Joint Ventures - A Beginner's Guide

Internet marketing is a long-time commitment between you and your online customer base. But, what is Internet marketing? At it's most basic level, it's the process of putting a product in front of a consumer, selling the product, and asking the consumer to return. But this is only the first part of a strong internet marketing strategy.Internet marketing is also about making a website work its best for you, the business owner. That is why the successful formulas, secrets, and 'My strategy for wealth' schemes do not work. There are no 'Ten Steps to Success' for Internet marketing. What works for one business, will not work for another.In the internet world, instead of two companies coming together in a merger, they form a joint venture.The Commonwealth Alliance Program anticipates that strategic alliances (Joint Ventures) accounted for 25% of all revenues in 2005, a total of 40 trillion dollars. "This figure has been steadily growing over the past years as more solopreneurs and Work At Home Parents (WAHPs) decide to unite to augment their revenue in the highly competitive global environment."It all comes down to understanding all of the strategies and picking the right one for your business. In simple terms, internet marketing strategy is the 'how' and 'why' of online sales. Joint VentureThe term Joint Venture is a simplistic process in the Internet marketing realm. A Joint Venture means different things to different online businesses. You can use a Joint venture to build your opt-in list, earn income, increase hits, and increase exposure. A joint venture in the internet world operates differently than it would in the brick and mortar world.An example of a joint venture in the brick and mortar world would be a gym coming together with a company that produces body building supplements. The gym needs equipment to operate, and they may sell some products on the side. An example in the internet world would be a content rich, 1,000+ page niche web site that affiliates for a company selling products to that niche. The content rich site is well optimized and ranks well with all of the major search engines, and has its own large, loyal list of unique users. They need a product to sell. A Joint Venture represents the easiest way to start an online business, and increase revenue. In fact, for many new entrepreneurs, it is the only 100% risk-free methods of marketing.How Joint Venturing WorksJoint Venturing profits all parties, without any cash investment whatsoever. The parties rely upon two basic marketing rules. The first is that people buy from someone they trust and know. The second, there is more money in the list and backend sale, than there ever is in the initial sale. A joint venture can be as simple as exchanging banners and text links. Most websites have engaged in a Joint Venture with Google's Adsense program. Or, it could be a complex case where a content rich website with client lists finds products to sell in exchange for a percentage of those sales. Why It WorksOne of the easiest to break into Joint Ventures I have seen is in the blogging sphere. The blogger builds 10 plus blogs and gets hundreds of hits. They ping daily, write free articles to build links, and build subscriber lists. The Internet Marketing companies pay them $5 - $10 per blog, to post a press release or ad from their clients. I know bloggers who write 200 blogs a week, post 50 ads in them, and make $500 - $1000. It is that simple.The beauty of a Joint Venture is that you do not need to sign away any of your business. This is not a merger. It is a symbiotic relationship where two entities will use each other's strengths to ensure their survival in the vast world wide web.