Joint Ventures and Strategic Alliances:
Internet Strategies:
The wonders of the Internet, unlimited information at your fingertips. Some good, some bad and some just complete bull crap.
Your JV’s and SA’s will likely have had some type of experience with the Internet by now. They will either be sold on how to use it to make more sales or they may be against it.
You need to feel your new partner out on how they feel about the Internet and how it can benefit their business. The internet is still relatively new and needs lots of explanation on how it can benefit the average business owner. Low cost to enter and test products and services. Allowing you to really target your audiences using demographics and behavior.
The internet allows you to put your message right in front your best prospects when the are actually looking for solutions to issues and problems they face.
You don’t need to teach them about all the benefits
This doesn’t mean you have to teach them. Just direct them to this book/website and I will teach them for you. As you have already seen by now this site is full of great ideas on how you can market your products and services using the internet along with traditional marketing methods.
We are constantly adding more information to the website trying to add more value to it. If you don’t want to teach them than let us do it for you. This site links to some of the world’s top marketing and selling experts. Use of information sources to help teach your new partner about the benefits of combing old marketing methods with today’s newest techniques.
If your partner likes direct mail or internet methods, focus on those to start
Don’t waste time trying to fight an uphill battle. If they want to use Direct mail than build a package that works with direct mail. If they prefer the internet, then focus on that. You can always discuss new methods in the future. To begin with, use what they are familiar with and what they trust.
The advantage of the Internet strategies
I have already listed many ways to use the internet to your advantage in marketing and in sales situations. One of the biggest advantages is automation. You can build a system using autoresponders that can save your new partners thousands of dollars in repeated steps. Allowing automation and outsourcing the tasks to increase efficiency.
You can then send a series of email to them that helps them understand your business in more detail. You can offer more free information and offer them the ability to reach out and talk directly to your business.
The cost savings is well worth the effort
Once these systems are built they only need to be updated from time to time. They will continue to run in the back ground until the end of the email sequence or until the client opts out.
There is no extra cost to sending the messages out. You pay for this service by the number of people that are listed on your email list. The more people on your list, the higher your cost each month or year.
The good news is, you build the system once then tweak it along the way. There is no large investment into stamps and printing for each follow-up message. You build it once and it will work for years with very little change.
Emails don’t cost money to send. Yes, they are easy to delete and destroy but depending on how you build them, will depend on how may get deleted.
Build a follow-up program with your new JV or SA that continues to offer great FREE value
If your future emails continue to offer free valuable information and tips your new clients will want to see the next message. They can begin to look forward to your next message.
You need to build a follow-up email sequence that does just this. It offers more free information and tips to help your prospect. The more you can do this the more your trust level will increase and the more your prospect will want to buy from you.
Now is the time to offer free coupons and discounts
Does your new partner offer some type of discount? Can you work up a product or service that can be heavily discounted to help each of you build a larger customer list?
Now is the time to start offering the free coupons and the discounts. Remember to save some of the discounts as the added bonuses. Offer the prospect a reward for acting “NOW” instead of later.
Your regular discount can be offered at first, then a second discount level if they take immediate action on buying your service of product.
You may take a slight loss by doing this but this is a cost of building a successful business. You need to attract these prospects into your business and then do whatever you can to keep them there. Offering a series of discounts can help to cement your relationship.
All this can be done by using the internet and e-mail. You can use direct mail as well, it just takes a little more time and money to build a a direct mail program with your new partner.
Direct your prospect to each others websites, better yet to a new landing page
Give them a link to a website where they can go to find out more information or get more free products or sample. You built your website to be one of your advertising platforms. Now is the time to get folks to go there. When dealing with JVs and SAs you are sending warm prospects to your website or landing page. They trust your partner so they have lowered their guard and are willing to look at your offer.
Build some additional lead magnets that you can use to gather more information on them. Ask for more contact information and in exchange for getting that information give them something else they may be able to use and they can see it has great value in it.
Your website should be a fully functioning sales person. It needs to allow your reader or viewer the ability to research your business from top to bottom. Once they get a new FREE report they go to a new autoresponder email series. They now start getting sold on another product or service you offer. It can also resell them on your main service or product just from a different angle.
Using the internet with your new partners can be a very profitable venture
Sharing marketing expenses with companies that do not compete directly with your products or services is a smart move. You both share a similar audience. selling to each others customer list makes good sense.
Now the task is finding your new partner. Develop a campaign using the techniques learned here and you can find a great way to expands your customer base and grow your list.