My own Canadian joint venture partner, Monique MacKinnon, and I have each been in a variety of other types of jont ventures with others. Vince Golder, who we met through his LinkedIn group, Goldnet Referral Marketing has 27 years of successful strategies to discuss. This week, Vince of has 11 ideas for venture marketing in part two of HOW TO REALLY BOOST YOUR BUSINESS WITH JOINT VENTURE MARKETING:
- Most ideas for JVM strategies are quite simple, but there is always plenty of scope for new innovated ideas i.e.
Branding – Most small businesses have minimum credibility and brand awareness in their market place and region, which can affect the response of their promotions and presentations for new business. Prospects may not know certain members, but they may know one or more of the fellow members. This aspect and the fact that the promoter is part of an associated group of established companies, gives the promoter more credibility and the prospects more confidence, especially important with corporate companies.
Advertising – JV partners can combine their advertising budgets and strategies to get bigger and better coverage from running joint adverts. JV members can chose to save money by sharing costs of regular size advert they may use, or using their full budgets to get additional coverage with bigger adverts or using more forms of media.
Public Relations – Conduct a long-term PR campaign submitting any interesting story, or information article you can provide on any member of the group or the group itself i.e. the launch of the group, additional benefits and value for customers, or any project the group is involved in.
Endorsement Marketing – Endorsement is very powerful promotional strategy for members of a JVM group and can be done directly when networking or by sending personal letters of recommendation of other members directly to a client base. A well-written endorsement letter can easily achieve a high response of around 30% – 50% if certain rules are followed.
Newsletters are an excellent JVM promotional medium, which can be used to promote all partners in a JVM group. One business may have challenges and lack the budget to produce their own high quality and interesting newsletter, but several businesses co-producing such a publication would find it far easier and very cost effective.
Vouchers are a really exceptional promotional incentive to use in a long-term JVM strategy programme. When all JVM members proactively operate a high value voucher incentive scheme, it will offer one of the best and most cost effective ways of getting free promotion and potential new long-term clients. A single business may only be able to afford a small incentive offer; collectively the members of a joint venture will be able to “pool” the value of their incentives and provide a far larger value and incentive offer. All members would also enjoy free marketing on the back of other member’s promotions.
Loyalty Marketing can offer JV members an excellent strategy for additional sales and customer retention when they combine their incentives and special offers in their individual customer loyalty projects.
Competitions – Promote like a voucher scheme.
Internet – all partner’s websites can be reciprocally linked to each other, providing opportunities for a lot of additional free traffic, greater profile, affiliated income, higher ratings with search engines etc.
Opportunities – Members of a well managed joint venture consisting of high quality members will have many new and greater opportunities available to them through communication and working closely with fellow members, which can include new contacts, markets, projects, investments and small joint ventures with various members can be formed within the main joint venture itself.
Competitive Companies in a joint venture – Competitive companies, professionals and organisations can also successfully work together in a joint venture. Example joint ventures I have conducted with competitive companies have included; 11 DIY shops and 5 restaurants. These projects were successful and competitiveness was minimised due to distance in-between member’s locations and in the case of the 5 restaurants, each had a different food speciality and most consumers prefer to vary their eating requirements in the long term.
In cases of small JVM projects involving just 2 – 3 companies, with zero or very little marketing investment, management of the project should be easily conducted between all partners.
If all members in a JVM group worked in a positive, proactive and determined matter, promoting each other extensively and the group as a whole, then the driving force and results will far exceed the effort placed by all members. This “synergy” is a major contribution to the success behind a professional run joint venture marketing programme.
If you are looking for a sound approach to expand your company, increase sales and profile at minimum cost and with best results, then seriously consider joint venture marketing as part of your future marketing strategy.
Thank you Vince!
What other ideas do you have to partner together for this synergistic approach to marketing?
One to add because of experience with it is – cross-promotion. It falls in the broader category of Endorsement Marketing. If you are invited to cross-promoting someone’s book then consider the due diligence discussed in part one of this two part article and then – take action. Either participate with a relevant and valuable give-away to add to the bonuses people get. Or say, no thank you and wait for the next one to come into your email box.