What You Can Learn About Joint Ventures from eBay and Craigslist

Joint ventures can provide both partners with tremendous success, but even the best intentions can go awry. One example of an off track joint venture involves online marketing giants eBay and Craigslist.

In 2004, eBay and Craigslist entered into an agreement whereby the two companies would try to expand more into global markets. However, the joint venture soon stagnated to the point where eBay was trying to market the 28.5% share in Craigslist to other companies, and Craigslist was fighting to get it back.

The biggest problem with this joint venture is that the two companies obviously had completely different intentions and goals. Craigslist wanted to retain authority and management of its own operations, but learn from eBay about larger online classified operations. eBay wanted to use their share in Craigslist to better compete against Google in the online classified industry and maximize profit potential in Craigslist operations. Although both companies had a shared intention of expanding into bigger global markets, their alternative intentions soiled the relationship, and they are now in litigation to end the JV.

Looking at the original intention of the JV, it was a good one. However, there are things you can learn to prevent such a tragedy from occurring in your own JV. Here are some things to consider:

Write Out the Intention of the JV as a Mission Statement

Before your JV goes “live”, you and your JV partner need to know exactly what is expected from one another. Are you looking to have access to technology while your JV partner needs help in reducing expenses? Or perhaps you both are looking to enter into bigger national markets by combining forces?

The mission is critical to ensuring that you and your JV partner will not have disputes over the overarching goals.

Explicitly Write Out the Partner Responsibilities

What will you be contributing to the JV? What will your JV partner contribute? Who will manage the accounting books? Who will handle distribution?

All of the facets need to be clearly outlined in the beginning. You don’t want to have a finished product ready, but find your JV partner reluctant to distribute it appropriately. Know who is responsible for every step of the joint venture.

Shelter Your Proprietary Information

eBay used confidential Craigslist information and techniques to form its own “free” online classifieds, called Kijiji. Craigslist did not want another competitor, especially one that was using its own technology and industry secrets.

Although you may agree to share certain proprietary information to develop a new product, be careful what information you do share. Keep your proprietary information private. Remember, you are still in business for yourself.

Define the Exit Strategy

eBay and Craigslist are still in a lengthy and expensive dispute on how to dissolve the joint venture partnership. You can avoid legal litigation by defining exactly how your JV will dissolve if things go wrong, as well as if things go right.

Joint ventures don’t have to end badly. Knowing all expectations and responsibilities will help you and your JV partner get the most benefit and profit from your JV efforts.

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

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

Getting Started In Internet Marketing

When you hear the term “internet marketing“, what do you think of?

For many, that term conjures thoughts of websites or spamming or search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. For others, it’s all about graphical design, writing fancy code or even affiliate programs. All of those answers correct, but the essence of internet marketing is much simpler.

At its core, internet marketing is about these things:

* Understanding the target market to which the product/service/cause you’re marketing will appeal
* Determining exactly how your target market interacts with the internet
* Positioning your content on the internet to attract the attention of your target market
* Collecting information about your target market (also known as “leads”) for follow-up and conversion into sales
* Design of offers or incentives to induce the desired actions from your leads

Since there is insufficient space in this article to give all of these topics adequate attention, let’s focus on just one specific topic with the realm of internet marketing: Email Marketing.

My best payoff has always come by focusing on permission-based email marketing. Permission-based email marketing refers to the practice of collecting information (including email addresses) from website visitors and communicating with them via e-mail with their direct consent. The “permission” aspect of permission-based email marketing is what separates legitimate email marketers from the spammers that everyone despises.

My love of email marketing is strong for one reason: It works very well. Email marketing has been much like a never-ending goldmine: It enables us to produce income on demand simply by sending a good offer to our list. When you have thousands of loyal subscribers – as we do – and you put a strong and compatible offer in front of them, income becomes nearly automatic.

However, the key to successful email marketing is the development of a legitimate trust relationship with your subscribers. If you opt to send your subscribers a request for purchases every single day, they will likely tire of your badgering and cease reading your emails altogether.

Alternatively, if you take the time to provide good content to your readers on a regular and frequent basis, you’ll discover that your readers take all of your emails far more seriously, and as a result your emails will be opened, read and acted upon with greater frequency. Essentially, email marketing is really an exercise in trust.

Even though there are more sides to internet marketing than just email marketing (permission based), email has been the foundation that our business sits on.