Make customers feel important and appreciated
• Give more than expected - think of ways to give your customers something that they cannot get anywhere else
• Get regular feedback, and encourage constructive criticism and suggestions

If you are not already following these principles, you’ll want to shape your company’s customer service model by immediately integrating these practices. Once these changes have been implemented you can embark on a forming a joint venture marketing partnership. Keep in mind, it will be vital to discuss these principals with your potential partners to be sure you are on the same page regarding your approach to customer service.

Checks and Balances

When you initially form a joint venture marketing partnership, it will force you to review all of your business practices so you can align your philosophy with those of your partners. If your business philosophies do not match, it is best to find out at the beginning of the relationship. You’ll do this by reviewing each other’s existing practices.

Once you have agreed to go forward with a joint venture marketing partnership, the process of having partners in this way will serve as a natural checks and balances system that will keep your business and particularly your customer service on track.

Having joint venture marketing partners will also give you suggestions of how to approach customer service you may not have thought of or may not be currently employing. The beauty of a joint venture marketing partnership is the sharing of experience and expertise, learning things from your partners that you otherwise would not have been exposed to.

For a successful customer service model to work, it is important to constantly stay on your toes and think of new ways to engage your customer without overwhelming them or seeming too pushy. A joint venture marketing partnership can provide information on various customer service strategies, as well as give you the resources to follow through with these tactics.

You may even want to share customer service responsibilities with your partners so your customers don’t feel bombarded by your attempts to make contact with them. This is only one option how joint venture marketing can assist your customer service. There are many more to be discovered as your progress with your partnership.

Booming Growth in Affiliate Marketing: What’s Next?

The secret is out! Affiliate marketing is an excellent source of promoting your business, building a great reputation and client base without having to spend extensive budgets on advertising.

Not only have sole proprietorships grown their businesses exponentially with affiliate marketing, but the big boys of business are jumping on the bandwagon as well. Companies ranging from LifeLock to Virgin Mobile and EuroStar have initiated very successful affiliate marketing campaigns, cementing the tremendous efficiency of this promotional strategy.

Research shows tremendous increase in affiliate marketing

According to the British research firm, E-consultancy, affiliate marketing has grown more than 45% in the UK alone, generating an increase of £3.13 billion ($4.65 billion USD) in the last year. These are only conservative estimates for one country. Imagine how much affiliate marketing is growing in the United States and worldwide.

What can the tremendous popularity of affiliate marketing be attributed to? Further studies show that 95% of all companies that engage in affiliate marketing appreciate how “cost-effective” this strategy is, especially in growing customer bases and increased revenues.

Indeed, there are no significant start-up costs when it comes to starting an affiliate marketing program. You do not need to pay for ad spots, radio slots, pay-per-click, or banner advertisements.
Instead, you simply need to derive a lucrative incentive or commission structure. You experience no risk. As a performance based compensation program, you only pay commission when you make a sale.

2008 trends in affiliate marketing

Although the murmur surrounding Web 2.0 has diminished, social networking is still a powerful platform for affiliate marketing. Indeed, many websites utilize social networking sites, such as YouTube, Digg, and Del.icio.us, to generate powerful back links (which are critical for increasing search engine rankings), as well as a strong source of natural traffic.

There are also new opportunities for social network marketing. One great example is Facebook’s opening for social advertisements on its immensely popular website. Additionally, with new media outlets slated to open in 2008 it will become easier to match your affiliate marketing program with niche topics such as retirement planning, travel, and home décor.

Other developments in widget advertising have truly flourished, and these outlets will provide niche methods of finding your exact customer base. Widgets are much more dynamic and visually interesting than banner ads, and thus, people are more likely to download, use, and keep them on their desktop making your affiliate marketing even more visible.
Changes in technology will also assist affiliate marketing efforts, as companies can now increase the efficiency in tracking sales, traffic, and conversions. This means there is an ease of management for both the company and affiliates’ parts.

To manage a successful affiliate marketing campaign in 2008, you will need more than attractive commission structures. Offering competitive and lucrative commission structures while simultaneously providing needed support will create a successful affiliate marketing relationship for both parties involved. These innovative strategies and support systems will help you maximize the revenues from affiliate marketing.

Increase Your Marketing Exposure with Joint Ventures

Yes, you read the title correctly. To grow your company’s revenues, you should give away your products. The caveat is that the numbers of products you give away are minimal - but the exposure you receive in return is exponential. In fact, work together with several other joint venture partners, and your benefits increase tenfold.

Increase exposure with Joint Ventures

As businesses ranging from sole proprietorships to Fortune 500 companies have realized, joint ventures are a powerful marketing strategy that significantly increases exposure - without proportional increases in your budget cost. With a little effort, your business can earn the benefits of joint ventures, which can produce greater results than any traditional advertising campaign.

The list of joint venture benefits is quite extensive, and the advantages themselves would comprise an entire article. I have written about the tangible and residual benefits associated with joint ventures previously, but here’s a small recap:

• Increase your company’s credibility through your affiliation with a reputable business
• Grow your potential client list with quality leads
• Expand your product offerings, thus boosting your revenues without any inventory or investment on your part
• Obtain greater market exposure, without any increased advertising costs

Managing a giveaway Joint Venture

One of the most effective joint venture campaigns is embarking on a giveaway. Several joint venture partners work together, giving away a wide array of their products and services. When the joint venture partnerships put their promotional efforts together, the giveaway event obtains more exposure and thus, each partner benefits from increased marketing.

The powerful foundation of a joint venture giveaway campaign is that people love “free stuff.” The hundreds of thousands of websites strictly dedicated to “free stuff” is evidence of the appeal of complimentary items. Thus, when you partner together in a joint venture, your business capitalizes upon the appeal of “freebies”, which will ultimately build your client list.

Here is how it works. You pick a digital product, such as a report, software, or subscription for the giveaway. Considering that you already own the rights to the digital products, this giveaway will not cost you any additional funds. Make sure that all of the proper links work, and that there are no typos within your giveaway content. You want to make sure that you are a professional partner within the joint venture. You work together with your joint venture partners and promote the giveaway. Each time consumers want a free item, they must enter in their contact information - giving you additional customers to add to your prospective list.

The key is that the joint venture partners must have customer base synergies, as you want to ensure that the client list will be useful to all parties involved. Remember, choosing your joint venture partners is the core foundation for your giveaway promotion’s success. Each customer who views the giveaway promotion will instantly associate you with your joint venture partners and thus, form an impression about your company. However, with the proper partnerships, your business can flourish from the increased exposure and with a joint venture partnership, giving away your product results in a significant increase in sales.

Joint Venture Marketing: An Overlooked Option to Improved Customer Service

It is widely known that the central tenant to any successful business is great customer service, and running an online business is no different from running a traditional business in this sense. Although you do not have face-to-face contact with your customers as you do in the setting of a traditional store, it is essential to still foster close relationships with your customers and provide them with exceptional customer service.

Turning the Online Disadvantage into a Strength

Because there is so much competition in the world of online businesses, it is almost even more important to deliver superior customer service when running an online business. Collaborating with other businesses to form a joint venture marketing venture is one way to increase your customer service capabilities. Joint venture marketing can psychologically prompt your customer to perceive that you care about their entire wellbeing or convenience.

When you have personal contact with customers, it is much easier to make an impression and create a bond that will potentially lead to a strong business relationship. While this is more difficult with an online business, you can still make that great connection, especially with joint venture marketing. With an online business, you have fewer options and opportunities for giving that feeling of a personal touch, and it is vital that you capitalize on the resources for creating strong customer relationships that you do have.

Joint Venture Marketing: Joint Customer Service!

Forming a joint venture marketing partnership is a way to expand your resources for creating strong client relationships and providing customer service. In a joint venture marketing partnership, you agree, formally or informally, to partner with one or more other companies to share the responsibilities and reap the rewards of greater customer exposure. Once you have increased your client base through joint venture marketing, it creates a larger base of customers to provide good service to, but it also provides you with greater resources to do so.

If for instance, you run a pet accessories business, and you partner with a company that sells pet food products, the goal is that you will each gain some customers from one another based on their mutual interests in their pets. A person who likes to buy toys and accessories for their pet from you is likely to buy pet food products from your partner once they see your endorsement for the pet food products. You have created a link with this customer that you share with your joint venture marketing partner.

This new customer will now receive customer service independently from each of your companies, and since you put this customer in touch with your partner in the pet food products business, this customer now trusts you, and is likely to immediately trust your partner. But along with the independent customer service you and your joint venture partner will each provide, there is a piggyback effect - a connection in the customer’s mind and in practice. The added customer service outcome from a joint venture marketing partnership is also that you and your partner will keep an eye on the customers that you do have in common, which will enable you to provide more targeted personal service to your shared customers.

Joint Venture Marketing: Creating Momentum and Getting Started Quickly with Small Steps

If you are the owner of a small to medium sized online business, chances are you’ve heard of joint venture marketing or a joint venture marketing partnership in passing, but weren’t sure if it was the right choice for your business. You may even be a little intimidated by the fancy-sounding professional name, but a joint venture marketing partnership is really a simple and straightforward business strategy that even the smallest companies can easily employ to boost their exposure and, ultimately, their profits.

Getting started with an online joint venture marketing partnership is much easier than you might think. Often, the most difficult step to take of starting something new is the first one, and some people don’t get past the “thinking about it” phase because the prospect seems so daunting. But there is really nothing to fear with embarking on a joint venture marketing partnership. It is quite a straightforward process and simple to execute.

Brainstorming

The first step of a joint venture marketing partnership, and often the most difficult, and the one that tends to stop people in their tracks, is to come up with a list of companies with whom you would like to partner.

In order to do this, you will want to think of the types of companies that would make good joint venture marketing partners, and then go about making a list of specific companies from your first, more general list.

Be Creative

When composing your lists of types of companies, it is important to be open and creative to ideas that pop into your mind that upon first assessment may not seem appropriate. If for instance, you have a wedding cake business, some of the first companies you think to partner with will probably be wedding planners, caterers, and photographers because these businesses are likely to have clients with similar interests to your potential customers, without being direct competitors. But you may also want to think about talking to some local bakeries or party accessories stores. Neither suggestion may be at the top of your list, but they are still potentially profitable joint venture marketing partners.

It may seem counterintuitive to contact bakeries if you have a wedding cake business and this initially seems like it would be direct competition. But not all bakeries offer a wedding cake service, and these are the ones you will want to target. Small neighborhood bakeries often have a loyal clientele, but may not specialize in making wedding cakes. Chances are that the majority of their customers know someone who at some time or another is getting married and will need a wedding cake. It is also likely that these customers will ask their favorite bakeries for suggestions, which is where your joint venture partnership comes in.

Party accessory stores are another good option for a joint venture marketing partnership, and one that may not come immediately to mind. These types of party stores often have wedding accessories, but it is not their main focus. However, even if a wedding clientele is just a small portion of their business, you gain exposure to this niche. It is a great way to boost exposure for your own business.

The thought of embarking on a joint venture marketing partnership may seem daunting, but it need not be. The first step is to brainstorm, and you can even enlist the help of your friends and family for a fun way to get some work done. Invite people over, order pizza and ask everyone for a few suggestions. You’ll have a productive evening, as well as not feel so alone and overwhelmed when embarking on this new phase for your business.

Joint Venture Marketing: A Pathway to Faster Profits

If you are the owner of a small to medium sized online business, embarking on a joint venture marketing partnership can be a pathway to increased success and profits.  Joint venture marketing is a proven tactic for increasing the exposure of your products and services, which leads directly to increased profits.

In these difficult economic times, you may think such a proposal sounds great, but not for your business. You don’t have a lot of excess cash to pump into a new marketing platform and no matter how potentially profitable it promises to be. But the beauty, and genius, behind a joint venture marketing platform is that it doesn’t need to cost a lot and often, it costs nothing at all!   Thus, you can amplify the exposure for your company, with almost no upfront investment.

Too Good to be True?

Most business owners are wary of anything that sounds too good to be true.  Everybody knows that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” and “you can’t get something for nothing” are standard American mottos. A way to potentially increase your profits with little to no upfront costs may sound too good to be true, but indeed it is not - not with a joint venture marketing partnership!

The difference with a joint venture marketing partnership is that you aren’t exactly getting something for nothing . . . you’re getting something for what you already have - your business. With a joint venture marketing partnership, you are leveraging your existing assets, and combining them with the existing assets of one or more companies to mutually benefit both entities.

Exchanging Experiences and Customers

You have more to offer with the cards you currently hold than you think. Joint venture marketing is about employing the resources you already have, and getting to them to work for you in a new aspect. This new aspect involves a mutual sharing of knowledge, expertise and an important asset you already have: your website.

The easiest and most standard method for embarking on a joint venture marketing partnership is to create an arrangement where a reciprocal relationship of company website use is established. This may sounds overly complicated, but it is really quite simple and completely safe. You are not going to turn over the administration or control of your company’s website to your partner - you merely allow them to use existing space on your website for them to advertise their products and services, in return for space on their website to market and advertise the products and services of your company.

Choosing the Right JV Partner

The biggest key to a truly successful joint venture marketing partnership is to choose a company to engage with, who is not a direct competitor of yours. You also don’t want to try to forge a joint venture marketing partnership with a company that is in a completely different realm from yours - that would be largely unproductive. The goal is to have the customers who go to your partner’s website to be potentially interested in the products and services you have to offer, without taking any business away from your partner or being in direct competition with them. This will greatly increase the exposure of your company, and potentially lead to greatly increased profits.

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