joint venture marketing
Every great business proposition begins with a plan, and so it is with your joint venture. The steps you take before you launch your JV will have a tremendous impact on the overall success of your partnership. Before you even approach a potential JV partner, know the steps involved in planning this type of partnership to maximize your potential for success.
1. Choose Your Partner
Choose your partner wisely. The right partner will help you expand your market base through a common target market, complementary skills and talents and a variety of marketing options.
The common target market comes from working in a related but separate industry that ensures you both cater to similar customer types, but with a noncompetitive, completely different product or service to offer.
You can choose a partner bigger or smaller than your own business, but make sure each company brings its own assets to the table to ensure that everyone in the joint venture benefits equally if not exactly the same.
2. Create an Agreement
Like any business arrangement, joint ventures can quickly go south if the partners involved recognize different objectives or goals after the fact. To reduce the likelihood of unrealized expectations and misunderstandings, as well as to ensure each partner’s interests are equally protected, put your agreement in writing.
Include the terms of the partnership; the responsibilities and potential benefits for each partner and the way intellectual property will be shared.
Once all of your terms and conditions are clearly spelled out on paper, all parties involved should sign on the bottom line to make the agreement legal and binding.
3. Know Your Marketing Options
Your joint venture will only be as good as the marketing you put into it, so explore your advertising options before making it official. In today’s world of Internet commerce, there are plenty of options for making your JV widely known. Article libraries, e-zines, backlinks and autoresponders are just a few of the online marketing strategies in use today.
Pool your talents and your resources with your JV partner to make the most of your Internet advertising opportunities. You can also explore traditional advertising options like mass mailings, flyers and promotional events.
4. Maintain Your Relationship
Once the joint venture is in full swing, it will need to be fed and nurtured if it is to thrive. This begins with all partners following through on their time commitments to keep things progressing, whether it’s working on the Internet marketing aspect or carefully keeping the books. Regular meetings between JV partners are also a must to ensure the terms of the agreement remain valid and address any potential changes that need to be made.
Joint ventures, like any savvy business move, require a good plan of action to ensure their success. By understanding the steps to creating a successful JV, you and your partners will be more likely to meet your expectations, and even exceed them, with your new business relationship.
christian fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A joint venture marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.
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