Joint Venture Marketing and the importance to your business
What is Joint Venture Marketing?
A marketing technique where 2 companies market to each other’s clients, in essence share each other’s client list.
If you planned your partnership correctly, you and your partner are targeting a similar market base with different products and services. If customers are happy with their purchases from your JV partner, they will be more likely to give your company a try as well.
Common Pitfalls:
Yes, when it comes to joint venture marketing, things can go wrong if you aren’t careful. Knowing the potential pitfalls you may face will empower you to create, implement and manage more successful joint ventures.
Pitfall #1 – Your Joint Venture Goal Doesn’t Match the Partners you’ve selected: What are your reasons to create a joint venture or participate in a joint venture? Visibility, Credibility, referrals? Perhaps you are seeking endorsements or testimonials? Whatever the reason, it needs to be in sync with your joint venture partners.
Pitfall #2 – Poor Communications i.e. differing expectations: Being clear, ensuring there is mutual understanding of the project, confirming commitment and more is critical to the success of your venture. The communication element is HUGE. Try creating a simple and easy to follow checklist that outlines all of the details and steps involved and give it to your partners.
Pitfall #3 - Implementation Snafu’s: Implementation is where JV’s can really fall apart. People get busy, they lose emails, they misplace affiliate links… they get busy. What can you do in advance and during the implementation phase of your joint ventures to motivate and support your JV partners? For example, preparing pre-written emails that they can copy/paste or working directly with their VA. Anything that you can do to make participation simple and easy is worth doing.
Joint Venture Marketing WorkSheet
This worksheet will help you get started with joint venture marketing. Feel free to use it at your next business referral network or leads group.
1. What industries does your type of business have the most synergy with. (Ex. Share the same types of clients, can send you the best referrals)
2. What are your expectations and goals for a joint venture partnership.
- How many partnerships can you maintain effectively.
- How many hours do you plan on dedicating each week/month to the partnerships.
- How many referrals do you wish to receive.
3. Why did your previous partnerships not work? What could you/they have done differently?
4. Test the waters – Write down 3 of your current customers – including phone number
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Now spend 5 minutes introducing yourself to someone that you do not know. Set up a one on one meeting to learn more about their business. (Schedule a date and time) After you decide their services are a great fit for your clients, – give each of your 3 customers a call introducing your potential partner and set an appointment for them. Your partner will do the same for you as well.
