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A Joint Venture
or JV in short (in Internet Marketing term) is often defined
as, “A mutually beneficial cooperation between web site owners”. Many a times Joint
Ventures in Internet Marketing are entered into between a person who
has developed a new and innovative product or service and an
established Internet Marketer who has spent a huge amount of time
developing his list and his reputation. This is the kind of agreement
that can be described as a win-win situation. The Joint Venture
gives the developer of the new product or service access to potential
customers that he would not otherwise have access to and the
experienced Internet Marketer gains access to new product or service
that the members of his list can benefit from. Both the
product/service developer and the established Internet Marketer make
a profit that neither of them would have made without the other…
and that is the very essence of the Joint Venture. By joining forces
and pooling resources and talents, a Joint Venture allows all parties
to accomplish more than any one of them could have accomplished
alone. The fact is that
the Joint Venture is one of the jealously guarded secrets of
successful Internet Marketers. Joint Ventures are certainly not a
new concept, however – they have been around since Internet
Marketing began. For any marketer,
new or seasoned, the Joint Venture is the quickest way to making a
profit on low-cost or in most cases, even FREE. Often time’s even
very well established Internet Marketers will enter into a Joint
Venture enterprise… even those who are in direct competition with
one another (well, believe it!). Why, you ask, would competitors ever
agree to a Joint Venture? The answer is
simple: Joint Ventures are just simply good business and even
competitors can both make a profit by using them. Neither marketer is
entering into a Joint Venture for the purpose of helping his
competition. He is entering into it to help himself. As the wise
saying goes, “I eliminate my enemies by making friends”! At first glance,
the Joint Venture agreement looks a bit daunting but actually it is
pretty simple. A Joint Venture just joins the customers, advertising,
products, services, knowledge, skills, etc. of one website owner with
those of another website owner for a specific project. Joint Venture
agreements can be between two or more website owners. Let’s say that an
established Internet Marketer develops or acquires the rights to a
product or service that would be beneficial to his own list of
potential customers. He could sell that product or service only to
his own list and make a nice little profit. However, by entering into
a Joint Venture agreement with other website owners who have lists of
potential customers that would be interested in the same product or
service, he could multiply his sales many times over. The owners of
the other websites get the opportunity to recommend the product to
their own lists and make a profit as well. Everybody wins. The Joint Venture
works for established Internet Marketers, as well as, for new comers
to the Internet Marketing field. Established Internet Marketers are
always on the look out for new and innovative products and services
that would help their customers. By approaching established Internet
Marketers with a Joint Venture proposal, many new comers will have
gotten their start.
Until you have
invested your own time, effort, energy and, yes, money into your
idea, it’s a pretty good bet that nobody else is going to invest
anything in it either. Maybe you have an idea for a product or
service that you are certain will sell like crazy in a certain niche
on the Internet…and maybe you do. However, in order to ever get
that product or service sold you are going to have to invest in
yourself and your idea. You will need to do
the required research to determine if the idea is feasible and if
there is, in fact, a market for the product or service you want to
sell. You may need to purchase software or info-products to help you
get your product or service into being. Creating a product or service
can take a huge investment of time, effort and energy, as well. When you approach
an established Internet Marketer with your idea and a Joint Venture
plan, he will first look to see how much you have invested in its
creation. If you don’t believe in yourself and your product or
service, he won’t either. He will look to see how much of your own
time, effort, energy and money you have invested before he decides
how much of his own he is willing to invest. Rule
of thumb: invest in yourself so others will be willing to
invest in you, too! And another
thing: many a times a novice Internet Marketer approaches an
established Internet Marketer with a Joint Venture proposal only to
be told, “Sorry, but I’m just too busy right now”. The novice
marketer often feels like he just got blown off and that the
well-established marketer didn’t even take the time to hear him
out. That isn’t, however, the most likely case. Successful and
established Internet Marketers are very, VERY busy people. They
probably work more hours in one day than others work in two or even
three days. These successful
men and women don’t have a starting time or a quitting time built
into their days and nights. They probably dream about their projects
when they do sleep. When one of them is approached with a Joint
Venture proposal they are certainly interested… Joint Ventures are
their bread and butter but they only have twenty four hours in a day
just like everybody else and when they have twenty of those hours
spoken for they really can’t take on another project at that time.
It doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t take it on at a later date. As a new Internet
Marketer, it would be wise to approach an established and successful
Internet Marketer with a Joint Venture proposal that they can plainly
see will make them money and not require hours and hours of their
valuable time. You need to have done all of the research regarding
your product or services’ marketability. You need to show that
there is, in fact, a market for your product or service as it relates
to their lists. Your proposal needs to be short and simple and your
sales letter needs to be top drawer. The main thing to
remember is that successful Internet Marketers really are busy people
and “I don’t have time” doesn’t mean, “I will never have
time”. Another school of thought suggests that the same words can
also mean, “that’s not where my business is heading” or “your
Joint Venture proposal isn’t important enough to be at the top of
my priority list”. The
3 Things Your Potential Partner Looks For A Joint Venture
partnership with an established Internet Marketer is the quickest
avenue to success for the novice Internet Marketer or for an
individual who has created a product or service but has never done
any Internet Marketing. Partnering with an established marketer gives
a new marketer instant (literally) credibility and access to
the best market for his product, service or idea. When approaching an
established Internet Marketer with a Joint Venture proposal, an
individual should realize that there are three main things that the
marketer will evaluate when determining whether to accept your Joint
Venture proposal. First: Product
Quality will be considered and looked at very carefully and from
every angle. The successful Internet Marketer is not going to
recommend an inferior product or service to the members of his list.
He has put a great deal of time and effort into establishing himself
as a reliable and dependable provider of information…an inferior
product or service could undo all of his hard work. Check what you
are offering to make sure it is of highest quality possible and that
it delivers what is promised. Second: Market
and demand for the product or service has been well established.
You must have done your research and be able to prove to him that
there is a market as well as a demand for the product or service you
are selling. No matter how great your new buggy whip might be, there
just won’t be a market for it and no demand either. What you are
selling needs to be relevant to today’s market place. Third: How
persuasive your sales letter is written will be the final
determining factor. Even is you have a high quality product or
service for which you have established that there is a market and a
demand, if you sales letter is weak, the established Internet
Marketer will not bother with you. Important
Tip: The thing about finding a Joint Venture partner is that
he or she needs to be the right partner… one who has a list of
potential customers who actually will need and want the product or
service you are selling. If for example, you have developed a new and
innovative house cleaning chemical product, it won’t do you much
good to approach a company who sells swimming pool chemicals. Both
products may be chemicals but that’s where the similarities end and
his customers aren’t going to be in the market for what you are
selling. Rather, you should approach companies who sell house
cleaning chemical products. They are the ones who already have the
customers that would be in the market for yours. The same is true
for all Internet Marketing. A marketer who has a list that he
gives personal finance advice to won’t be interested in an E-Book
about dog care. Submitting such proposals is a waste of his time as
well as your time. Look at the product or service that you have and
determine the market where it would be best received then contact
established Internet Marketers in that niche. If you have a
wonderfully written and informative E-Book written about dog care,
the potential Joint Venture partners that you are most likely to find
willing to join you will be selling closely related products. Their
customers are the ones that are most likely to want to buy your
E-Book. Approaching
& Recruiting Partners – Step-by-Step Step#1:
Get Your Offer and Affiliate Program Ready If you have created
a terrific product or service and have all of the bugs worked out and
if you have set up your website to promote and sell your product or
service, the next step you need to take is to find affiliate
marketers and Joint Venture partners to promote your product or
service for you. Affiliate marketing
and Joint Venture agreements are the two biggies in Internet
Marketing. When you combine the two you get a real whopper of a deal.
The place to go on the Internet to find Joint Venture partners is
http://www.JVManager.com/.
You can find individuals and companies there who are also looking for
Joint Venture partners. You will need to have already set up your
affiliate marketing program and have affiliate marketers signed up to
promote your product or service. Basically the idea
here is to find people or companies (affiliate marketers) who will
promote and sell your product or service for you on a commission
basis and then to find Joint Venture partners who will combine with
those affiliate marketers to promote your product or service to their
lists of potential customers. You will need to
sign up for and use the services of http://www.ClickBank.com/
and http://paydotcom.com/.
Both of these sites can help you greatly while you create your
affiliate marketing program and locate Joint Venture partners. Once you get your
affiliate marketing program up and running, you will be in a position
to seek out Joint Venture partners for your product and your
affiliate marketers. ClickBank
and
Paydotcom are the biggest
marketplaces for digital products and affiliate programs and
JVManager is the place to go to
find Joint Venture partners to help promote your products to their
lists. Combine affiliate marketing and Joint Ventures and you will
have a winning team. Step#2: Planning Your JV Partner
Compensation Plan You want your Joint
Venture partners to be happy campers. The happier they are the harder
they will work at promoting your product and that, after all, is the
object. How you have structured your Joint Venture partner
compensation package has a lot to do with how hard they work at
selling your product or service. Everybody involved
in Joint Ventures and affiliate marketing programs on the Internet
has heard of the 80/20 rule… that is 80% of sales are
generated by 20% of affiliates and/or Joint Venture partners (and in
some cases, 5 to 10%!). Just think: if you could beat that 80/20
and 90/10 rules by even a little, your sales would explode and
with a great Joint Venture compensation plan, you might make that
happen. The first thing you
want to do, of course, is to set the program up so that everything is
as easy as possible for your Joint Venture partners. Make is simple
and quick for them to locate links, ad copy, banners, and other tools
and you need to provide log in details and other important links in
every email. You know what
commissions or profit splits you can live with. Be as generous as
possible but that still isn’t enough. You will need to run contests
with prizes based on a specific number of sales to be reached by the
end of the contest. You may think that
gratis comps, commissions, and contest prizes and even profit splits
may be more than enough, there is one more thing that you can add to
your Joint Venture compensation plan that might just turn the tide
for you and that is a promise to co promote their offer after your
launch period is past. Your Joint Venture
partners are going to be the fuel for your product launch. They need
to be so happy with the compensation package that they are willing to
give it their full attention. Step#3: Approach Your Potential
Partners After you have
identified your prospective Joint Venture partners, the next thing to
do is to contact them. Many times only email contact information is
given on the websites of your potential Joint Venture partners.
Remembering that they most likely get hundreds of emails everyday,
you will need to construct your email message in a way that will get
their attention and hold it. This is not the
place to take a shortcut. Have your prospective Joint Venture
partners’ website open on your browser as you construct your email
to them. Your email can start with something like: “Hello. This
is your name with your company name. I am looking at your website
right now and I am very impressed with what I see. Our businesses
complement one another and I believe that my customers would be very
interested in your product. Your customers would be interested in our
product as well. Would you consider a Joint Venture to create a
special offer for your customers as well as mine?” Go on to say that
you are willing to offer a 60% commission on sales (or
whatever the desirable amount is) of your product to their customers. You need to make it
very clear that your object is to create a win-win situation and that
they will win more than you will win. You need to offer to send them
a free copy of your product for them to evaluate and suggest that you
talk via telephone. Be sure to give your own contact information and
make it a prominent display in the email. It is important
that you understand the business model of your prospective Joint
Venture partner so that you construct your proposal in a way that
will be most appealing to his specific way of doing business. Tip:
you can approach partners by other means such as phone (recommended),
chat programs such as MSN Messenger (yet another powerful
recommendation), and even normal snail mail, which can add the
personal touch most people are losing today. Step#4: Follow Through! There was a famous
advertising slogan…”set it and forget it”. Great idea but it
won’t work with Joint Venture partners. They are never set and you
better not forget about them or they will most certainly forget about
you. You can line up
Joint Venture partners and do the initial mailing campaign. Sales
will pile in and the world will take on a rosy glow but after a few
days or weeks, sales will fall to nothing. There isn’t any point in
starting over with all new Joint Venture partners. That will take too
much time and energy. The better thing to do is to motivate the
partners you already have to continue making sales for you. Here are
a few ideas that you might use to keep your Joint Venture partners
working for you:
Keep your Joint
Venture partners motivated, inspired and, most importantly, well
armed so that they will continue to promote your product or service
in the weeks and months (maybe years) well beyond the launch date. Joint Venture Success Tips
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