Get Clients Online by Writing Guest Blog Posts on Partner Websites

One of the benefits of joint venture marketing partnerships is the opportunity to engage with the ecosystem of the partner business. This can come in many forms. One way that can generate a lot of credibility for a business in an industry is making guest blog posts on a partner’s website to demonstrate unique industry experience. While not all partners may be open for this type of partnering promotion, if it’s available it can help drive immediate interest in a product or service as well as build a direct line of communication with a partner’s client base.

There are benefits for both parties in a joint venture when one partner or both author guest blog posts. The most important being the ability to get clients online interested about a product or service while making the customer feel like they understand more about the new business before seeing a real sales pitch. This process of giving credibility to a partner is very effective in leading to sales when marketing campaigns ramp up and go after customers to close the deal.

Benefits to Partners Websites

When a business or an individual writes a guest post on a business partner’s blog they are also providing several benefits directly to their partner simply by writing an article that appears on their website. All websites need fresh and relevant content to succeed in gaining credibility among the search engines such as Google or Microsoft Bing. As a business with a blog having others in the industry also giving their perspective on topics generates more interest in people visiting the website and viewing the blog to want to come back and see new posts. One of the challenges of running a blog for a business is keeping up the frequency of great content in order to encourage visitors to come back frequently to stay up to date with the articles being published. These are good points to highlight with a partner when discussing online marketing strategies for the partnership and methods for introducing the partner to existing customers. Be open to help contribute to promoting through blogs or video blogs that will get posted on a partner’s site.

Techniques for Writing a Guest Blog Post

Writing a guest blog post can be a difficult task at first, however if you follow a couple of basics they can turn out to be extremely beneficial for marketing a product or service and build personal credibility in an industry. Utilize the about the author / bio section for information on the business and any specific direct information about the product and service the company provides. Pick a topic that provides a clear reason for why you are an authority on the subject. A key way to get clients online through writing guest blog posts is to sympathize with the community, identify known industry problems, address them specifically, and discuss solutions without needing to directly give product examples. Another approach is to write more educationally approached articles that establish your credibility as an expert on a topic in your industry.

Follow Up to Close Deals

Most businesses are open to marketing partnerships through email and newsletter campaigns. Having the guest blog post included as a newsletter article is another way to reach the end customer as some businesses may not have a blog, but do have very active email lists. After having some time to interact with a company’s customer base through a blog post or newsletter article using a targeted email can elicit responses from potential customers that liked what they read but were not ready to commit to making a phone call yet.

Utilize opportunities like writing a guest blog post to reach new audiences to get clients online. Writing a blog post conveys expert industry knowledge to potential customers and provides a business a platform to promote products and services. Joint venture marketing partnerships provide an additional layer of capability to increase the benefit of writing a guest blog post. Most partners will follow up with sending out additional marketing collateral to help follow up and close the deals so both businesses get maximum benefit from the partnership.

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.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Leverage Positive Reviews on Local Web Pages to Attract New Business from Joint Ventures

Businesses that service a defined region need to be very conscious of their online reputation and maintain strong profiles on sites like Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, Merchant Circle, and many others in order to attract new business from the local community. These local focused sites are in essence, an online business directory that has social components built in. When a customer leaves a review and then shares the review with their Facebook account, not only have they left a permanent record about their personal experience with a product or company, but their entire network of family and friends also are informed.

A business can benefit greatly from a strong online reputation and just as easily fail miserably because of too many vocal customers that were upset about a product or service and leave negative reviews and poor ratings. Not only can a weak online reputation limit a business’s ability to grow in a community, they can harm the potential for a successful joint venture partnership from ever getting off the ground because no established brand wants to associate their product with a company that is seen in poor standing. Achieving a great reputation online allows you to not only demonstrate to a partner the ability to provide excellent service to customers, but it’s a great asset that can be leveraged to close the deal when a business attracts new customers.

These are highlights of what to do in order to have a successful local company profile page to attract new business.

Setting up a local page

• Complete the profile including the address, this is critical because users may be looking for plumbers in New Jersey and if that’s you, then you need to show up. This also allows for the business listing to be displayed in Google Maps and other location based services.

• Maximize the category and sub categories for your business. In many of the local business directory websites on the web the profile section will include a place for selecting the industry and any related sub categories. Maximize the number of selections as long as they are relevant to their business.

• Upload the company logo for the main image for the profile or a quality picture of the outside of the office / facility. If the business is a consumer facing business with a retail store it’s important to have the front of the store as the first picture and several pictures of the inside as the secondary pictures.

• Send instructions to your website developer to place icons on your home page and “contact us” page that lead directly to the profile on Google Places and Yelp. If the business is a member of the Better Business Bureau, then also link directly to the business profile on the BBB’s website using their seal of approval logo.

Get Positive Reviews

• Reach out to three customers that have been loyal to the business. If this is a new business, then work hard with your initial customers and ask them to follow the same steps. Send the 3 customers the link to one of the online local web pages and ask for a positive rating and review. It’s best to spread these emails out over several days to stagger the reviews so they appear more natural. Then reach out to three more customers and repeat with a different website. In the course of a couple of weeks, the business will have several very unique and positive reviews across several different local websites.

• When sending follow up messages to customers have a script already written that asks for a positive review on a specific site or you can list the sites with all of the links and ask for a review on one of the sites. Most business owners don’t recognize how many customers truly appreciate the hard work and would give them a great review, but will not do so unless they are encouraged to write the review, so start encouraging the best customers to help attract new business by writing a positive review.

Leverage a Positive Reputation

• Show the positive reviews that are being written about the business when in discussions with new potential partners. This helps alleviate fears that they may have about how their customers will be catered to when they refer them over.

• Utilize the links to the review sites like Yelp and Google Places when sending out marketing collateral in attempts to attract new business from existing client bases of new joint venture partners. This demonstrates the commitment to servicing each customer and the business is open and transparent about its interactions with customers.

Many companies try and hide from local web pages because of the potential for negative reviews that is why it is so important to leverage positive reviews and a strong online reputation when attracting new business. It can be easier for a mid-level person inside of a business to sell a new joint venture partnership to executives when the potential partner company is capable of providing the value that they are looking for and maintain a strong reputation in the local community for providing excellent service.

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.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Find More Clients Being Active in Local Business Communities

Small business owners can find more clients by becoming active members in the local business community, whether by joining a local business chamber of commerce or through industry groups, or just attending business social events and local trade shows. By interacting with local businesses a small business owner has the best chance at locating companies that can be excellent joint venture partners that are currently servicing their exact demographic. The following, highlights a few of the most important aspects of developing joint ventures through participation at local business community events.

Find Industry Groups / Business Owner Gatherings

Determining the type of companies and people that are required to develop the relationships needed to create successful joint ventures is the first thing required before identifying where to meet them. There are lots of places to find information about local business groups and trade shows for industry groups. A few Google searches for trade shows and a specific location will result in lists of venues and upcoming events. Attend relevant events that would be interesting for pursuing companies and individuals of interest to your business. One good source for finding local events is Meetup.com where there are plenty of business / entrepreneur focused groups where business owners get together to talk about business topics as well as industry groups that are interested in a specific niche, like software developers that get together to talk about industry topics.

Develop Relationships with Business Decision Makers

When at business functions and events as a small business owner it is best to focus energies on meeting and spending time talking with individuals that are decision makers. At business events and trade shows time can be wasted interacting with a sales rep that is just looking for sales opportunities. This can be good if there is an existing customer base for your business that aligns with their product or service, but if the desire is to locate new existing customers for a business through joint ventures, spending time with executive management is key and it’s best to avoid the typical sales rep just pitching products and services.

Establish Joint Venture Partnerships with Local Businesses

Reaching out to local businesses to become joint venture partners is a proven way to find more clients in a specific region. For most small business owners the focus is on servicing the local community with a product or service and so developing partners with other local businesses can quickly expand brand awareness to the right demographic of customers. Local business owners will be easier to develop relationships with regardless if a business is planning on only servicing a local region or planning an eventual national or global launch. It’s important that each joint venture is successful to build momentum in the market and maintaining strong communication between partners is more easily done when decision makers for each business are close enough to meet in person.

Don’t Sell – Find Champions Who Sell

When meeting business executives and business decision makers it is important to not spend lots of time selling a product or service, instead develop relationships with others that can become a champion for your product or service to their existing customer base which will lead to your business finding more clients. Build a personal relationship first even though attending business related functions, the business part will always come, but learn the kids and spouse’s names and other details through the conversation to be used in later conversations to develop a personal relationship with a potential business partner. By the time a partnership agreement is on the table and discussions about how to implement the marketing strategies for promoting the joint venture the terms will always be more favorable than if approaching joint venture partnerships from a strictly business perspective when dealing with local business owners.

Find more clients locally by becoming engaged with local business activities such as small business owner events, chambers of commerce, and other business related activities such as industry trade shows. These venues provide the capability to meet with local business decision makers and find individuals that can help really drive a successful joint venture marketing partnership for the long term.

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.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Strategies to Get New Clients

The best part about developing joint ventures is the ability to create unique strategies to get new clients from the existing client base of the joint venture partner or through new marketing activities together. Some companies mistakenly, simply create a basic press release and expect the new partner to come up with all of the strategies and marketing materials to market the partnership. If a business wants to maximize each joint venture partner it’s best to be active in the marketing decision making process as well as develop creative offerings such as product bundles, free sample offerings, partner promo specials and other strategies to get new clients. If a business commits to being open to new marketing strategies regardless of past marketing campaigns and focuses on developing a complete new channel, great things can happen. At the heart of the strategies to get new clients should be the overwhelming focus to provide customers a great product or service for an affordable price. When developing consumer related joint ventures having special pricing and product promotions is critical.

Product Bundles

Identifying whole solutions or product bundles that can deliver to a customer an entire solution or package that at the same time saves the customer money over buying each component separately is a strategy to get new clients. When marketing to a new potential customer base with a new joint venture partner many of these customers may already be using a competitor’s product or service so there needs to be a strong incentive to use a different company. Product bundling is an excellent way to handle all of a customer’s requirements and give them this great deal. Include a product or service from the joint venture partner into the product bundle if applicable and jointly market the product bundle. This also increases the buy-in that a partner may have in assisting with promoting the partner product bundle.

Free / Lite Version to Partner Customer Base

Depending on whom a joint venture partner’s customer base includes, developing a targeted free or lite version or product samples that can be provided free to the customers is a well proven strategy to get new clients. Often just getting customers to try a product out for the first time is the hardest challenge a business can encounter. This is seen most especially when launching a new product to market. Working in conjunction with a joint venture partner to distribute product samples, free versions of a product or service to identified target customers, will get the product in the customer’s hands quickly and efficiently. This provides potential customers the opportunity to get to know your product before making a buy decision. Depending on the structure of the joint venture partnership a free product demo sent to existing customers can be included in the agreement between the two businesses. Small businesses developing a new joint venture with a much larger company may have the product samples subsidized by the larger corporation because it is in both company’s interest that the target customers become acquainted with the products and the smaller companies brand. These types of joint ventures can really launch a new product into market rapidly. This is a strong strategy to get new clients that all businesses should evaluate if it would work for them.

Partner Promo Specials

Developing unique partner promotions helps differentiate the deal that a customer gets by having an existing relationship with a business that is now a joint venture partner. This is important for businesses that develop multiple joint venture marketing relationships. Depending on the level of a joint venture partner’s commitment, special promos can be developed so that they can offer their customer base a unique offer that is not being provided elsewhere in the targeted market. This allows a business to structure partnerships accordingly. Those partners that do the most for driving new business and spending resources on marketing the partnership can receive better discounts and promotions for their customers. Promotions can set up as just a single offering with a company or have a new monthly promo, whichever makes sense for the partnership. Using partner promo codes is always a great way to organize business leads in a CRM system as they are coming in through the defined sales channels. Being able to record a promo code can help you track leads and determine which sales rep those sales are coming from, which can be great data for managing the partnership.

There are many great strategies to get new clients through joint venture marketing campaigns with partners.  Be active in identifying the right strategies for marketing the partnership.  A few of the ways a business can reach out to existing customers is to offer them a special promotion, product bundle or even a free product sample to provide the required incentive to try a new product.

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.

How Joint Venture Marketing Attracts More Clients

Joint venture marketing attracts more clients for businesses because the core this type of marketing is to establish channels to customers. These marketing channels are effective because companies have special relationships with their customer base. Developing a high quality relationship with a business that has a loyal following of customers that trust the recommendations they receive from the business is the best way to attract more clients. These businesses have developed a level of trust that can really provide a company looking to penetrate new markets a quick entry point to gaining brand awareness and at the same time potentially receive additional marketing and sales support to close business opportunities that arise from the joint venture.

Reach Established Customer Relationships

The best way to attract more clients is to reach them through personal introductions from joint venture marketing partners. This can come in several different formats. Sometimes a partner will have an active sales force, an on-site maintenance team or company representative that interacts with the businesses customers and can provide information about the partners’ products and services. Depending upon what the products and services covered in a joint venture agreement are, any one that interacts on some level with a customer could be a potential marketing channel. Determining the best level of introduction should be clearly defined in the partnership agreement.

Sell Through Trusted Relationships

There are many consumer focused businesses that have opportunities to sell additional products to their clients due to the trust and respect that the clients has for their opinion. A common example of a trusted relationship product recommendation is a dentist recommending a specific type of electronic toothbrush like a Sonicare. It’s hard to ignore the advice if a person is confident that the dentist is looking out for their health regardless of the referral fee they may be receiving for recommending that product over another. In business to business transactions when making a recommendation for a new product or service a person’s job could potentially be on the line. It is always far easier for an employee to say “no” to trying something new and sticking with the status quo when making a buying decision for business use. If the goal of a joint venture is to attract more clients, then having trusted relationships that can provide the confidence needed to reassure customers that they are in good hands is critical with business to business focused joint ventures.

Expand Brand Awareness

Joint venture marketing attracts more clients due to the increase in brand awareness among the target demographics that are being pursued. If the proper research was done prior to reaching out to potential partners as the deals are being done the business is instantly improving its prospects of attracting the right clients. Each time a new joint venture is put into place there are several activities that help to expand the new partners brand awareness with the other companies existing customer relationships. A mention on the website through a press release or blog post is a good way to begin announcing the relationship to attract more clients. An email newsletter or personal introduction from the individual that has a trusted relationship with the clients should also be a part of any early stage of implementing a new JV marketing campaign.

Increase in Marketing Capabilities

The increase in marketing capabilities joint ventures provide can be critical in helping a business grow. Developing a new sales pipeline through JV partners and structuring the communication properly so the best suited person is talking with the customers and closing the deals will ensure that the clients that are attracted will be closed and become long term customers. Take advantage of any marketing opportunities or recommendations from partners on how to best market to their existing customers to attract more clients. Leverage all offers of marketing support to keep marketing costs under control in order to maximize each joint venture return on investment.

It’s important to attract more clients from a joint venture by marketing the opportunities to the new potential customers through the correct means to build their confidence through building strong brand awareness and building from a trusted relationship. Have a well-planned process for customer engagements and proper methods for educating existing customers about the joint venture activities.

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.

Reasons for Joint Ventures During Uncertain Economic Times

When the economy is in a downturn there are several really good reasons for joint ventures as a way for a struggling company to get the little extra business required to stay afloat and live to do business another day. Joint ventures provide many opportunities for companies to grow into new markets, extract additional revenue from their existing client base, and develop a strong network of other businesses that can be relied upon for supporting their customers to ensure a high level of customer retention. During tough times people do not spend as quickly or freely as during good times and so it’s very important to do everything possible to service existing customers and make it as comfortable as possible for new customers to try a product or service for the first time.

Develop New Customer Acquisition Strategies

One of the best reasons for a joint venture during a time of economic uncertainty is the potential to acquire new customers. Acquiring a customer is expensive and time consuming and the beauty of joint venture marketing partnerships is the potential to market to a partners existing customer base a product or service. Gaining access to customer lists or the capability to have a logo and company description sent out from a V.P. of Sales to existing customers can be a make it or break it opportunity for a small business in a tough economy. If a product or service your company is selling fits well with a partners existing offering you might receive new sales and never have to touch the customer because the partner is handling all of the customer facing activities and delivering your product or service to them directly.

Earn Additional Revenue

Earning additional revenue from an existing client base is an excellent reason for joint venture marketing relationships to be established with companies seeking to market to the demographic of existing customers. During tough economic times companies might be willing to negotiate better referral fees and percentages of revenue for each closed sales lead increasing the value of the partnership. Most small businesses are not servicing their customer’s entire needs and so it’s easy to identify at least 3 or 4 great potential partnerships that could support customers’ needs and put money in the company’s pockets simply for making products and services available to the company’s customers.

Create a Strong Web of Support

It is vital to create strong network of partners during a tough economy. It’s important to remain active pursuing the best and most attractive joint venture opportunities. Companies do fail during bad economies and so it is imperative that if a business has an important joint venture partner that is supporting its clients and putting money in its bank account that there is a backup plan in case a partner goes out of business. While it may not be the number one reason to continue to pursuing joint ventures during tough times, if a company that your business has a relationship with fails, it’s important to be able to quickly replace them with a new partner and promptly provide customers the confidence needed to not jump ship. Failing to not have a backup plan in place for servicing client requirements that are supported by joint venture partners is a big problem, but can be resolved by creating a strong network of associates and even partners that are in place, but not yet fully active.

There are many good reasons for joint venture marketing in a tough economy as well as during good times. Focus on developing strong JV partners to limit potential risks that may occur during a down economy and make sure to continue to track down new opportunities. Every joint venture partner is a new potential channel to acquire fresh customers and at the same time is an opportunity to gain additional revenue from an existing customer base.

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.

How to Market Effectively through Joint Venture Websites

The content on joint venture websites amount to the largest portion of most marketing campaigns. There are a few core basics that every joint venture marketing website should have set in place. Using video is an excellent way to communicate specific messages directly to the consumers. Crafting and placing banner ads that actually target the real demographic of visitors to a website is important if there’s any hope of converting traffic into sales. This is especially true for small niches. Creating blog posts on both joint partner’s websites as well as category specific blogs set up on landing pages are crucial for consistent content that engages the community and provides the search engines the content needed to drive better rankings in natural search results.

Video Content

Using video content is one of the most successful ways to effective marketing on joint venture websites. When the right video has been made, it will not only peak a customer’s interest in a new product or service, but assist in the sales process to encourage either a click through and purchase or result in the customer making a phone call that the sales rep is focused more on closing versus selling. Videos can serve many purposes and are excellent tools for quickly explaining who a company is and the core details about a product or service. Videos are also perfect for social media campaigns and engaging with different communities on the web. There are countless numbers of video sites like YouTube that a video can be posted to in order to increase visibility of a product or service. Using video in social media channels also encourages others to help pass the content along to their friends only furthering the exposure that is sought when marketing a new product or service. These types of social focused videos are most suited for consumer based products and videos that can achieve going viral pose the possibility of produce an incredible return on the investment.

Banner Ads / Affiliate Ads

While most Internet users have become savvy enough to surf the web without clicking on many ads, if the ad is very relevant to the specific interests to the reader there’s a likely hood of gaining their attention and click increases. This is why it’s very important when spending time developing online joint venture marketing relationships that the demographics of the website visitors is really understood. Doing a big campaign with a new partner that is supporting a different market is a waste of every one’s time and resources, but still plan on having some killer banner ads that are short and sweet and sell your product and service, and make sure they are only served on the right pages.

Blog Posts

Blogging is one of the best ways to generate fresh content on a joint venture website. Setting up a website to market a new JV opportunity is easy to do and with “one click installs” like WordPress or easy set up with Google Blogger, every marketing related website should have a blog. If maintaining a quality blog is too much work, it is easy to find individuals that enjoy writing and will be knowledgeable about the subject that they are hired to write about. These marketing support team members can maintain daily or weekly fresh content on a blog at a very reasonable rate. Asking JV partners to write guest posts on a blog is another excellent way to get low cost content that is very relevant to the marketing of the joint venture. Getting a new partner to commit to writing content occasionally for a website blog is a way to ensure continued participation in the efforts that will produce a long term benefit to the partnership since every new article is increasing the websites exposure to the search engines and improving the results in natural searches.

Joint venture websites need to be taken seriously in order to make sure that the right content is being used to market the partnership. Develop engaging content that clearly explains the products and services. JV partners should constantly increase their capability to consistently produce new articles and videos to keep building a stronger presence on the web for long term SEO results.

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.

Joint Venture Risks To Be Prepared For

Regardless, if this is your first joint venture marketing relationship or fiftieth already in place there are several items that are important to be aware of to minimize the risks that may jeopardize your existing business operations. When announcing a new joint venture make sure that potential problems with customers have been identified so they can be resolved asap. Keep a good line of communication with decision makers from the partner company to ensure fast resolution to any problems can be communicated to all key individuals responsible for handling the partnership. Understand the way your partner company operates and develop relationships with the key individuals that need to be on board in order for the relationship to be successful.

Customer Problems

Identifying where there may be a potential customer problem is the number one joint venture risk, if someone does not perform, an existing customer could potentially be lost. If this occurs because of how a partner serviced the customers’ needs and acted during the process than it’s a poor reflection on both companies and harms both businesses. As soon as a business makes a recommendation they are also responsible in the consumers’ minds for their experience with the partner business. If they get turned off by their actions they may quickly take their business elsewhere altogether. The best thing is to make sure and do a blind test with a new partner so you are 100% confident of how the new partner will be receiving and servicing the clients referred over. If only quality partners are brought into the business model and they fit in terms of industry and customer bases then there should not be problems with customer interactions or any confusion among customers as to what is the purpose of the new joint venture.

Communication Failures

Setting up a new joint venture is usually the easiest part of the whole marketing strategy, however failing to be properly communicate while implementing everything required is a significant risk. If a business is not fully capable of honoring the details in the joint venture agreement it is not worth moving forward with the marketing partnership. It is absolutely mandatory that both parties have clear and open communication channels with the individuals that are directly controlling the process from receiving a new business lead, selling, and then servicing the customer’s needs. To eliminate risks it is vital that communication channels are clearly defined and counterparts from both companies communicate regularly.

If there is a communication breakdown between joint venture companies when both are servicing a company and they need to work together in order to meet deadlines on a project it can be catastrophic to the relationship quickly. Other communication failures that often occur are failing to follow each item in the JV agreement from things as simple to not sending an approval email before going to print with marketing collateral to as severe as not properly reporting all sales transactions as determined in the agreement. Failure to communicate according to everyone’s expectations is a big reason many joint ventures eventually stop working or fail to get going after the initial agreement is put in place.

Internal Company Issues

It is vital when assessing potential risks that are present with a new joint venture marketing partner to learn about the company’s culture, decision making process, and who the real catalysts and decision makers are within a company or division. Failing to know who is really making the decisions regarding supporting a joint venture is a major risk. When developing a significant JV marketing relationship it can be vital to wine and dine decision makers as well as people that are potential gate keepers to those decision makers. When everyone in a company is supporting a new joint venture the chance for failure is reduced. It is a significant risk to do a joint venture if only one or two people are on board with the partnership for whatever internal reasons and success will involve more than the one or two that are committed.

Develop strong relationships with the individuals participating in a joint venture to ensure you have great communication and fully understand the purpose of the JV from the other company’s perspective and you will reduce your joint venture risks and be more at ease entering a new business relationship.

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.

How to Track Joint Venture Activities through Online Tools

How to track joint venture marketing activities is the most important element of executing a successful joint venture marketing relationship. Without being able to understand what successes are achieved and where failures may be occurring it will be difficult to improve your joint venture marketing activities and it will also be next to impossible to hold your partners accountable to the agreed upon terms of the relationship. There are several online tools that allow anyone to quickly set up and execute a joint venture relationship as well as manage the relationship over the long haul. It’s important to clearly identify all of the ways that the joint venture marketing will happen and sales will occur to ensure everything is accounted for and easily track able. It is vital that through the tracking solution deployed metric based reports can be crafted to analyze activities to know what to focus on in the future and what can be avoided.

Affiliate Marketing Sites

If the majority of the joint venture sales activities will be delivered through online referrals than it is extremely important that that an affiliate network program has been established for the JV partners to utilize. This can be achieved through several different methods. One model is to simply sign up with one of the large affiliate marketing sites like Commission Junction, this not only provides access to the tools necessary to create a tracking system for referrals and sales, but also will help market JV opportunities to website owners that are seeking additional partners that fit well with their customer demographics.

Choosing to not create a presence in one of the large affiliate marketing databases is more than acceptable as there are several solutions available to develop the same capabilities in house, that provide tools for tracking marketing activities of joint venture partners, whenever they are promoting your brand online whether on a website or in an email. A few of the more popular affiliate marketing tools available are LinkTrust, HitPath, and DirectTrack. Each of these services allows a business to create unique ads that will track the clicks and actions that a user makes when clicking on one of these ads. This is vital for a joint venture and will ensure all actions can be tracked back to who is achieving the goal of successfully selling products and services and how much they have earned from their activities. Failing to track leads and sales successfully will quickly harm joint venture marketing relationships and potentially loose a business a valuable partner.

CRM

While online sales may be an important element to a joint venture it also may not be nearly as important as personal introductions and more traditional marketing efforts that may occur from a joint venture marketing relationship. If a business specializes in larger priced items, it is much less likely that a sale will occur from a website click, therefore having a Customer Relationship Management “CRM” system in place to track the lead from the initial referral all the way to closing the sale will be able to provide the data necessary to track, evaluate, and reward marketing partners. A few of the popular CRM solutions are Salesforce, ZohoCRM, and SugarCRM each has the customization capabilities to fit the requirements of almost any business and sales process. These systems can be set up quickly. Joint venture partners can be invited into the system to enter potential sales prospects and follow the sales cycle, all the way to closing of the lead as well as seeing the final closing amount for the client. This will help track and calculate the monthly or quarterly referral checks that need to be issued to each joint venture partner as well as keep them in the loop about the progress of any deals that may be closing.

Promo Codes

Setting up a promo code and assigning it to an individual person or to a specific company or marketing campaign will help track joint venture activities. If a business wants to be able to measure the success of a specific marketing activity just including a simple promo code will ensure that customers will actively assist in gaining the knowledge required to know if they came in through the marketing brochure, radio ad, or were just flipping through the yellow pages and decided to call. By utilizing promo codes it’s easy to put together raw reports of how many people are responding to a specific message, to refine your marketing pitch, or to identify which sales people in a company that you have a JV relationship are really pushing the products and services and who is not.  Being able to reward those that are selling products is vital to make them feel appreciated and this data point is easy to set up. Make sure you create a field in your CRM system called promo code and instruct everyone processing sales leads to always ask the customer if they have a promo code and include the details in the field. Since it will be a field in the CRM then you can run a report just for that individual code or look at the results of several codes.

Use online tools to track joint venture marketing activities and ensure that energy and resources are dedicated to the right partners and channels. Make sure that when structuring a new joint venture each party clearly understands the expectations of the agreement concerning reporting and tracking all activities and that everyone is fully capable and trained to meet the requirements. Failure to track a joint venture properly can lead to many problems in the future and create more hassles then overall benefits.

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.

The Advantages of a Joint Venture for Small Businesses

There are many advantages of a joint venture for small businesses to take advantage of. Most importantly is establishing solid relationships with companies that can provide value to your existing customers which should already be a top priority for any small business owner. It is very difficult as a small business to have the ability to completely service your entire customer’s needs, but if you put in place the right joint venture partners you will be fully capable to service them and at the same time drive additional revenue to your bottom line. Having strong joint venture marketing alliances can increase the reach your brand has while maintaining a lean and limited marketing budget.

Meet New Potential Clients

Small business owners are often faced with having too many things to do during each day of the week and finding the right balance of spending time on generating new business leads and maintaining an existing customer base can be difficult. One of the greatest advantages of a joint venture marketing relationship can provide to a small business is the ability to quickly reach new potential customers. By focusing on developing relationships with companies that already have existing customers and the channels to quickly expose new products and services to them a business owner can focus on having high quality relationships that assist in driving new business. This allows a business owner to continue to manage the day to day operations of the business and service existing customers while a joint venture marketing partner is helping to drive in new qualified leads that are much easier to justify devoting time too rather than cold calling for customers or pursuing other strategies for finding new leads. Small business owners often waste lots of resources on sales teams and sales consultants that underperform and these people also often require significant management time. A great joint venture marketing relationship can out produce even a good sales team if you structure the relationship correctly and manage the relationship properly.

Expand Existing Product / Services Offering

Another significant advantage of a joint venture is expanding the products and services that are available for your existing clients. Most small businesses are excellent at servicing a very specific niche, thus it is difficult for most to be experts in similar services or carry the depth of product lines to fully satisfy all the needs of their customer base. The right joint venture partners that can support your clients with those additional services and products ensures that you will not loose those customers to potential competitors that may be able to service them with a wider range of products and services as well as ensure that you are maximizing every chance to earn revenue from your customer base. Everyone understands that it’s a significant expense to gain a paying customer and so it is important as a small business to encourage your customers to take advantage of joint venture opportunities you can provide not only to share with them a great opportunity, but to most importantly return the favor to those companies that are also sending you business and earn additional revenue in the process.

Co-Marketing Campaigns

Marketing campaigns can be very costly and if they do not immediately provide a solid return on the investment can be detrimental to the success of a small business especially those at the earliest stages. Take advantage of your joint venture marketing partners when they offer to do co-branded promotions. These types of activities reduce the costs for both companies and when done properly will appear as a genuine match that has been developed to ensure customer satisfaction. Many larger companies will offer co-marketing opportunities to small businesses that are providing a serious advantage to their product / services line up or have such a compelling story that the larger company sees significant value in associating their brand with the other business. This is an excellent way to get free branding and marketing as larger firms often already have set in place several core marketing strategies that they will execute for new joint ventures to increase the likely hood for success. As a small business, while doing a joint venture marketing relationship with a bigger company, it is acceptable to ask for marketing support as many companies have in house graphic design teams and others that can help quickly mock up any marketing collateral required. This also ensures that the larger company is approving the way that there company is being represented. It’s never good to spend significant resources as a small business to develop marketing collateral, only to have it redone because the larger partner does not approve of the materials that were created.

Take advantage of joint venture marketing relationships as a small business to increase visibility in the market, establish additional revenue streams with existing customers, and gain access to resources that will help drive business and ensure joint venture activities succeed.

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.