Joint Venturing on the Internet

Provided By Dr Michael Teng

Overview
What is joint venturing and how does it help your business? Two very simple questions to which there are hardly simple answers. A joint venture, in the real world or offline, is considered to be any venture undertaken by two or more organizations as a partnership or comglomerate. The basic idea is that two or more organizations take action together, sharing risks and, if all goes well, sharing in the profit acquired from the venture.

Most joint ventures, off- and online are undertaken by companies that have, between them, a whole range of expertise. Sometimes called a host-beneficiary relationship, or strategic alliance, a joint venture is a business process and a subtle form of marketing, based on a form of loose partnership with another company or with a number of companies.

This form marketing utilizes existing customer relationsihps and goodwill that other companies have already established within a market base. The basic concept is that two or more businesses give each other access to their respective customer pools, which allows both of the joint venture partner to leverage each other's assets and resources for mutual benefit.

In most online joint ventures, of which banner advertising is a particilar popular variety, you can promote the products and services of your joint venture partner or partners to your customers. In exchange, your joint venture partner promotes your products and services to his customers. To show your gratitude, you give each other a portion of the profits from the resulting sales.

Joint Venturing is a great way to tackle a specific group of people with whom another company is already dealing. Perhaps the best thing about this business process and marketing model is that you have considerable freedom to choose who you deal with, and you can deal with your competitors just as easily as with non-competitors.

Benefits of Joint Venture
Joint venture is one of the most effective ways of enchancing your relationship with subscribers and customers. It'll reflect positively on you if you're able to find a quality product and service at an excellent value to offer them and you will do a lot for your business by earning the respect and cooperation of other established companies. You get a stamp of approval when you achieve a successful joint venture.

Database size
When it's done right, joint venturing helps you increase the size of your opt-in and ultimately the size of your customer base very quickly. It's not uncommon to add hundreds of new subscribers and customers think you're credible as well. This is called gaining credibility and goodwill through association.

Credibility & Goodwill
You can gain instant credibility by leveraging on the good name of your joint venture partner. If your partner is reputable, and commands the trust of his subscribers and customers, this goodwill will be passed on to you. The fact that your joint venture partner is endorsing your products and services makes his subscribers and customers think you're credible as well. This is called gaining credibility and good will through association.

Response
You're guaranteed of increased response because your sales message is certain to be read by your joint venture partner's subsribers and customers. This is third party endorsement at play here. Your joint venture partner has already established a relationship with his subscribers and customers and they're likely to trust his endorsement as opposed to you trying to sell your products/services to them yourself.

Costs & Risks
Joint venture is a great way to acquire new subscribers and customers with pratically no costs. It allows you to leverage your joint venture partner's traffic, existing subscribers and customers. You don't have to incur expenses in acquiring new traffic and you can be pretty certain that the traffic you get from yoru joint venture partner is targeted and therefor likely to be profitable.

Find out who sells to your target market, what products and services they're selling, and who your target market trusts and has good relationship with. You'll then want to contact them to establish a joint venture deal. Offer them complementary products and services. This is a win-win proposition because it adds another profit stream. If yours is a reputable company that offers high quality products and services, it should be really easy for you to find other companies to partner with.

Do it right, joint ventures can literally explode your online sales and profits.