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Joint venture marketing has been around for ages in traditional marketing circles, but is a relative newcomer to the Internet marketing niche. A joint venture marketing platform as applied to Internet marketing is essentially the same as a traditional joint marketing venture: it is a business enterprise agreed upon by two or more parties who share the expense of the venture, and, hopefully, the profits.

Essentially, a joint venture marketing partnership shares the costs associated with marketing your business and services, as well as the profits.

An additional benefit to having a joint venture partner when it comes to your marketing platform is often the sharing of business contacts and clients. Joint venture marketing is an extension of a relationship marketing scheme – in which relationships are the central focus of your plan, and the core from which your business emanates.

In traditional relationship marketing, the focus is on your clients and how to develop strong and consistent relationships with them. Customer relationships is still a priority in joint venture marketing, but the relationships you have with your business partners is also a central concern because it is through these relationships and partnerships that your joint venture marketing plan will flourish.

Circle of Friends

One benefit of forging joint venture marketing partnerships is the relationships you will develop with your business partners, and the potential to make contacts through the relationships that your new business partners already have in place. A joint venture marketing plan is an excellent way to expand your network of professional contacts, which may potentially lead to new business and new partnerships at a future time. In this way, developing an inner circle of business associates will increase your exposure in the marketplace, and potentially promote your company and its services in new market niches.

We all have an inner circle in our personal lives – a group of trusted friends. Developing such an inner circle in your joint venture marketing partnerships can give you a definite advantage, which may lead to the competitive edge you need to succeed.

Not all business partnerships develop into close relationships, but it is to your advantage if they do. People, even in a professional capacity, are more likely to go out of their way for people that they like and with whom they have a close relationship – it is just human nature. This law of reciprocity works both ways: you are also more likely to go out of your way for a known and trusted business colleague that for one with whom you are not as familiar.

It may sound a bit calculating to set out to develop an inner circle, but it is ultimately a rewarding partnership for both companies. You may benefit from being part of the inner circle of one of your joint venture marketing partners, but it is reciprocal: your partner will benefit as well.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing &
Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement
profitable Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business
challenges.

http://www.christianfea.com

christian@synertegic.com

Joint venture marketing is a highly effective, yet largely underrated form of marketing – one that can be custom tailored to meet your company’s specific needs.

The idea behind a joint venture marketing partnership is to share expertise and resources with the companies with whom you choose to partner. These partnerships can range from sharing client lists and advertising budgets, to simply endorsing the products and services and website of other businesses.

Search engine placement is widely thought to be the most important aspect of marketing. While optimizing your search engine potential is an important step in the process of successful marketing, well-placed endorsements from other companies can prove to be equally as valuable.

Optimizing Search Engine Placement

It is fairly common knowledge that search engine placement and wording to optimize search engine status is a critical component to running an online business. What is so wonderful about a joint venture marketing partnership that incorporates endorsements is that you can increase the traffic to your site. Your joint venture partner can place links on their website pointing to your company, and these backlinks will add authority to your SEO.

Shared endorsements that develop as a result of a joint venture marketing partnership have the potential to have a direct effect on the placement of your website and business on search engines.

What is an Endorsement?

An endorsement in a joint venture marketing partnership is the same as an endorsement in any other realm. Simply put: it is the act of lending support, backing and approval to your partner’s business, including its products and services.

An endorsement in regards to a joint venture marketing partnership is generally the mutual endorsement of your joint venture company’s products and services. This can be a very valuable resource with very little upfront cost, and can be accomplished in a variety of ways.

Endorse Through Your Company Newsletter

If you have forged a new joint venture marketing partnership, using your company newsletter as a platform to endorse the products of your joint venture marketing partners is a great way to start exploring the benefits and parameters of the relationship with very little, if any, upfront cost or risk.

An endorsement of a joint venture marketing partner’s products and services can be something as small as an advertisement placed in some part of your company’s newsletter, or a mention in the actual text of your newsletter.

If you have a loyal customer base, your customers have a relationship with your built on trust, rapport and respect. They will take seriously any recommendation that you make to them. This has the potential to significantly increase your joint venture marketing partners business, sales, customers, and client list.

The bonus here is that since you have formed a joint venture marketing partnership, your partner or partners will be doing the same for you – they will be endorsing and lending support to your products and services at the same time that you are endorsing, backing and lending your approval to their products. The beauty of this joint venture marketing partnership endorsement agreement is that it doesn’t have to cost either party anything at all.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing &
Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement
profitable Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business
challenges.

http://www.christianfea.com

christian@synertegic.com

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!

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing &
Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement
profitable Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business
challenges.

http://www.christianfea.com

christian@synertegic.com

Joint venture marketing is a highly successful strategy for attracting new prospective clients while learning how to expand your network of professional contacts. One of the secrets of a successful Internet business is to develop and maintain a strong and loyal customer base, while you continue to gain new client contacts and gain new business. This is a tricky balance to maintain – it takes a lot of time and energy to maintain loyal customers and continue to develop stronger relationships, while you put energy and resources into expanding your client base.

Owning a small business, particularly one that isn’t heavily staffed, can take a lot of personal energy as well as time. Many Internet business owners, particularly when just starting out, are running the business by themselves and do not have the time to both develop new business and maintain strong contacts with their existing customers.

Loyal and Repeat Customers

Once a new Internet business gets off the ground, part of its bread and butter is its loyal customer base. When you’ve developed relationships with clients who are happy with your products and services, you can anticipate and rely on a certain amount of repeat business which has the potential to keep a new, or even an established business in the green.

If you have a loyal customer following that you rely upon, your business may be able to happily hum along for months or years to come. But if you are interested in expanding your business, it is essential to expand your client base as well. This is where a joint venture marketing partnership can be the key to ensuring the long-term success of your business.

Expanding your Client Base

One of the most popular ways to form a joint venture marketing partnership is through the sharing of client lists and data. This is usually done between two companies that do not offer exactly the same product or service, but who have similarly related products.

You don’t want to forge your partnership with a company that will be in direct competition for customers – this would defeat the purpose of the partnership and would serve to shift clients from one business to the other, rather than improve and expand a customer base for each company involved.

Instead, form partnerships with companies whose clients have demonstrated an interest in a certain type of product or service that relates to the product or service your company is providing.

For example, if you sell high-end, imported hair care products, you may want to form a joint venture with a company who sells high-end skin care products. It stands to reason that customers who are interested in your imported hair care products will also be interested in your joint venture partner’s high-end skin care products. These are products that are in the same realm, but not in direct competition with one another, which is exactly what to look for when seeking out marketing partners.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing &
Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement
profitable Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business
challenges.

http://www.christianfea.com

christian@synertegic.com

When deciding to embark on a joint venture marketing partnership, the process is similar to developing an initial business idea. Your new partnership can range from being a simple informal agreement to a rigid contract that is bound by a legal document, agreed upon and signed by all participating parties. Whether you decide to go the route of an informal agreement or a legally binding contract, there are a few things to consider at the outset.

1. Conduct Technical and Market Research
2. Develop a Business Plan
3. Determine Investments and Cost Structure
4. Decide on a Long-Term Organizational Format

The above four tenants are steps you take when initially developing a new business. A joint venture marketing partnership is a new business of sorts and needs to be approached as such in order to get the most out of the arrangement. You wouldn’t dream of launching a new business without having a structure in place to address the above topics, and addressing these issues when embarking on a new phase in an existing business will help make the new venture a success, as well as improve the transition to this new phase of your business.

Conduct Technical and Market Research

It is important to know what your competitors are doing. Conducting even just a cursory amount of research is important. You don’t need to spend countless hours and resources on this step, (though the more research you conduct, the better prepared you will be with your own business structure), but having a pulse on industry standards will help point you in the direction for developing a successful joint venture marketing platform.

Develop a Business Plan

Developing a business plan may seem like a fairly obvious step, but it’s one worth mentioning. You doubtless already have a business plan in place for your company, but since this new phase of your business will affect the structure (and hopefully the profits!) of your existing business, it is important to put the idea into a formal plan.

Determine Investments and Cost Structure

This piece of the partnership will most likely be addressed in the business plan, but it is important enough to mention on its own. What is your cost structure for the joint venture marketing partnership? How will the advertising be handled? What types of advertising will be used? How will the advertising be paid for? These are a few basic questions to consider, and they are important to distinguish because the more parties that are involved in a joint venture marketing partnership, the more difficult and cumbersome these details will be to sort out.

Decide on a Long-Term Organizational Format

Once you have developed a business plan and sorted out advertising and cost structure issues, you will need to decide how the joint venture partnership will be managed over the long term. Will one partner assume responsibility for managing the whole partnership, or will you create a steering committee comprised of members from each company to manage the venture? Implementing a management schedule for the long-term health of your partnership at the beginning of the endeavor will ensure things run smoothly and ultimately be a success.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing &
Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement
profitable Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business
challenges.

http://www.christianfea.com

christian@synertegic.com

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 this kind 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.

With this strategy 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 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. 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.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing &
Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement
profitable Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business
challenges.

http://www.christianfea.com

christian@synertegic.com

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.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing &
Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement
profitable Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business
challenges.

http://www.christianfea.com

christian@synertegic.com