10 Effective Joint Venture Ideas To Get You Started
A joint venture is a strategic alliance where two or more parties, usually businesses, form a partnership to share markets, intellectual property, assets, knowledge, and, of course, profits. Source.
About a year or two ago I read an article that I would like to share with you now. (Sorry, I don’t recall now who it came from.)
This article will teach you 10 great tips and show you the power of doing joint ventures. Many believe hands down that JV’s are the easiest way to start profiting from your business.
Personally speaking I rarely use words like “easiest” as it sounds so hype-ish, but these 11 ideas are definitely worth learning and they’re things that pretty much anyone of you could accomplish!
1. Find someone in your target market that either publishes an ezine or has a website.
Ask them if they would like to join your affiliate program and promote your offers in their ezine, or on their site.
In return, you’ll give them the product at no charge, and if you have an ezine or website, offer to promote something for them.
Remember to make it an irresistible offer for them!
2. Use your own visitors and subscribers. Give them something free that has some sort of small advertisement of yours on or in it.
It doesn’t have to be a flashing sign. Just a subtle ad with your URL or subscribe email placed somewhere visible.
By using this method you could have your ad all over your entire market! It takes a snowflake to start a snowball…
Your visitors and subscribers will be happy to get something for free, and they’ll be even happier that it doesn’t have ads ALL over it.
DON’T get greedy. Give a little and get a lot! Find someone else in your market that does the same thing.
Offer to give their “give aways” out if in return they give your “give aways” out.
3. If you can’t beat ‘em… Join ‘em! Round up several others in your market who you think there would be a mutual benefit to partner with.
Have a “Joint Venture team”. Your team could pool your resources and beat the “big guys” in your market.
Those in your “Joint Venture team” could cross promote each other’s products, services, and/or programs also!
4. Find 5, 10 or however many ezine publishers who are in your target market.
Offer them all discounts to their subscribers on your offer. Give them your product for free also.
Let them know that you are partnering with other ezine publishers for your discounted offer, and that you will give the ezine publisher who produces the most result a bonus.
Just make sure your bonus is GOOD!
Make it something unique and semi-personal. Some think when rewarding someone you do business with that you shouldn’t give them a “business gift”.
Try giving a semi-personal personal gift. You may not really know that person, but there are sites online that will tell you the gifts women like and the gifts men like. Use those sites to find semi-personal gifts.
(*Please note that this does say semi-personal. Business is business, so make sure your gift/bonus is appropriate.)
5. Contests are a WONDERFUL way to market, and you can conduct them for any type of market.
Contact an ezine publisher or website owner in your market. Offer to hold a contest giving away an item or items you are offering.
In return for this, ask that they run your ad, or place your ad on their website. If it’s a really good contest, ask that they run your solo ad, or put your ad in a very prominent spot on their site.
Another way to use contests is by doing a “contest swap“. Let them know you’ll promote their contest if they promote yours.
If they don’t have one to offer, come up with one for them. Explain the benefits behind having a contest.
Offer to have one for them. Let them know you’ll donate the prize (it doesn’t have to be anything really expensive) if they would like, and show them how to set it up.
This is relationship building at its best. The next time you approach that person with a JV they will trust you because you were willing to go out of your way to help them.
6. We all know that article writing is one of the best ways to market. You show people that you know something about the topic you are writing on; you are automatically giving them something (your article), and it’s a viral way of marketing.
Your article could go all OVER the place. Online and offline.
If you know an ezine publisher or website owner who publishes articles on your market topic, ask if they would like to swap articles.
You promote their article, and they will in turn promote your article. The best thing about this idea is you can do it with many people, and you can do it over and over by writing new articles.
7. Another writing idea would be for you to write a column on your market and offer it to an ezine publisher or website owner.
I would suggest that you write unique content for each ezine publisher or website owner if you are wanting them to advertise you or for you.
eZine publishers and website owners will go for this idea because many are on the lookout for original content for their sites and ezines in exchange for free advertising.
8. Swap business cards with others in your market. Your hand out your joint venture partners business cards and they hand out yours.
You can even start with Free business cards. Just don’t stay with them forever, you can get more professional choices if you pay a little bit.
This is just like word of mouth advertising, which is the best kind around.
Business cards are a wonderful way to put your advertisement in someones hands. Putting it in their hands in one of the keys to selling.
9. If publishing an ebook, you could offer part of your ebook for free. Offer one chapter to potential customers, so that they can “test” your ebook.
Find other ebook publishers in your market and ask if they could do the same with their ebooks.
If they agree you could advertise their free chapter, and ask that they advertise your free chapter in return.
This can also be done with membership sites. Offer a 3-day free trial. Find others in your market that offers memberships to their sites.
You advertise their free trial, and ask that they advertise yours.
I’m sure you can think of a way to do this with your product or service.
10. Survey swap. Surveys are always hot! Sometimes you have to offer your visitor or subscriber a little bit of an incentive to do it, but the information you will get is well worth it.
Find others in your market that asks their visitors or subscribers to take surveys. Let them know that you also ask your visitors or subscribers to do take surveys.
Ask if they would put a link to your survey on their site, and in return you could do the same thing.
If you are asking for personal information on your survey be sure not to share that with the other website owner.
If you do, make sure that it is noted in your privacy policy or you could lose visitors or subscribers!
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OK then, these 10 should certainly be a good start, yes? We will discuss Joint Ventures more for sure; as you can see they can be GREAT for business.
How about you…got any other cool joint venture ideas you’ve used? Let us know below! Wanna JV with me? Let me know that too. 
Never stop pushing forward!
Dennis
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Tags: affiliate programs, Article marketing, Business Gifts, cross promotion, free advertising, Free Business Cards, Free Giveaways, Joint Venture Ideas, Joint Venture Partners, Joint Venture Tips, Relationship Marketing, Viral Marketing
Jaq @ Net Age Web Design
Kev
Latief@AnotherBlogger
sherry
November 12th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Wow, good post there - lot of information to consider. I’ve thought about joint ventures, but I always get cold feet about how much work will be done by the other party, how much Id commit etc.
My last joint venture didn’t go very well, and has turned into a solo effort on my behalf, lol! You raise some very good points though
Dan´s last blog post..Make Money From Blogs With No Readers
November 12th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Hey Dan, that’s a good point and assuredly a common issue. Probably the reason why so many JV’s come out of pre-existing relationships…
You get to know another marketer over whatever, chat for a few months maybe and then one says, hey ya wanna work on a…..! LOL
May I ask what this JV was/is?
November 12th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Great ideas, Dennis! I think one thing so much of us forget is that even if we’re working solo from home, we’re not an island and joint ventures are an absolutely great way of getting the word out.
Patty Gale´s last blog post..Glow Project Premier
November 12th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Wow that’s plenty to think of there. I have tried a joint venture at the beginning of the year for a number of months, but it didn’t work because of the quality of information we were getting in return. Doesn’t mean its put me off for good, just I would be more cautious next time and find a partner that’s more pro active.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Sure you can, you’ve been to it before
Yup, it was my blog - originally started it with one of my close friends, but he rarely posted (I mean rarely, there are like 2, possibly 3 posts from him) so I decided to take the blog in a different angle. It was originally about who can make the most money every month - me or him. Even wrote a widget for it, lol!
Oh well, no harm no foul, seems to be going ok for me atm, slow and steady
Dan´s last blog post..Yet Another Amazing Idea
November 12th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
hi Dennis,
All good ideas. I’m a big fan of article marketing. It’s an example of a “win-win” joint venture.
I think Dan raises a good point in his comment, though it is more about partnerships. One shouldn’t get into a partnership unless you agree in writing in advance what each person is responsible for doing. Even then it’s hard, which is what I have learned.
~ Steve (aka the trade show guru)
Steve | Trade Show Guru´s last blog post..Joy of Fatherhood
November 12th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Those are all great ideas. I may look into implementing some of them into my blog in the future.
Paunchiness´s last blog post..Fish Oil - Weight Loss & Depression Benefits
November 12th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Very good point Patty, and I actually meant to include that saying in the article. Thanks for mentioning it!
November 12th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Khaled - finding the right partner seems to be the common theme and definitely a key point.
Good luck in your JV future, and let us know how things work out.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
LOL Dan, I’d like to see that widget.
I think joint blogs are some of the most failed JV’s for many different reasons.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Steve - Dan does have a good point, and I’m sorry it sounds like something went south on ya…it’ll get better next time!
November 12th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Paunchiness - Welcome to the community! definitely share with us when you got something going.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I’m seeing a pattern here that may scare off a lot of potential JV operatives.
Outside of the “guru world” I’d say less the 5-10% of all JV’s are these big time money on the table, contract written deals; seriously.
This article is just a handful of MANY excellent opportunities that are little more then “You pimp mine, I’ll pimp yours”
No worries my friends.
November 13th, 2008 at 5:31 am
I’ve sometimes thought about a more traditional JV with split of revenue and owner ship.
I often like doing tech stuff or design and can’t be bothered with enough marketing to make it commercial. Would make sense to team with someone wanting to do marketing - promotion.
I think the barrier is that it would take a lot of trust and flexibility to make it work so really only viable with someone you know personally. Hence the popularity of all the types of schemes (safe from emotional involvement) here.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Good idea! Never thought of a JV in the blogging world.
Arun´s last blog post..Remove Junk - Optimize your PC
November 13th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Great post Dennis, I have so many ideas floating around in my head to make my blog better for my visitors. Contests, giveaways and more!
Larry´s last blog post..Should You Get a Business Credit Card?
November 13th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Fly - Yes, for a JV of that nature (a great idea btw) it would really tke someone or ones that you already ave a good connection with…people that you already know what they can and have done in the past.
Welcome to the community and I hope to see you around more often!
November 13th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Arun - Blog JV’s like Dan mentioned (if that’s what you’re referring to) are actually done a lot. We just don’t normally hear of them as they usually disintegrate rather rapidly as he pointed out.
November 13th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Larry - Me too! Now to get that extra promotional JV activity going, just find someone interested in doing the same thing(s).
November 13th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Some great tips here, once I gain significant numbers on my site I ll visit this post again
November 13th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
You really got something great. Good tips you have. Your tips are really important to beginner like me. Hope to see some advise of yours next time. Keep it up.
Thank you
Diana Rupert´s last blog post..5 Best Method to Lose Weight
November 14th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Hey ZK, there’s really no need for significant numbers before JV’ing. You can find plenty of others with the same or lower then you that would be more then willing to hook up…the whole point is to help boost those numbers!
What’s “significant” anyway? Know what I mean?
November 14th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Hey Diana, have you JV’d on anything so far?
November 15th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Nicely written, Dennis. Not where I thought it was going when I saw the title, but I like where it lead. Gives me even more things to think about.
By the way, you never sent me that email.
Mitch´s last blog post..Planning For Building A Commerce Website
November 15th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Mitch - Well now ya know I wanna know where it is you thought I was goin’ with it!
November 15th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I actually thought you were going to name specific JV programs and sites; hey, I told you I was kind of literal!
Mitch´s last blog post..My Website Marketing Book Again
November 15th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Indeed you are my friend, however I tend to be also in my titles…usually, as it gives a better return.
I most likely would have said sites instead of ideas.
November 15th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
True, true. Weird how the mind works sometimes.
Mitch´s last blog post..World Diabetes Day - My Story
November 15th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
There’s another post in there somewhere.
November 18th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Great tips. I’ve seen more than a couple of people offer some type of software(of the extremely useful kind) to those who will joint venture with them. Makes sense to me.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Sabrina, welcome to the community!
That’s exactly right, and one of the real beauty parts of JV’s. More often then not you get the product in question free of charge for testing purposes before the JV takes place.
At the very least you should be offered an EXTREME discount, but yea, it should be free.
That works both ways though…have you entered into any fruitful (or even not so fruitful) JV’s?
November 19th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Thanks for the welcome Dennis.
I’ve done some writing in exchange for exposure to a marketer’s list. The list was small, but I got two projects out of it. I later realized that it is repeated exposure that is most successful. A lesson learned.
November 19th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Sabrina - it is repeated exposure but if you got two jobs from a small list, that’s awesome!
Did you get any referrals from those two? Did you ask?
November 19th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I didn’t ask for referrals, I should have! But I did get repeat business from one of them. Plus I stay in touch with both customers so I guess I just need to “rinse and repeat”.
November 19th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Excellent job on the repeat business. I’ll be doing a post on referral marketing so keep an eye out.
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
We use JVs a lot and whilst the profit margin isn’t great you can rely on regular incomes.
Dennis Edell Reply:
March 3rd, 2009 at 11:16 am
@TheVanMan, Quite right, a little goes a long way.
Please refer to the comment policy linked right above the comment box for future comments.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Interesting stuff! I’m just getting started with blogging and trying to gain some insight into writing articles. I like your style!
Dennis Edell Reply:
May 20th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Welcome to the community Lenore!